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Happily Ever After?
by Alena Gašparovičová And they lived happily ever after is undoubtedly a well-known phrase that can be found at the end of many a romantic fairy tale. It rounds up the story and suggests that after a period full of struggle, the protagonist(s) are finally getting to a period of peace, prosperity and marital bliss. …
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Living a Teenage Dream, or a Semester in the USA
by Mariia Minaeva When I started writing my motivation letter for Juniata College, I did not think that I actually had a chance to go there. The United States looked like a faraway dream, a place from films and magazines but not from real life. Not from mine, at least. And I think if I…
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Gender Roles in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
by Arya Dixit The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (dir. Jacques Demy), was met with mixed reviews when the film premiered in 1964, during the French New Wave movement, but has steadily grown in both popularity and appreciation for its timeless, artistic vision. In Umbrellas, Demy infuses his cinematography with a fairy-tale-like quality. The musical numbers, bold…
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Lessons from Wife Swap
by Jana Záhoráková This article will analyse how identity building of the participants in the reality show Wife Swap is maximised to create confrontation between them. The show originated in the United Kingdom and then transferred rather successfully to the United States as well as many other countries. I will first show research from four…
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Smiling through the Ups and Downs. Mayra Lopez-Garcia: the 100-mile Trail Runner
by Bryan Felber It’s pitch-black on a lonely section of the Western States Trail – a century-old dusty path that winds through the unrelenting Sierra Nevada Mountain Range. Much of the trail that stretches from Utah to California is only accessible by horse, helicopter, or foot. For 34-year-old Mayra Lopez-Garcia, she’s opted for the last…
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“The distance does not hinder the ties that bind and bring us together”: Interview with the Ambassador of Canada H.E. Ayesha Patricia Rekhi
by Lenka Vestenická, Kristína Šefčíková H.E. Ayesha Patricia Rekhi has been the Canadian Ambassador to the Czech Republic since 2019. Before settling in Prague, her rich diplomatic career led her to serve at Canadian missions in Hong Kong, New Delhi, Hanoi, and Bangkok. Ambassador Rekhi focuses on supporting and giving a voice to marginalized groups…
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Havel Underground: A synthesis of artistic freedom and socio-political responsibility
by Matthew Somerville The literary scholar, René Wellek, hypothesized that in the history of the Czech nation, only rarely has artistic creativeness coincided with periods of “intellectual advance and political good fortune” (29-30). For Wellek, there appears in Czechoslovakia a deep antagonism between the mind and soul, between contemplation and external business (30). There is…
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Overview of University Students’ Mental Health
by Linda Krajčovičová The topic of mental health has enjoyed a significant rise in popularity in recent years, which is slowly resulting in people’s improved and more profound understanding of the matter. Struggles with mental wellbeing are experienced by people from various spheres of life, at various ages, and to various degrees, and university students…
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Motherhood Is a Brutal Experience. Why Shouldn’t You Be a Beast? Rachel Yoder’s Nightbitch
by Blanka Šustrová The image of motherhood we are being served through the media, be it in advertisements or film, depicting always happy, fresh looking, never tired young mothers with perfect bodies who feel no other thing whatsoever but pure love for their babies and seem to be on top of every task that…
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Once Upon a Modern Time: Fairy Tales as a Way to Address Modern Issues
by Alena Gašparovičová Once upon a time, there was a beautiful young woman in a desperate situation and in need of a prince to rescue her. However, she is the protagonist of a different story. Despite the name of the famous fairy-tale character Cinderella in the title of the book, Laura Lane’s and Ellen…