Ondřej Skovajsa, PhD

From Thoreau to Havel: Chapters in Czech and American Struggle for Social Justice

Course Description

The course reacts to the current polarization of political life and both in US and the Czech Republic. It
discusses important U.S. and Czech thinkers and activists who believed in the indivisibility of freedom
(“Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison” –
Thoreau) and entered in dialogue with powerful as well as the powerless in face of dogmatism, fear, or
indifference. These thinkers and activists have been broadening the notion of democracy and keeping the
precious “fragile democratic experiment” alive, no matter if they have been fighting for voting rights for
women and African Americans, anti-Semitism in Austrian-Hungarian empire, injustice and complacency
in Socialist Czechoslovakia, or addressing ongoing discrimination of minorities in United States and the
Czech Republic. The course fosters dialogue between US and Czech social justice thinkers and activists of
the 19th and 20th century. The course draws inspiration from African American philosopher Cornel West
who understands truth “as a way of life” that “allows suffering to speak”.

Course Goals and Student Learning Objectives

Upon completion of this course, students should be able to understand the roots of democratic tradition as
well as see the concrete parallels in thinking and taking-action between U.S. and Czech thinkers and
activists. They will understand the actions of Czech and American civil rights thinkers and activists and
view their actions within their historical context. The students will get a gist of the testimony of hope of
the discussed thinkers and activists.

READINGS

WEEK 1
INTRODUCTION: EXAMINED LIFE
Cornel West: Examined Life (Excerpt from Astra Taylor’s 2008 documentary)
In Class Discussion over interview transcript

WEEK 2
GREEK AND HEBREW ROOTS OF DEMOCRATIC TRADITION
Primary reading:
Plato: Apology (excerpts), Symposium (excerpts)
Isaiah, Jonah , Gospels (excerpts), Book of James
Martin Buber: “Prophecy, Apocalyptic, and the Historical Hour” (1954)
Dorothee Soelle: Beyond Mere Obedience (1982), excerpts

Secondary reading:
A. J. Heschel: from Prophets (1962, 2001), excerpts

WEEK 3
U.S. ANTE-BELLUM ROOTS OF CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE
Reading:
H.D. Thoreau: Resistance to Civil Government and excerpts from other texts
Frederick Douglass: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (excerpts)

WEEK 4
1900s-1950s WOMEN INTELLECTUAL FIGHTERS IN USA AND CZECHOSLOVAKIA
Lecture
Reading –excerpts from speeches and texts of Mabel Vernon, Alice Paul, Dorothy Day
Františka Plamínková, Milada Horáková, Růžena Vacková

WEEK 5
MASARYK’s MORAL PHILOSOPHY AND HIS FIGHT AGAINTS ANTI-SEMITISM
Reading:
From Karel Čapek: from Talks with T.G. Masaryk (1995)

WEEK 6
PŘEMYSL PITTER AND TESTIMONY OF HOPE OF MILÍČ HOUSE
Visit of Milíčův dům in Prague
Reading:
Pavel Kosatík: “Přemysl Pitter, A Difficult Czech and European”
Screening:
Who Was Přemysl Pitter? – TV documentary, 1996

WEEK 7
HARLEM RENAISSANCE
Reading:
Alain Locke (ed.) The New Negro (1925, excerpts)

WEEK 8
FROM AMERICAN CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT TO BLACK LIVES MATTER
Primary readings:
James Baldwin: “In Search for Majority” (1960)
Kenneth Clarke’s interviews with James Baldwin, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King.
Martin Luther King: “The Ethical Demand for Integration” (1963)
Cornel West: Democracy Matters (excertps,1992)
Michelle Alexander: The New Jim Crow (excerpts, 2010)
Secondary readings:
Ralph Ellison “What America Would be Like Without Blacks” (1970)
From Margaret Meade and James Baldwin: A Rap on Race (1972)

WEEK 9
THE STORY OF CZECHOSLOVAK ROMA AND THE STRUGGLE OF SCHOLAR MILENA
HYBSCHMANNOVÁ AND HISTORIAN CTIBOR NEČAS
Screening:
O Black Bird (Ó, ty černý ptáčku, TV FILM, Dir. Břetislav Rychlík, 1997)
Reading:
Nancy Hawker (ed.): Short Stories by Czech Women (2006, excerpts)
Zbyněk Andrš: From The Song Folklore of the Roma in the Slovak and Czech Republics
Guest lecture: Czech Roma activist

WEEK 10
THE COURAGEOS OF PRAGUE SPRING
Reading:
František Kriegel (excerpts from speeches)
Ludvík Vaculík: “Two Thousand Words” (1968)

WEEK 11-12
CHARTER 77: ROOTS AND LEGACY
Reading:
Jan Patočka from Body, Community, Language, World (1998)
Václav Havel: “Letter to dr. Gustáv Husák” (1975)
Václav Havel: The Power of the Powerless (excerpts, 1978)
Screening:
Milan Hlavsa and Plastic People of the Universe (2001)
Final Test

WEEK 13
Struggle for social justice in current world,
Guest lecture