1) Editorial and interpretive projects focusing on the life and work of J. A. Comenius
A) The main task is a long-term project of critical edition of the writings of J. A. Comenius Opera omnia – Dílo J. A. Komenského (DJAK). In recent years, volumes 15/IV (2011, Opera didactica omnia, Eruditiones pars I and pars II), 9/II (2013, the second volume of historiographical works), 19/I (2014, the first part of the General Consultation: Europae lumina, Panegersia, Panaugia), 19/II (2022, General Consultation, first part of Pansofia: Praefationes, Mundus possibilis, Mundus archetypus and Mundus angelicus), 26/I (2018, first volume of correspondence, letters from 1628-1638). Forthcoming volumes 26/II (correspondence, letters from 1638-1642), 19/III (Pansophia: Mundus materialis and Mundus artificialis) and 10 (Manualník) are in preparation.
B) An integral part of the department's portfolio is the study and interpretation of the literary legacy of J. A. Comenius, especially in the fields of philosophy, intellectual history, history of literature and philology, with a particular focus on research into Comenius' metaphysics (V. Schifferová, V. Balík), the language and style of Comenius's Latin writings (M. Steiner), Comenius's use of the Bible (T. Havelka), the problem of evidence and textuality in Comenius's works (L. Řezníková), Comenius's correspondence and its place within the contemporary communication networks of the Republic's scholars (V. Urbánek, I. Lelková and others).
C) The department also focuses on making Komenský's works accessible to a wider public in translations of works not yet published in Czech or not easily available. A series of translations is in preparation, following on from the already outdated Selected Writings of Comenius (Vybrané spisy Jana Amose Komenského). A new translation of Comenius's dramas from Leszno Diogenes cynicus and Abrahamus the Patriarch (M. Klosová) is planned for the near future, followed by a new translation of important pansophical work Via lucis and a selection of Comenius's correspondence.
2) History of Comenius research
A) Interpretations of Comenius in terms of the transformations of cultures of memory from the Enlightenment to the end of the 20th century, ranging widely from scholarly discourse to various forms of literary, artistic, professional, etc. representations in the form of book monographs and exhibitions. The outputs were both the monograph Figurations of Memory (2014, L. Řezníková, ed.) and the exhibition J.A.K.: Komenský in the Cultures of Remembrance (2020, Science and Art Gallery) and the catalogue of the same name (2021).
B) The department also focuses on the evaluation of 20th century Comenius research. This includes research on the work of the Norwegian Comeniologist Milada Blekastad (especially her rich correspondence), and in 2022 we are also focusing on evaluating the legacy of the first scientific editor of DJAK and the important literary historian Antonín Škarka.
C) An important part of the department's research strategy is to focus on the use of modern digitization principles and their application to both early modern and modern literature when related to the department's subject matter. Extensive digitisation outputs have been made possible in particular by the involvement in the LINDAT-CLARIAH infrastructure. In particular, the extensive database Historical Correspondence is being created within this framework, and within it, both databases of early modern correspondence networks (Amand Polanus of Polansdorf, Marek Marci of Kronland, Philipp Jakob Sachs of Löwenheim, Theodor Moret, post-Hungarian students) and the modern correspondence of Milada Blekastad and Jan Patočka. The second output will be a textual corpus of Comenius' writings, based on the digitisation of works published in the series DJAK.
This work has been made possible by previous collaboration on a major international project Cultures of Knowledge, focusing primarily on the database of Komenský's correspondence included in the Early Modern Letters Online database of learned correspondence.
3) Intellectual History of the Early Modern Period
A significant part of the department's portfolio is research on the intellectual history of the early modern period. The prestigious project Between Renaissance and Baroque included research on Melanchthonism in Czech vernacular literature of the 16th and 17th centuries, a project to make the work of Valerian Magni editorially accessible, an inventory of foreign theological literature in the Unity of the Brethren, and interpretations of astronomy and cosmology in the early modern period. A large-scale project on the form of humanist literary production in the Czech lands from the end of the 15th to the mid-17th century is currently underway (L. Storchová), as well as a project devoted to the analysis of Czech, German and Latin historical texts originating in the Czech lands in the 16th and 16th centuries. and 17th centuries (L. Řezníková) and an exploration of the early modern idea of universal science, its language and encyclopaedic expression (P. Pavlas). A project exploring the transcultural mechanisms of the early modern period is planned (V. Čapská).
