Slovak studies (e-books)

E-book

Soňa Šnircová

This textbook has been designed as supporting material for the postgraduate course on modern trends in European literature. It focuses on the presentation of five modern literary modes of writing: the realistic mode which was brought to its prominence by the nineteenth-century Realist movement; the stream-of-consciousness and ‘absurdist’ modes which were developed in the context of modernism; and the magical realist and metafictional modes which are associated mainly with postmodernist literary trends. Each mode is represented by a well-known text which demonstrates the formal aspects of each mode and deals with the thematic concerns typical of the literary movement that influenced its production.

The textbook adopts an interdisciplinary approach, placing the chosen literary texts into the historical, philosophical and cultural contexts that shaped their characters, and thereby providing the background knowledge necessary for a deeper understanding of their formal and thematic aspects.

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E-book

Ivica Hajdučeková

The development of this bilingual coursebook evolved as part of project KEGA Nr. 020UPJŠ-4/2013 headed by prof. PhDr. Ján Gbúr, CSc., and emerged from earlier research which had successfully analysed realist and modernist Slovak literature from a gender perspective. Based on initial interpretations which drew from philosophical, sociological and historiographical approaches, we were able to anticipate the issues which could be raised in other texts and thus establish a hypothesis for the subsequent literaryscientific research. Our research has also been influenced by the continually evolving nature of gender studies, and we have therefore decided to adopt a somewhat unusual approach in this coursebook and briefly examine some contemporary texts thereby creating an intentional shift in our timeline. The modern works of Z.Kepplová and U. Kovalyk have raised a number of interesting issues, and a study of the interwar work of M. Urban reveals further interpretations on the basis of gender. After this brief overview, we return to the main focus of the study: gender approaches to Slovak literature of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The study focuses on the complexity of male-female relationships in the work of both male and female authors of realist and modernist literature at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. Works by the founding generation of realism and late realism were analysed, with particular attention being paid to the fiction of M. Kukučín, J. Čajak, J. G. Tajovský, J. Jesenský, E. M. Šoltésová, T. Vansová, Ľ. Podjavorinská and B. S. Timrava. The works of H. Gregorová and Ľ. Groeblová were also studied as prime examples of Slovak literary modernism. 

We hope that this bilingual coursebook will allow realist and modernist Slovak fiction, and the Slovak national literary tradition in general, to receive wider critical renown beyond the borders of Slovakia and also to demonstrate its place in contemporary literary theory.

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E-book

Ivica Hajdučeková

The collection of studies included in the monographic publication Spirituality in the (Re)interpretation of Works of Slovak Literature was created and matured gradually, over the course of more than ten years (2003–2015).

Some of the studies were part of the defended dissertation Compositional and Semantic Specifics of Slovak Interwar Prose (Prešov 2005), others originated within scientific research (grant) projects, but all were refined against the background of specifying selected methodological approaches. The studies were gradually published in academic journals and scientific anthologies both in Slovakia and abroad (precise details are provided in the footnotes as well as in the editorial note).

In the monograph, they are arranged according to the period of their creation, not publication, in order to preserve the genesis of the author’s scientific research profile. Their arrangement also secondarily respects the analytical-interpretative intersections into the poetics of specific texts. This is why the works on Slovak interwar literature are presented first, followed by those focused on the works of Slovak realists.

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E-book

Lukáš Šutor (ed.)

Contributions in the field of psychology address current issues such as normative beliefs and attitudes regarding alcohol consumption, the characteristics of loneliness, questions of pupil personality and the perception of teachers’ interaction styles. They also consider hyperexcitability (excessive psychological excitability), research theorems on injustice, and fundamental concepts and their theoretical connections in the field of self-regulation research within the context of executive functions.

In philosophy, the authors focus on selected aspects of works belonging to major currents of world philosophy (Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Plotinus, Descartes, Patočka).

In literary studies (Slovak studies), the topics include modeling the theme of death in prose texts, the depiction of technological progress in space science fiction films, and the translation work of K. Strmeň, Návštevy (Anthology of World Lyric Poetry).

In the field of social work, the authors present contributions on current trends in preventing burnout syndrome in helping professions, the use of logotherapy in foster care, certain factors enabling the emergence, development, and spread of socially pathological phenomena (“cyberbullying”), religiosity and the value of human life, and an empirical analysis of the competencies of social workers in institutional care for people with intellectual disabilities.

The political science contribution analyzes selected institutions and documents within the European system of human rights protection, while the British and American studies paper examines the relationship between metaphor and metonymy in the interpretation of the meaning of new English compounds.

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