Professor Thomas Ort will explore the uncanny relevance of the early 20th century Czech writer, Karel Capek, for our times' political and technological developments. Capek's fears about the displacement of human labor by machines and the threat of authoritarianism appear closer to their realization than ever since the 1930s.
Karel Capek (1890–1938), a renowned Czech writer, playwright, critic, journalist, and friend of the first Czechoslovak president TG Masaryk, has been compared to writers like George Orwell and Aldous Huxley. His notable works include the novels War with the Newts and Krakatit, and plays such as The White Plague, The Makropulos Case, The Insect Play, and R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), which introduced the term "robot" to the world. Capek's writing spanned multiple genres, from drama and fiction to essays, travel writing, reflections on gardening and enchanting stories for children. He was a master of language and storytelling, elevating Czech literature on the global stage.
Moderated by Professor Chris Harwood, Columbia University.
Free and open to the public. Suggested donation $15. Seats are limited, on first-come first-served basis. RSVP through Eventbrite.
About
Thomas Ort is Associate Professor of modern European history at Queens College, The City University of New York. The main focus of his research has been modernist and avant-garde life in early twentieth-century Czechoslovakia, but his most recent work concerns the politics of memory in postwar Eastern Europe. He is the author of Art and Life in Modernist Prague: Karel Čapek and his Generation, 1911-1938 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), which was subsequently translated into Czech (Argo, 2016). Prof. Ort’s new book project, Meaning, Memory, and the Assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, explores the ever-evolving interpretations of the killing of Reinhard Heydrich, the SS general and architect of the Final Solution, who was assassinated in Prague in 1942.
This event is organized by the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences (SVU) in New York as part of The Karel Capek Year, with the support of the Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association and in cooperation with the Czech Center New York.