Ideology, Powerlessness and Power: Reading Václav Havel and Other Dissident Thinkers

Anotace

The course deals with the political thought of the Czechoslovakian opposition in the late 70s'. The political thought of the "dissent" is often reduced to the Charter 77 declaration and the famous Václav Havel's essay The Power of the Powerless.

Although we will not neglect the official Charter documents and Havel's arguments we will follow the broader intellectual context and discussions in the opposition of the time. It will be shown that the dissent political discourse of the time was very plural, heterogeneous and abundant on clashes of various political opinions and ideas about the appropriate strategies for the opposition.