Veronika Ambros

Professor of Comparative Literature and Slavic Studies Affiliation
ambrosContact Information

Email: veronika.ambros@utoronto.ca
Phone: 416-926-1300 x. 3200
Office: 121 St Joseph St., R.405
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Bio & Research

My research includes the theories of the Prague linguistic circle, their precursors the Russian formalists and their successors, most prominently the Tartu School around Yuri Lotman. The conference Structuralism(s) Today. Paris, Prague, Tartu organized by the Center, as well as the eponymous volume published in 2009 confirm their relevance and versatility. My main subject of inquiry however is semiotics in general and semiotics of drama and theatre in particular. Another part of my research is connected with the cityscape of Prague as the place that used to be an important center of Czech as well as German literature, and Russian émigré culture. Prague serves as a base to explore the relationship between urban space and fiction, between multiculturalism and nationalism, between center and margins. Furthermore, imaginary creatures, which appear on stage and screen, inform my enquiry about the functions of intermediality, especially of the relationship of fine arts, and architecture with cinema, and theatre

Research Interests: Semiotics of theatre and drama; literary theory; modern Czech, German and Russian literatures.

CV

Recent Publications

Books

  • 1993 Pavel Kohout und die Metamorphosen des sozialistischen Realismus New York, Berlin: Peter Lang. 180pp.
  • 2009 (co-editor) Structuralism(s) Today Legas, Ottawa,
  • 2014 “Translation and National World Literature. National Cultures at the Crossroads” ZiG | Zeitschrift für interkulturelle Germanistik 5|2014|H2, 34-39 

Chapters in books:

2012

  • “Walking Past Each Other Chekhovian “Echoes” in Czech Drama”
    In Re-Writing Chekhov: The Text and its Mutations, Yana Meerzon, Douglas Clayton eds. London, Routledge, 101-131.
  • “Proměny re-prezentace” [transformation of re-presentation]
    in: Jazyky Reprezentace Veronika Veberová, Petr A. Bílek,Vladimír Papoušek, David Skalický.(eds.) Praha, Akropolis, 147-156.a,
  • “’Images Are Wounds That Will Not Heal’ Staged  Memories in Alfred Radok’s Distant Journey (Daleká Cesta 1949), Alain Resnais Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959), and S. Lumet’s The Pawnboker (1964)”.
    In: Images of Rupture in Civilization between East and West. Urs Heftrich, Bettina Kaibach, eds. Heidelberg, Winter, 2016.
  • “Keine so zufällige Begegnung zwischen Maske und Statue. V+W, Golem und die Prager Schule” [the not so accidental meeting between a mask and a statue. Voskovec and Werich, Golem and the Prague school].
    In: Slavisches Drama und Theater in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart. Birgit Krehl ed. Muenchen, Otto Sagner, 83-93.
  • Intermediální hry moderny  – oživlé sochy, masky a loutky v divadelních hrách a. Holitschera Der Golem (1908, 1915), K. a Josefa Čapka Lásky Hra Osudná (1910, 1930), a W. Hasenclevera Der Sohn (1914, 1916), [Inter-medial Games/Plays of Modernity. Animated Statues, Masks and Puppets in the Plays by A. Holitscher, W. Hasenclever and the Čapek brothers]
    In:Moderna v tušeném prostoru střední Evropy International conference [Modernity in the Conjectured Space of Central Europe], Olomouc 28. 03.2012.

 2011

  • “Leaving, Largo Desolato, and Rock’n’roll. Havel and Stoppard -Dramatic Dialogue. “Ad Honorem Eva Stehlíková. Praha: Filosofický Ústav Akademie Věd České Republiky, 28-31.

2010

  • “How Did the Golems (and Robots) Enter Stage and Screen and Leave Prague?” In: History of the Literary Cultures in East-Central Europe, vol. 4, 308 -320.

 2009

  • “America Relocated – Karel Čapek’s Robots between Prague, Berlin and New York.”  Performance, Exile and ‘America’. Palgrave, 134-157.
  • “Golems and Robots: Intermediality, Hybridity and the Prague School.” Structuralism(s) today Legas, Ottawa, 176-189.

 2007 

  • “Daleká cesta. Svědecká výpověď Alfréda Radoka” [Distant Journey. The Witness Testimony of A. Radok], In: Eva Stehlíková (ed.): Alfréd Radok mezi filmem a divadlem [Alfréd Radok between film and theatre], Prague, AMU, 53-76.
  • “Engaged’ Playwrights’. Czech Drama between Enlightenment and Gentle Revolution” in: J.J. King (ed.) Western Drama through the Ages. Westport, Greenwood Press, 142-153.
  • “Fuzzy Borderlines – Čapeks’ Robots, Insects, Women and Men” in: History of the Literary Cultures in East-Central Europe. Marcel Cornis-Pope and John Neubauer (editors) Virginia Commonwealth University / University of Amsterdam, 183-189.

2006

  • “Prague: Magnetic Fields or Staging of the Avant-Garde”; In: History of the Literary Cultures in East-Central Europe. Marcel Cornis-Pope and John Neubauer (editors) Virginia Commonwealth University / University of Amsterdam 176–182.

2004

  • “The Great War as a Monstrous Carnival: Jaroslav Hašek’s Švejk ” in: History of the Literary Cultures in East-Central Europe. Marcel Cornis-Pope and John Neubauer (editors) Amsterdam, Benjamins, 28-36
Updated: September 2016