The summer months at our department were also marked by active participation in conferences.
At the end of June, Mgr. Agáta Walek, Ph.D. presented her paper "Becoming Animal (2010) by David Abram: Recognizing Metaphor as a Means Guiding Us toward Non-Anthropocentric, More Relational Attitude" at the conference Postmillennial Sensibility in Anglophone Literatures, Cultures, and Media organized by Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice. The focal point of the presentation is the usage of metaphor in the environmental (non)fiction text Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology by the ecologist and philosopher David Abram and the author strives to demonstrate that by recognizing the importance of metaphor, we are guided from the linguistic sign to the body which allows us to re-live and re-experience situations.
In addition to the aforementioned paper, Agata also gave a lecture at this conference entitled "Leaving the Fictional Grounds of Language: An Attempt to Unify (Phenomenal) Reality and Representation through Sound and Metaphor in Works by Mark Z. Danielewski and David Abram", in which she focused on the application of a multidisciplinary approach (phonosemantics, conceptual metaphor theory, phenomenology) to the analysis of literary works.
In August, Mgr. Petra Zmrzlá, Ph.D. and Mgr. Bc. Magda Sučková, Ph.D. went to Lausanne, Switzerland, for the conference of the European Society for the Study of English. Here they presented their joint paper "Hedging and Boosting Criticism in Dissertation Reviews", in which they analysed the linguistic devices used in dissertation reviews focusing on the critical comments, their content, strength, directness, and manner of formulation in a corpus of 32 English-medium reviews of technical university dissertations arriving at the conclusion that the reviewers are highly aware of the face-threatening nature of the genre and, unlike in anonymous blind peer reviews, shy away from direct criticism.
Shortly before the start of the semester, Mgr. Pavel Sedláček and Kenneth Froehling, M.A. travelled to Maribor, Slovenia, where each delivered a paper at the conference entitled New Moons, New Tides: A Century of Change in Canada, 1923-2023, the 10th triennial CEACS Conference on Canadian Studies in Central Europe. Pavel brought a paper entitled "Whisky Wars" dealing with the specifics of Canada's handling of the long-standing territorial dispute with the Kingdom of Denmark, and chaired the final panel on Saturday, September 14, 2024. Ken presented "The Rise and Fall of Fred Rose, M.P", focusing on the World War II era and the Canadian MP Fred Rose, later convicted of espionage.
Thank you all for a great representation of the department and the faculty!
