Charles University has 17 faculties and 4 University Institutes. In September of 2018: about 49 000 students, about 17
000 bachelors, 15 000 masters, about 7 000 PhD.students, about 9 000 from abroad. The university has more than 7,500 employees, 4,000 of these being academic and research staff. Various courses in lifelong learning programs organized by CUNI attract more than 15,000 people each year. CUNI has signed a total of 450 bilateral agreements and 190 international partnership agreements with foreign universities. Charles University is one of the world’s top universities, which has been confirmed repeatedly by the international university rankings. In the Shanghai University’s Academic Ranking of World Universities, which evaluates 2,000 universities, Charles University was placed in the top 300 out of 17,000 universities and colleges. Charles University is, therefore, among the 2% of the best universities and the 100 top European universities.
Charles University has a long history of European Studies as a multidisciplinary research and teaching program involving Political Science, Economics, Law, Educational Studies, Demography, International and Security Studies, Religious Studies, etc. CUNI was awarded the title Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence in 1999 as the first center in Central and Eastern Europe, with CUNI again receiving the title in 2006. Experts from CUNI are involved in research, teaching and also serve as a think tank for the government, Parliament, Political Parties, and local authorities.
The Centre for the Study of the Holocaust and Jewish Literature was established in 2010 at the Department of Czech and Comparative Literature at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University. It aims to study literature related to the Shoah/the Holocaust and Jewish cultures in the Czech Lands and Central Europe. The Centre is also active in the field of Israel Studies and conducts socio-cultural qualitative research into contemporary Jewish communities in Europe and beyond.
The Centre hosted or co-organized more than a dozen international conferences, workshops, and events during its existence. One of them was the 8th Annual Conference of the European Association of Israel Studies (University of London, SOAS). The conference took place on 8-10 September 2020 at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University,
and over 140 international guests attended.
The annual series of nine international workshops on the Holocaust in Literature and Culture has also received significant attention. The Centre has helped to publish nearly two tens of books, articles, and studies. Inter alia: Being Jewish in 21st Century Central Europe. Haim Fireberg, Olaf Glöckner, Marcela Menachem Zoufalá /eds./,
Series: Europäisch-jüdische Studien, De Gruyter, 2020. ISBN-13: 978-3110579659, in English.
Elisa-Maria Hiemer, Jiří Holý, Agata Firlej, Hana Nichtburgerová (eds.): Handbook of Polish, Czech, and Slovak Holocaust Fiction. Works and Contexts. Berlin, De Gruyter 2021. 506 pp. ISBN 978-3-11-066725-7; e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-067105-6
So far, the most crucial publication has been an extensive collective monograph of more than 1000 pages Cizí i blízcí. Židé, literatura, kultura v českých zemích ve 20. století. (Close and Foreign: Jews, Literature, and Culture in the Czech Lands in the Twentieth Century), which deals with thematizing Jewishness in Czech literature and culture in the
„long“ twentieth century. The monograph was co-authored and edited by professor Jiří Holý.
Researchers’ Bios
Jiří Holý is a Professor at the Department of Czech Literature and Comparative Literature and Head of the Centre for the Holocaust and Jewish Literature at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague. In 1994/1995, he served as Assistant Professor at the University of Regensburg. He was also a Visiting Professor at Humboldt Universität (1999/2000), at Universität Wien (2004/2005, 2008/2009) and at Universität Leipzig (2014/2015). Together with Dr. Marcela Menachem Zoufalá, he coordinates the multiannual EU project ‘United in Diversity.’ An Interdisciplinary Study of Contemporary European Jewry and Its Reflection. Prof. Holý specializes in literary science and research, mainly within the area of Czech Literature and Jewish Topics in Literature and Culture. His main publications in recent years include Handbook of Polish, Czech, and Slovak Holocaust Fiction: Texts and Contexts (editors E.-M. Hiemer, J. Holý, A. Firlej and H. Nichtburgerová) Berlin, De Gruyter 2021; Jews and Jewishness in Cinema and Literature: The Case of the Czech Republic, in: Being Jewish in 21st Century Central Europe (eds. H. Fireberg, O. Glöckner and M. Menachem Zoufalá). Oldenbourg, De Gruyter 2020, pp. 165-184; Jurek Becker: Jakob der Lügner (with H. Nichtburgerová), in: Holocaust. Zeugnis. Literatur. 20 Werke wieder gelesen (eds. M. Roth and S. Feuchert). Göttingen, Wallstein Verlag 2018, pp. 152-168, Die Namen auf den Mauern der Pinkas-Synagoge in Prag, in: Texte prägen (eds. H. Kenneth et al.). Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz 2017, pp. 415-432 and Nontraditional Images of the Shoah in Literature and Film: Comedy and Laughter; Holocaust Studies, 23, 2017, no 1-2, pp. 208-221.
Marcela Menachem Zoufalá is a cultural anthropologist, lecturer, and researcher in the Center for the Study of the Holocaust and Jewish Literature at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University Prague. Her research interests include Jewish and Israel Studies, specifically the quality of life of contemporary European Jewish communities in the context of a sense of belonging, transnationalism, and antisemitism. In the field of Israel Studies, her research interests combine Mizrahi Studies, ethnicity, and gender. Recently, she has focused on Jewish-Muslim relations from a comparative perspective. Dr. Menachem Zoufalá was a visiting research fellow at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2009-2010. In 2014 and 2016, she was awarded the Masaryk Distinguished Chair in Israel. In 2019, she held a Guest Professorship in Israel Studies at the Selma Stern Center for Jewish Studies in Berlin-Brandenburg & The Moses Mendelssohn Center for European Jewish Studies, University of Potsdam. In 2019-2021 she was a member of the academic board of the Herzl Centre at CUNI. She is also a member of the Academic Council of the European Association of Israel Studies (EAIS). In terms of international scientific cooperation, Dr. Menachem Zoufalá coordinates together with Prof. Jiří Holý the multiannual EU project ‘United in Diversity.’ An Interdisciplinary Study of Contemporary European Jewry and Its Reflection.
