In 2015, the Czech Academy of Sciences launched the so-called Strategy AV21. Through coordinated research programmes, it focuses on problems and challenges of contemporary society, using interdisciplinary and inter-institutional synergy, with regard to trends in global science, social relevance of research, and the National Priorities of Oriented Research. The Centre for Classical Studies has been involved mainly into three of its programmes, with several events and projects carried out each year.

(1) Research Programme: Anatomy of European Society, History, Tradition, Culture, Identity

2024

• Interdisciplinary Approaches to Exploring the Fluid Traditions of Early Christian Apocryphal Literature (Coordinator: Mgr. David Cielontko, Ph.D.).
  The proposed activity seeks a critical interdisciplinary exploration of the phenomenon of the fluidity of the apocryphal literary traditions of early Christianity. Unlike canonical texts, the extant manuscripts of apocryphal texts (in many ancient languages) are characterized by their instability and fluidity. Traditional approaches have tended to focus on the textual-critical effort to retrieve the initial ("original") version of a given apocryphon, while neglecting the new meanings that these different versions attest. Our goal is to better understand the phenomenon of fluidity, to distinguish between different forms of fluidity (e.g., scribal errors, editorial alterations, ideological reinterpretations, epitomization, intertextuality, intermediality, and others), and to offer alternative methodological approaches to studying this phenomenon.
  Project Output: ASEP; International workshop: “Exploring Textual Fluidity in Parabiblical Literature”

• Classics and Cold War Theatre. Classics and Ancient Theatre during the Cold War (Coordinator: Mgr. Jakub Čechvala, Ph.D.)
  An international project carried out in collaboration with the Department of Theatre Studies, Faculty of Arts, Charles University, the Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama, Oxford and the School of Classics, University of St Andrews.
  The aim of the project is to systematically analyse the various forms of ideologisation in the historical context of the Cold War, on both sides of the so-called Iron Curtain. The primary focus is on the impact of the political-military conflict on culture, science, education and the arts. This research project adopts an event-based approach, i.e. one that takes into account not only isolated phenomena and artistic artefacts, but a set of dynamically interacting factors and agents that form an interdependent web of relationships that interact in their ontological co-presence. The project is strengthened by networking at the intersection of classics, theatre history and practice. It aims to explore how narratives, themes and ideas expressed by scholars and on stage were appropriated, manipulated and used as tools within the broader ideological struggle of the Cold War, while challenging stereotypical views of a binary divided world.
  Project Output: 1) Lecture evening at the Theatrical Society, Prague, 14 March 2024 “Unveiling the Iron Curtain: Cold War Classics and Performative Events 1946–1990”; 2) Webinar: 2nd Laboratory of Cold War Theatre, 31 October – 1 November 2024; 3) Project website creation (in progress), Centre for Administration and Operations of the Academy of Sciences.

• 32nd Summer School of Classical Studies: Proving, Refuting, Awakening the Emotions (Aristotle, Poetics, 1456a). Reflection on the Emotions in Ancient Culture and its Reception (Coordinator: Mgr. Alena Sarkissian, Ph.D.).
  The Summer School focused on the ways in which ancient literature, in its various genres, reflected the emotional side of human perception and the expressive means it used to capture and evoke emotions. Another important aspect of the Summer School was to trace the reception of ancient culture in relation to emotions in subsequent centuries and artistic disciplines. Since antiquity, art has been one of the fundamental platforms for influencing human emotions. In different artistic media, attention has been focused on attempts to move the spectator with different means, which were analysed in the course of the Summer School.
  Project Output: ASEP
  
  
• Catholic Intellectual as a Member of the European Community II: Jiří Bartholdus Pontanus as a Book Collector and Member of the Network of European Scholars and Publishers (Coordinator: Mgr. Marta Vaculínová, Ph.D.).
  Continuation of the 2023 project devoted to Pontanus in an interdisciplinary perspective (Connecting Music and Poetry in the Works of Jiří Bartholdus Pontanus), focused on Pontanus’ intellectual background in the form of his library and on the strategy of publishing his works by domestic and foreign printers. Pontanus’ book collection was one of the most significant in the Catholic milieu of the Rudolphine period, but today it is scattered in a number of Czech and foreign institutions. The project included a basic heuristic of the surviving exemplars and initiated a physical survey and photographic documentation. The next line of research will be the archives of the Imperial Book Commissioner in Vienna from 1597–1619, when Pontan’s friend Valentin Leucht held this position. The task will be to establish Leucht's links with the important European printers he facilitated for Pontanus and the activities of his office towards the Prague printers.
  Project Output: Public lecture “Rudolfinum Prague and Jiří Bartholdus Pontanus of Breitenberg” during the Night of the Scientists on 27 September 2024.

2023

• Tradition of Jesus’ Childhood according to the pseudo-Gospel of Thomas of the Infancy (Coordinator: Mgr. David Cielontko, Ph.D.)
  The main output of the supported activity was the international conference “The Infancy Gospel of Thomas: Its Contents, Contexts, and Receptions”, which took place on 21–22 June in Prague. Partners from the Czech Republic and Germany also participated in the organization of the conference. A total of 11 scholars from 9 countries (Norway, Hungary, Belgium, Netherlands, Serbia, USA, Ukraine, Germany, Czech Republic) presented papers. Several guests from among teachers and students of Prague universities and the general public also attended the conference.
  Project Output: ASEP 

• Classics and Cold War Theatre. Classical Studies and Ancient Theatre during the Cold War (Coordinator: Mgr. Jakub Čechvala, Ph.D.). The project explores the relationship between classical studies and the communist regime. We will focus primarily on the relationship between theatre and classical studies in Eastern and Western Europe during the Cold War. In the context of the project, classical studies are conceived as a humanities discipline with a long tradition, but also as a field from which canonical texts for stage performance and professional study originate. We will focus first on the ideologisation of the professional and theatrical milieu, and then on the theatrical repertoire of Czechoslovakia and Great Britain in 1956 and 1968, and on the position (or absence) of ancient drama in theatrical institutions.
  Project Output: Creation of a web portal structure as the main medium for the subsequently analysed data and texts. The international workshop “Laboratory on Cold War Classics” was held in Prague on 4–6 September 2023 with the cooperation of the collaborating bodies (Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama, Oxford University; School of Classics, University of St Andrews; Department of Theatre Studies, Faculty of Arts, Charles University).

• Ancient History and Ancient Historians in the 20th century: Dis Manibus Pavel Oliva (Coordinator: Mgr. Pavel Nývlt, Ph.D.).
  The main output of the project was an international conference to mark the occasion of the 100th birthday of the most important Czech historian of ancient Greece, Prof. Pavel Oliva (1923–2021). The conference was focused on the evaluation of the importance of the research activities of Prof. Oliva and their significance for research on ancient history, as well as on the problem of the misuse of the interpretation of ancient history by right-wing extremism.
  Project Output: ASEP 
  

• 31st Summer School of Classical Studies, “Olive, Vine, Laurel in the Cultural Landscape of the Ancient World” (Coordinator: Mgr. Alena Sarkissian, Ph.D.)
  31st Summer School of Classical Studies presented three cultural plants associated with the ancient world. The olive, the vine and the laurel formed the thematic basis on which experts introduced the audience to how people in antiquity cultivated, used and abused nature and how they reflected on these activities. In workshops and lectures, participants recognised the olive, the vine and the laurel as attributes associated with the religious and cultural milieu of the ancient world – olive, vine, laurel as themes in religion, the performing arts (music, poetry, theatre), the visual arts, etc.
  Project Output: ASEP

• The Catholic Intellectual as a Member of the European Community: The Interconnection of Music and Poetry in the Work of Jiří Barthold Pontan of Braitenberg (Coordinator: Mgr. Marta Vaculínová, Ph.D.).
  The personality of Jiří Bartholdus Pontanus is ideal for researching the question of what position a Catholic poet and spiritual dignitary might have had in the intellectual environment of Bohemia before 1620. The courtly and scholarly community did not allow him to enclose himself only in a Catholic environment, symbolized by the so-called monastic humanism. This aspect of intellectual openness can be explored through the example of Pontan’s poetic works in relation to the musical production of the time, but also through his library, which is now part of domestic and foreign historical collections. Copies of Pontan’s manuscript collections have been acquired from the holdings of the Metropolitan Chapter and research has begun on the notated prints in Pontan’s library there. The compositions for which Pontanus composed texts were identified, as well as the authors of their musical settings. The compositions were prepared for concert performance, which was part of a popularization lecture.
  Project Output: Concert combined with lecture on 7 October 2023; preparation of the publication.

2022

• The Prague Belvedere (1537–1562) [Coordinator: Prof. Jan Bažant, CSc.].
  The Belvedere in the Garden of Prague Castle (1537-1562) is a unique monument in the world, which the coordinator has been researching for a long time. The monument has not yet been the subject of a foreign-language monograph, which is the aim of the project. The co-authors are world-renowned experts in the history of art of the first half of the 16th century, specialising in Habsburg villa architecture (Renate Leggat-Hofer from Vienna) and Italian sculpture (Anne Markham Schulz from Providence, USA).

• Medieval and Early Modern European Theatre Culture – Conference and Accompanying Theatre Festival (18–21 July 2022) [Coordinator: Mgr. Eliška Kubartová, Ph.D.].
  An international conference on medieval and early modern theatre was held in cooperation with the Institute of Greek and Latin Studies of Charles University. Experts from Europe, the USA, and Canada discussed theatrical and cultural performances of the periods in question as a type of shared cultural heritage with an emphasis on its aesthetic and extra-aesthetic (especially devotional and identitarian) functions and as an inherently inter- or transnational phenomenon.
  Project Output: ASEP

• 30th Summer School of Classical Studies: "Public Speech, Persuasion and Truth from Antiquity to the Internet" (Coordinator: Mgr. Alena Sarkissian, Ph.D.)
  The summer school of classical studies discussed variety of forms of public speech from Antiquity to the present. Participants learned not only what rhetorical and performative means the rhetor used for public speaking, how he was educated, but also the issues of his ethical responsibility for what he said, as well as the means by which he influenced and manipulated his audience. These questions were then examined diachronically with an emphasis on the reception of classical influences, while the workshops and lectures also presented the issue of public speech and the demands placed on it in other media.
  Project Output: ASEP

(2) Research programme Europe and the State: Between  Barbarism and Civilization

2021

• Aphrodite of the Past and Present (Coordinator: prof. PhDr. Jan Bažant, CSc.). The aim of the project is to organize a scholarly symposium on the metamorphoses of the ancient goddess Aphrodite. One-day meeting will take place within the framework of the exhibition Aphrodite Today, organized by the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic and the Society of Graphic Artists Hollar in the exhibition hall "Science and Art" in the main building of the Academy of Sciences. The expert session will discuss the modalities of the ancient goddess in antiquity and her reception across the centuries, culturally, historically and art historically.
  Project Output: ASEP. The conference papers will be published as Jan Bažant - Roman Prahl, Antika po česku. Odezvy na antiku v umění 19. a 20. stol. Praha: Academia.
  
  
• 29th Summer School of Classical Studies: Odi profanum volgus et arceo? (Horatius, Carmen III,1): Folk and Popular in Antiquity and Its Reception (Coordinator: Mgr. Alena Sarkissian, Ph.D.). The concept of „folk“ and „popularity“ in antiquity can be approached from at least three angles: 1. the social structure of the society and the manifestations of „folk“ culture, 2. the attitudes of ancient writers and thinkers towards the people and folklore, and 3. the theories of the „popular“ and „folk“ in antiquity expressed by modern researchers. The Summer School will focus on language, literature and culture in general, but also on the life conditions of the general population, as well as on the concepts the sociological concepts of „folk“ and „people“ in ancient philosophy. The courses will also reflect how these concepts emerge in today’s world. The value of ancient popular culture as well as the definition and role of folk Latin have become the subject of scientific controversy and still have conflicting potential. Given the current tensions between urban and rural areas, the „winners“ and the „losers“ in the process of globalization, the issue of people and popularity is extremely interesting and topical. Striving for deeper understanding of this phenomenon at the dawn of European culture is an opportunity to better understand history and today.
  Project Output: ASEP

2020

• Christian Culture and Education in the Czech Lands from the Middle Ages to Comenius (Coordinator: Mgr. Ondřej Podavka, Ph.D.). The aim of the project is to present culture and education in the Czech lands in its diversity, ie its changes and forms, in the form of a collective monograph. For this purpose, the project involves experts from all departments of the Centre for Classical Studies, as well as others from the Department of Comenius Studies and Early Modern Intellectual History. Other unifying element of the matter is the church environment, with which culture and science used to be deeply connected, as well as Latin literature and philology. Attention is focused mainly on medieval and early modern science and education, on the forms of humanistic occasional poetry and a special scope is devoted to the multifaceted person of Johannes Amos Comenius, with special focus on his activities as a biblist and philosopher.
  Project Output: Ondřej Podavka (ed.), Křesťanská kultura a vzdělanost v českých zemích od středověku po Komenského: Justus et Bonus. Ad honorem Jiří Beneš, Praha: Filosofia 2020, 369 pp. ISBN 978-80-7007-630-9. ASEP

• Divine Nakedness. Statues of Venus since Beginnings until Present (Coordinator: Prof. PhDr. Jan Bažant, CSc.). The output of the project will be a manuscript of the book „Divine Nakedness. Statues of Venus since beginnings until present,“ to be published in Czech by Academia and in English by a foreign publishing house. The Ancient Greeks and Romans took over the goddess of eroticism and the pictorial type that visualised her from the Middle East in 8th-7th century BC, but from the beginning there were conflicts with religious and social conventions of the ancient state. Conflicts with the same intensity, if from completely different motives, took place after the rise of Christianity in 4th-5th century AD, and a millennium later, when the European Renaissance tried to revive the Greco-Roman art culture. The project traces the transformations of depictions of Aphrodite/Venus on the background of religion, society, and state. The representations of Aphrodite/Venus are analysed from the perspective of a societies’ ideas about themselves, their value systems and needs.

• Verbum caro factum est. Performativity of Czech 14th-century Literature from the Perspective of Theatre Studies (Coordinator: Mgr. Eliška Poláčková, Ph.D.). The aim of the project is to make possible the creation of an English edition, significantly modified and revised, of the coordinator’s book, to be published in the ARC Humanities Press, in the series Early Social Performance. The English version will concentrate not on a broader interpretation of medieval performativity, a relatively well-researched topic in Western Europe, but on the genre of Virgin Mary’s laments written in the Czech Lands during the High Middle Ages. The intended book will introduce these texts for the first time ever to international scholarly community; it will also put them in the context of contemporary culture, and thus exemplify the understanding of the literary production of the Czech Kingdom of the time as intrinsically linked with German-speaking cultural space.
  
  

(3) Research programme Memory in the Digital Age

2020

• Early Christian History as Historical Memory (Coordinator: Mgr. David Cielontko). The aim of the project is to follow up, develop and deepen the current study of early Christianity with the help of historical (collective, social) memory theory. The activities within the project will create a platform for critical thinking about current applications of theoretical findings in the research into collective memory in early Christianity. The activities will serve to deepen the already existing contacts with foreign scholars active in this area, and will help make the Institute a key focal point for more research in this direction. For this year, the main output will be two international scholarly colloquia that will, thanks to generous time allocation, make possible in-depth discussions of the relevant problems, aiming to deepen critical interdisciplinary dialogue.
  Project Outputs: ASEP; ASEP

• 28th Summer school of Classical Studies (Prague, summer 2020), The Bible: The Inspired Text in the Europeans’ Memory (Coordinators: Mgr. Alena Sarkissian, Ph.D.; Mgr. Bc. Radka Fialová, Ph.D.). This year’s Summer school of Classical Studies will present, through lectures and interactive workshops, the various ways in which the Bible, as a sacred text emanating from a long oral tradition, records memories, reflects the life of the community, and at the same time shapes the community and imposes rules, both legal and moral, upon it. The Christian community further adapts and relabels these rules, and thereby, the Bible is the cornerstone of thinking about history as a collective memory and creates a specific European space and its spiritual, political, and social life. The summer school will pay much attention to translations of the Bible– from the recording of the Hebrew original in writing and its redaction, through the Greek translation of the Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate, to translations of the Bible to vernacular languages.
  Project Output: ASEP

(4) Research programme Forms and Functions of Communication

2020

• The Medusa Look (Coordinator: Mgr. Daniela Čadková, Ph.D.). The publication, which is the main output of the project, presents, in thirteen case-studies, selected issues from the history of classical reception from the Antiquity up to the first half of the twentieth century, mostly in the fields of literary and art history. It is dedicated to Professor Jan Bažant who was among the first scholars promoting the concept of classical reception in the Czech research.
  Project Output: Eliška Poláčková – Jakub Čechvala – Daniela Čadková – Alena Sarkissian et al.: Jubilate et Bibite. Studie k antice a její recepci v evropské kultuře. Ad honorem Jan Bažant, Praha: Filosofia 2020, 292 pp. ISBN 978-80-7007-630-9. ASEP

• From Antiquity to Modernity: Performing Greek and Roman Drama (Coordinator: Mgr. Alena Sarkissian, Ph.D.). The main output of this project will be the edited publication From Antiquity to Modernity: Performing Greek and Roman Drama. The volume will cover the main lines of professional discourse in the field of methodology of reception of ancient theater and drama, a relatively young discipline. It’s been only 50 years since the issue of “second life of Antiquity” was approached through interdisciplinary methods of analysis from different perspectives and interpretation in various contexts is now . While the most common approach in the literature is the interpretation of a theatrical artifact in historical context, the publication under preparation goes beyond and takes into account various theoretical issues and tackles questions such as specific problems that the artist face in the process of staging Greek and Roman drama, the techniques and stylistic elements with which ancient drama can enrich theatrical art, but also vice versa: what aesthetic approaches of current theater are used in staging Greek and Roman drama and what is the intention underlying these processes: how a canonical dramatic work, heavy with previous interpretations, both artistic and scientific, communicates vividly in contemporary theater and how these “deposits of tradition" are also used to create a current message. The publication in English will consist of essays by prominent experts who have long been dealing with the issue of modern stage reception of ancient drama and are members or collaborators with the Network of Research and Documentation of Ancient Greek Drama.