Believe in People: The Essential Karel Čapek, Previously Untranslated Journalism and Letters; selected and translated with an introduction by Šárka Tobrmanová-Kühnová; preface by John Carey. London: Faber and Faber, 2010.
Toward the Radical Center: A Karel Čapek Reader, edited and with an introduction by Peter Kussi; foreword by Arthur Miller. North Haven, CT: Catbird Press, 1990.
Bílá nemoc (The White Disease) | celý film | česká filmová klasika (1937).
Krakatit [1948 Czech film, no subtitles, 1:37:33]
První parta (1959, 1 hr, 43 m; based on the 1937 novel ) [The First Rescue Party]
Newts! (Apple Podcasts): Trailer & Episodes 1 -6 (31 May - 5 July 2022)
Newts! New audio drama inspired by Karel Čapek’s famous science fiction novel, by Ruth Fraňková, Radio Prague International (with sound file), 2 June 2022.
Památník Karla Čapka: Titulní stránka [Karel Čapek Memorial]
Bradbrook, Bohuslava R. Karel Čapek: In Pursuit of Truth, Tolerance, and Trust. Brighton [Eng.]: Sussex Academic Press ; Portland, OR: Sussex Academic Press c/o International Specialized Book Services, 1998.
Doležel, Lubomír. Narrative Modes in Czech Literature. Toronto; Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 1973. See Chapter 4: Karel Čapek and Vladislav Vančura: An Essay in Comparative Stylistics, pp. 91-111.
Harkins, William. Karel Čapek. New York: Columbia University Press, 1962.
Klíma, Ivan. Karel Čapek: Life and Work; translated from the Czech by Norma Comrada. North Haven, CT: Catbird Press, 2002.
Matuska, Alexander. Karel Čapek: An Essay, translated by Cathryn Alan. London: Allen and Unwin, 1964.
On Karel Čapek: A Michigan Slavic Colloquium; edited by Michael Makin and Jindřich Toman. Ann Arbor: Michigan Slavic Publications, 1992.
Part One
Ivan Klíma
Scenes from Kora Nanda 3
Part Two
Lubomír Doležel.
Karel Čapek—a Modern Storyteller 15
Herbert Eagle
Čapek and Zamiatin—Versions of Dystopia 29
William Harkins
Čapek’s Early Work Revisited 43
Ladislav Matĕjka
The Registers of Čapek’s Czech 51
Jan Rubeš
Constructing Modernity—Čapek’s Translations of French Poetry 59
Peter Steiner
The Neglected Collection—Čapek’s Apocryphal Stories as Allegory 65
Jindřich Toman
Karel Čapek, Karl Kraus, and the Theory of the Phrase 87
Robert Wechsler
Karel Čapek in America 109
Part Three
Margo Apostolos
Real Robots in R.U.R.—A Choreographer’s Notes 129
Ort, Thomas. Art and Life in Modernist Prague: Karel Čapek and His Generation, 1911-1938. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.
Note the influence of Bergson and pragmatism, and Čapek’s disillusionment with Bergson.
Porter, Robert. An Introduction to Twentieth-Century Czech Fiction: Comedies of Defiance. Brighton; Portland, OR: Sussex Academic Press, 2001. See “Karel Čapek: Whose point of view?”, pp. 27-51.
Schubert, Peter Z. The Narratives of Čapek and Čexov: A Typological Comparison of the Authors’ World Views. Bethesda, MD.: International Scholars, 1997.
Šolić, Mirna. In Search of a Shared Expression: Karel Čapek’s Travels and Imaginative Geography of Europe. Praha: Faculty of Arts, Charles University, 2019. ISBN 9788073089009. Podcast: Karel Čapek: Novelist, playwright – and travel writer.
Riach, Alan. The Virtues of Travel Writing and the Work of Karel Capek [review], The National [Scotland], 7 September 2020.
Suvin, Darko. Metamorphoses of Science Fiction: On the Poetics and History of a Literary Genre. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979. See (final) Chapter 12: Karel Čapek, Or the Aliens Amongst Us, pp. 270-283.
Steiner, Peter. The Deserts of Bohemia: Czech Fiction and Its Social Context. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000. See esp. chapter 2: “Radical Liberalism: Apocryphal Stories by Karel Čapek,” pp. 69-93.
Swirski, Peter. From Lowbrow to Nobrow. Montreal; Ithaca: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2005. See Part II: Nowbrow: Varieties of Artertainment; Chapter 4: Karel Čapek and the Politics of Memory; pp. 95-120, 187-188.
Wellek, René. Essays on Czech Literature, introduction by Peter Demetz. The Hague: Mouton, 1963. See chapter on Karel Čapek, pp. 46-61. Originally published in the Slavonic Review, Vol. XV, No. 43 (July 1936). See also entry for article below.
Williams, Bernard. “The Makropulos Case: Reflections on the Tedium of Immortality,” in Problems of the Self: Philosophical Papers 1956-1972 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), pp. 82-100.
Hester, Jordan Thacker. Karel Čapek, Author of the Apocryphal Tales: A Study of Genre and the Čapekian. Masters thesis, English, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, 2008.
AI recreates voice of Czech literary great Karel Čapek, Radio Prague International (with sound file), 13 Feb 2024.
Ambros, Veronika. “Translation and National World Literature: National Cultures at the Crossroads,” Zeitschrift für interkulturelle Germanistik, vol. 5, issue 2, |2014, pp. 34-39.
Bradbrook, Bohuslava R., Jr. “Karel Capek’s Contribution to Czech National Literature,” in Czechoslovakia Past and Present: Volume II: Essays on the Arts and Sciences, edited by Miloslav Rechcigl (The Hague: [De Gruyter] Mouton, 1968), pp. 1002-1011.
Fodor, Anna; Pohanka, Vít. From Hradec Králové to Robots and Reflections: Karel Čapek's Enduring Legacy, Radio Prague International (with sound file), 13 March 2024.
Haman, Ales; Trensky, Paul I. “Man Against the Absolute: The Art of Karel Čapek,” Slavic and East European Journal 11, (1967): 168-184. JSTOR.
Jones, Donna V. “Inheritance and Finitude: Toward a Literary Phenomenology of Time,” ELH, Volume 85, Number 2, Summer 2018, pp. 289-303.
Mambrol, Nasrullah. “Analysis of Karel Capek’s Novels,” Literariness.org, April 13, 2019.
Mukařovský, Jan. “K. Čapek’s Prose as Lyrical Melody and as Dialogue,” in: A Prague School Reader on Esthetics, Literary Structure, and Style, selected and translated from Czech by Paul L. Garvin (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1964), pp. 133–149.
Sparks, Julie A. “Shaw for the Utopians, Čapek for the Anti-Utopians,” Shaw: The Annual of Bernard Shaw Studies 17, (1997): 165-183. JSTOR.
Wellek, René. “Karel Čapek,” The Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 15, No. 43, July 1936, pp. 191-206.
Čapek, Karel. The Author of the Robots Defends Himself, #68 (Volume 23, Part 1), March 1996.
Čapek, Karel. Preface to Bílá Nemoc; translated by Renata Flint, introduced by Robert M. Philmus, #83 (Volume 28, Part 1), March 2001.
Csicsery-Ronay, Istvan, Jr. “Twenty-Two Answers and Two Postscripts: An Interview with Stanislaw Lem,” translated by Marek Lugowski, #40 (Volume 13, Part 3), November 1986.
Kinyon, Kamila. “The Phenomenology of Robots: Confrontations with Death in Karel Čapek’s R.U.R.,” #79 (Volume 26, Part 3), November 1999.
Maslen, Elizabeth. “Proper Words in Proper Places: The Challenge of Capek’s War with the Newts,” #41 (Volume 14, Part 1), March 1987.
Philmus, Robert M. “Matters of Translation: Karel Čapek and Paul Selver,” #83 (Volume 28, Part 1, March 2001: 7-32. Abstract.
Philmus, Robert M. “More Timely Than Ever” [review of: Karel Čapek, The Absolute at Large, intro. Stephen Baxter; Bison Frontiers of Imagination; Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2005], #100 (Volume 33, Part 3), November, 2006.
Čapek, Karel. The Absolute at Large. London: Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1927. viii, 294 pp. Reprint: New York; London: Garland Publishing Co., Inc., 1975. (The Garland Library of Science Fiction) (Original Czech publication, 1922) Original edition online.
The Absolute at Large [Továrna na absolutno], translated by David Wyllie (2012)
The Absolute at Large - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Absolute at Large (1927) by Karel Capek: reviews: UNZ
Karel Čapek Energies: The Absolute at Large as Proto-Cli-Fi Literature (Episode 7: Retrospective futures), by Andy Hageman, Deletion, October 6, 2014
The Absolute at Large, by Karel Capek, Reviewed by Stuart Aken, 18 May 2012
Lit Novelist Confesses Nerd Love For Sci Fi Classic: Cara Hoffman, All Things Considered, April 20, 2011
Čapek, Karel. Krakatit, translated by Lawrence Hyde. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1925. (Original Czech publication, 1922) Also here.
Krakatit - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia [1948 film]
Krakatit [1948 Czech film, no subtitles, 1:37:33 on YouTube]
Karel Čapek (Catbird Press)
Jerz’s Literacy Weblog:
RUR
(Rossum's Universal Robots)
Other pages on Capek
The Karel Čapek Center for Values in Science and Technology
Karel Čapek website (Dominik Zunt) (on the ghost web, only internal links work)
Meteor (1935)
Letters From Spain (1932)
Intimate Things (1936)
R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots) (2014-09-16), Librivox: sound recording
Karel Capek, 1890-1938 [defunct]
R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots), translated by David Wyllie
The War with the Newts (Válka s mloky) (1936), translated by David Wyllie
Karel Čapek (links are dead)
Karel Čapek (Keith Parkins) (Isaac Asimov also covered) (defunct site)
Karel Čapek - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Josef Čapek - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mutual Inspirations Festival 2015 - Karel Čapek (Embassy of the Czech Republic, Washington, DC)
Karel Čapek (Don Harlow: Tradukita Literaturo en la reto)
Karel Čapek: The Absolute at Large: key philosophical excerpts
War with the Newts (Excerpt on the Language Problem) by Karel Čapek
Poems by Karel (untitled, 1936) & Josef (“Miserable,” 1945?) Čapek
“System” [orig. 1908] by Josef & Karel Čapek
“Ikonoklasmo” de Karel Čapek (en Esperanto)
“Pri kvin panoj” de Karel Čapek (en Esperanto)
“Karel Čapek” [obituary in Spanish] by Jorge Luis Borges
Karel Čapek’s R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots), 1920-2020, guide compiled by Ralph Dumain
Josef Čapek & James Joyce’s Chamber Music (& Czech & Hungarian reception of James Joyce)
Peter Swirski & artificial intelligence: the last gasp of bourgeois reason by Ralph Dumain
Dystopia west, dystopia east: the vanishing of speculative fiction under Stalinism by Erika Gottlieb
Chapter 5, Labour Process in the Future (excerpts) from Mankind and the Year 2000 (1973) by V. Kosolapov
Karl Marx on automatons, machinery, capital & labor
Ralph Dumain: Antaŭparolo al Karlo Markso: La tiel nomata Fragmento pri maŝinoj (elgermanigita de Vilhelmo Lutermano) [in Esperanto]
Dialectic and Dystopia: A Century Before and After the Russian Revolution Through Literature (transcript of podcast by R. Dumain)
Science Fiction & Utopia Research Resources: A Selective Work in Progress
Note: This is obviously not an attempt at a comprehensive guide. It reflects my current research interests and will expand accordingly.
Home Page | Site
Map | What's New | Coming Attractions | Book
News
Bibliography | Mini-Bibliographies | Study
Guides | Special Sections
My Writings | Other Authors' Texts | Philosophical
Quotations
Blogs | Images
& Sounds | External Links
CONTACT Ralph Dumain
Uploaded 20 June 2016
Last update 14 March 2024
Previous update 14 February 2024
©2016-2024 Ralph Dumain