Jindřich Toman

Conversational modernism: Talking Czech men into being gentlemen by way of the Gentleman, 1924-30

The article provides a profile of the Czech life-style magazine Gentleman (The Gentleman), published in Prague from 1924 to 1930. The gendered nature of the magazine is stressed and discursive mechanisms effective in the formation of modern masculinity are discussed. Issues of ‘democratic aristocratism’, male fashion, gender identity, but also traces of a local inflection (T. G. Masaryk as a modern man) are among the select points of attention. While some aspects of the magazine may appear instructional, the analysis draws attention to the fact that The Gentleman actually moves between the instructional and the represented, thus leaving ample space for the reader to negotiate his position on the map of masculine modernity. Other instances of media (e.g., the nineteenth-century Konversationslexikon) and authors (Karel Čapek, Milena Jesenská) are adduced to broaden the context and to explicate the meaning of ‘conversational modernity’, that is, a negotiated representation of modernity.

Fake Fragments, Fake Ruins, and Genuine Paper Ruination

Thinking of fragments in material terms, there is an intuition that it is hard, if not impossible, to produce a fragment directly — one can merely arrange for an event to take place such that at its completion the affected object will turn to fragments. Take, for instance, a typical species of fragment, splinters. We know that they will be irregular, sharp-edged, perhaps jagged, but we cannot really craft them in the manner a regular artifact is produced. Although it is unproblematic to manufacture a glass plate two inches long, three inches wide, and half an inch thick, it seems impossible to produce a glass splinter of precise dimensions. If need be, of course, we could attempt to break a pane in a controlled way, for instance, by breaking glass in special matrices that would impose certain shapes, or we might engrave lines of desired fractures into glass before breakage, but in the end the splinters will always have a random quality. Thus randomness, besides the presence of force, is an inherent constituent of fragmentation. At the same time, not all random events result in fragmentation; neither do all violent events. It is doubtful whether we should view a random selection of a book from a shelf, or a number from a set — for instance, through a throw of dice — as a case of fragmentation. Moreover, material quality plays a role. While we may all agree that an explosion in the air creates waves of air, it is quite unusual to think that it creates air fragments.

Notes on Roman Jakobson's culture of scholarship

Abstract Although Roman Jakobson came to Prague as an employee of the Soviet Mission of the Red Cross - that is, as a diplomat - scholarship did not cease to interest him, and he very much hoped that his stay in Czechoslovakia would bring him together with local linguists. It was to this end that he brought with him a letter of recommendation from the hand of the renowned Russian philologist, A. A. Saxmatov (1864–1920). The letter was brief, but strong: Most esteemed colleague: 1 This letter may reach you through our gifted young scholar, Roman Osipovic Jakobson. I appeal to you strongly to give him encouragement abroad. He is a linguist on whom we place great hopes. […] (From Toman 1994: 38)