Canada represents a unique environment for studying literary and cultural questions of the relations between various linguistic, ethnocultural, social and individual identities. Issues including images of one´s self and the other, identity and alterity, integration and exclusion, hybridization have for the most part been examined in a "one-sided" approach created by the Anglophone-Francophone linguistic and cultural barrier. This project will provide a synthesis based on an examination of a variety of contrasting and/or intersecting points of view, e.g. Anglophone Canadian, Francophone Canadian, First Nations, immigrants, other marginalized groups. The approach that has been selected is guite close to the Anglo-American concept of "literary culture": literary texts and history will be examined through the prism of cultural identity models and the structuring and dynamics of systems of values will be examined using integrating and separatist factors. The expected outcome will be two analogous books, one in Czech and the second in English and French. The proposed publication in Czech will therefore fill in a gap that exists in Czech, offering a comprehensive overview of Canadian (i.e. Anglophone Canadian, French-Canadian, immigrant, Inuit and Indian literatures) and through its methodological approach it will offer a model for examining literary guestions of identity and alterity in other regions, e.g. Europe and Central Europe.

Publications