Milada Franková je členka oborové komise doktorského programu Literatury v angličtině a předsedkyně ediční rady odborného časopisu Brno Studies in English. Vyučuje britskou literaturu a kulturní studia, ve výzkumu se zaměřuje zvláště na současný britský román. Přednášela, vedla intenzivní kurzy a účastnila se konferencí na řadě evropských univerzit (Salzburg, Vídeň, Magdeburg, Regensburg, Bologna, Vratislav, Szeged, Ružomberok, Bristol, Warwick, Oxford, Porto, Soluň, Izmir). Je autorkou tří monografií (Human Relationships in the Novels of Iris Murdoch, 1995; Britské spisovatelky na konci tisíciletí, 1999 a Britské spisovatelky na přelomu tisíciletí, 2003) a mnoha odborných článků v mezinárodních publikacích, v nichž psala o více než dvaceti současných britských spisovatelkách.

Ludmila Urbanová, emeritní profesorka anglické lingvistiky, na katedře nadále působí jako vedoucí disertačních prací a členka zkušební komise doktorského studia pro obor anglické lingvistiky.
Ludmila Urbanová byla spoluzakladatelkou Inštitútu anglistiky a amerikanistiky na univerzitě v Prešově, kde učila 27 let, získala titul CSc. a později se tam habilitovala v oboru anglické jazykovědy.
V roce 1992 se vrátila na svou alma mater, Masarykovu univerzitu, kde pomáhala vybudovat nově vznikající Katedru anglického jazyka a literatury na Pedagogické fakultě, pro niž navrhovala pilotní verze studijních programů. V roce 1995 pak přešla na Katedru anglistiky a amerikanistiky na Filozofické fakultě, kde ve své pedagogické a vědecké činnosti pokračovala. Zaváděla zde nové lingvistické disciplíny odpovídající nejnovějším trendům v jazykovědě, jako jsou pragmatika, analýza diskurzu, sociolingvistika, korpusová lingvistika a stylistika. Její hlavní přínos katedře lze spatřovat v jejím působení v doktorském studiu – vedla 30 úspěšně obhájených doktorských disertací. Z pozice docentky a později profesorky navázala cenné kontakty s prestižními univerzitami a jejich anglistikami po celé Evropě (Lund, Mnichov, Vídeň, Vratislav, Magdeburg, Jena, Norwich, Krakov, Greifswald a další).

Jan Chovanec is Full Professor of English Linguistics. He specializes in media discourse analysis and socio-pragmatics, teaching courses in modern linguistics (sociolinguistics), discourse analysis (language of broadcast/social media) and ESP (legal English, academic English). His research interests include pragmatic aspects of mediatized communication, representation of social actors in the media, multimodality, dialogism in texts and humour-in-interaction. His current research projects deal with interpersonal interaction in social media communication, the discourse of online sports reporting, discriminatory discourses in the press, and the pragmatics of humour.

He is the author of over 80 original research articles in international journals and edited collections (e.g. Journal of Pragmatics, Journal of Historical Pragmatics, Discourse and Society, Discourse and Communication, Discourse Context and Media). He published two monographs: The Discourse of Online Sportscasting (2018, Benjamins) and Pragmatics of Tense and Times in News (2014, Benjamins). He is co-editor of many thematic volumes, e.g. Analyzing Digital Discourses (2021, Palgrave, with M. Johansson and S.-K. Tanskanen), The Dynamics of Interactional Humor (2018, Benjamins, with V. Tsakona), Representing the Other in European Media Discourses (2017, Benjamins, with K. Molek-Kozakowska), Participation in Public and Social Media Interactions (2015, Benjamins, with M. Dynel), Language and Humour in the Media (Cambridge Scholars 2012, with I. Ermida), as well as several journal special issues (Journal of Pragmatics, EJHR, BSE). Since 2007, he has been the editor-in-chief of the international refereed journal Brno Studies in English (ERIH, SCOPUS). He serves on the editorial boards of Journal of Pragmatics, Discourse Context & Media, and Internet Pragmatics, and is currently serving as co-editor-in-chief of Discourse Context & Media (with Carmen Lee).

He used to act as a court-appointed translator/interpreter (with almost 1000 translations) and provides linguistic advisory. He has experience in the area of ESP, having taught legal English, business English and EAP for several years. In that field, he has co-authored the books Soudní překlad a tlumočení [Court Translation and Interpreting] (2011, Wolters Kluwer, with M. Bázlik and T. Hrehovčík), and Anglicko-český slovník uprchlického práva [English-Czech Dictionary of Refugee Law] (1999, MU, with B. Budíková), He has held guest lectures at a number of universities (USA, UK, Canada, Sweden, Germany, Finland, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Turkey, Estonia, Taiwan) and presented at more than 100 conferences. He also teaches at the Silesian University in Opava and is an external teacher at the University of Lapland, Rovaniemi, Finland.

Jana Chamonikolasová je docentka v oboru anglické lingvistiky. Ve výzkumu se zaměřuje především na otázky informační struktury jazyka, úlohu intonace v mluveném diskurzu a strukturu psaného akademického diskurzu. Doktorský titul i habilitaci v oblasti funkční syntaxe a intonaci získala na Masarykově univerzitě. Ve svém výzkumu rozvíjí brněnský přístup k studiu informační struktury jazyka, založený jejím učitelem prof. Janem Firbasem a známý jako teorie funkční větné perspektivy. Přednášela na toto téma na amerických i evropských univerzitách, mj. na Harvardově univerzitě či na univerzitách v Lundu, Mnichově, Kolíně nad Rýnem a Magdeburgu. Vedle řady článků o větné pespektivě vydala monografii Intonation in English and Czech Dialogues. Je také hlavní redaktorkou pětidílné edice sebraných spisů Jana Firbase (Collected Works of Jan Firbas).

Tomáš Kačer, Associate Professor of English and American literature. His interests lie in the fields of British drama in the twentieth century and the present, American drama and theatre both in its history and today, literary modernism, theory of drama and theatre (Prague School structuralism and semiotics), and narratology. Tomáš obtained his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature at Masaryk University in 2012. Besides teaching courses within his fields, he also works with the department's student theatre group, The Gypsywood Players. He was a Fulbright researcher at the University of Texas at Austin in 2017/2018, where he conducted research in American drama, performance philosophy, and the British playwright Tom Stoppard. He is the editor of Theatre Theory Reader: Prague School Writings (Charles University Press, 2017) and author of New Messengers: Short Narratives in Plays by Michael Frayn, Tom Stoppard and August Wilson (Masaryk University, 2013). His most recentl book is the only Czech-language history of 18th and 19th century American drama Dvousetletá pustina: dějiny starší americké dramatiky (Charles University Press, 2019). He is also a translator of plays, fiction and non-fiction.

He is currently the Head of the Department (since 2022).

Naděžda Kudrnáčová je členkou komise doktorského programu Anglický jazyk a také členkou Modern Language Association a European Society for the Study of English. Vyučuje kurzy sémantiky, lexikologie a morfologie. Habilitovala se na Masarykově univerzitě v roce 2011. Její výzkumné zájmy spočívají zejména v lexikální sémantice, kognitivní sémantice, rozhraní syntaxe a sémantiky, konstrukční gramatice a psycholingvistice. Publikovala řadu článků v odborných časopisech, sbornících a konferenčních sbornících. Je autorkou dvou monografií: „Directed Motion at the Syntax-Semantics Interface“ (2008) zkoumá sémantické a syntaktické atributy pohybu s ohledem na směrovost a zavádí směrový pohyb jako samostatnou kategorii; „Caused Motion: Secondary Agent Constructions“ (2013) zkoumá konkrétní typ konstrukce vyvolaného pohybu a ukazuje, jak lze poznatky z psycholingvistiky použít ke studiu rozhraní mezi syntaxí a sémantikou. Přednášela na univerzitách ve Vídni, Mnichově, Kolíně nad Rýnem, Toruni a Praze. Účastnila se řady krátkodobých pobytů na univerzitách v Aberdeenu, Řezně a ve Vídni.

Michael Matthew Kaylor, Associate Professor, specializes in Romantic and Victorian poetry, the Modernist novel, and the theory of biography. Besides those areas, he also teaches courses on Walt Whitman, Henry James, H.P. Lovecraft, and American Decadence. Dr. Kaylor’s published scholarly works include: Secreted Desires: The Major Uranians: Hopkins, Pater and Wilde (2006); an edition of Forrest Reid’s 1905 novella The Garden God: A Tale of Two Boys (2007); an edition of Edward Perry Warren’s 1928-1930 apologia A Defence of Uranian Love (2009); the two-volume Lad’s Love: An Anthology of Uranian Poetry and Prose (2010); a two-volume edition of Forrest Reid’s Tom Barber Trilogy (2011); the co-edited anthology Literární biografie jako křižovatka žánrů (Literary Biography as a Crossroads of Genres)(2011); the co-authored Alternatives in Biography: Writing Lives in Diverse English-Language Contexts (2011); an edition of John Stuart Hay’s 1911 biography The Amazing Emperor Heliogabalus (2012); and the two-volume Collected Works and Commissioned Biography of Edward Perry Warren (2013). He contributed “Romantic Appropriations,” Chapter 35 of A Companion to Greek and Roman Sexualities, edited by Prof. Thomas K. Hubbard (2014). He is presently completing the four-volume Collected Works of Forrest Reid.

Tomáš Pospíšil je předseda oborové komise doktorského programu oboru Literatury v angličtině a garant programu Severoamerická kulturní studia. Vyučuje americkou literaturu, americký a kanadský film a americká kulturní studia. V letech 1993/94 byl hostujícím badatelem na stipendium ACLS na University of California v Santa Cruz a v roce 1999 Fulbright Fellow na University of Southern California. V poslední době navštěvoval kanadské univerzity (University of Toronto, University of British Columbia) v rámci krátkodobých stipendijních programů (Program obohacování fakulty, Program výzkumu fakulty). Přednášel na řadě mezinárodních univerzit (USA, Německo, Finsko, Polsko, Řecko, Slovinsko, Turecko, Čína), učil intenzivní kurzy v Německu (Magdeburg, Řezno) a účastnil se mezinárodních letních škol (Postupim, Graz).
Je autorem knihy The Progressive Era in American Historical Fiction: John Dos Passos’ The 42nd Parallel and E.L. Doctorow’s Ragtime (1998), Průvodce cestovatele po kultuře Spojených států (2001) a Sambo tu již nebydlí? Obraz Afroameričanů v americkém filmu 20. století (2003). Je také spoluautorem svazku Us-Them-Me, Hledání identity v kanadské literatuře a filmu (2009), kam přispěl kapitolou o kanadském celovečerním filmu. Mezi jeho současné výzkumné zájmy patří zastoupení afroameričanů ve filmu, kanadský hraný film a recepce americké kultury v českých zemích.

Nikola Fořtová se zabývá otázkami výuky angličtiny (ELT) od roku 2002. Je držitelkou certifikátu CELTA i DELTA a má diplom MA z aplikované lingvistiky a výuky angličtiny pro mluvčí jiných jazyků (TESOL). Nikki je tutorkou CELTA, examinátorkou pro ústní cambridgeské jazykové zkoušky a lektorkou Oxford Teachers’ Academy. Vedla metodologické kurzy a praktické workshopy pro učitele angličtiny na řadě míst v Evropě. Zvláště se zajímá o využití technologií ve výuce a vzdělávání. Pomáhala vybudovat několik webů pro online přípravu učitelů a také navrhla a vyučovala několik online i prezenčních kurzů informačních technologií (ICT) pro učitele angličtiny. Její zájem a výzkum se zvláště zaměřuje na to, jak pomoci studentům rozvíjet svou schopnost aktivní ústní komunikace v asynchronním online prostředí. Originally from the UK, Nikki has been a teacher and teacher trainer at Masaryk University since 2005. Nikki pochází se Spojeného království a na MU působí v přípravě učitelů angličtiny od roku 2005.

Kenneth Froehling

Martina Horáková is an Assistant Professor who specializes in and teaches Australian cultural studies, contemporary Indigenous literatures in Australia and North America, minority discourses, and theories of feminism and settler colonialism. She obtained her Ph.D. in comparative literature from Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic. Her dissertation, which won the Czech-American Award for Talented Students in 2008, was published as Inscribing Difference and Resistance: Indigenous Women’s Personal Non-fiction and Life Writing in Australia and North America (MUNI Press, 2017). It examines the ways in which Indigenous women’s nonfiction published in the 1990s contributed to theoretical articulations of Indigenous feminism and to a historiographic counter-discourse which significantly intervened in the dominant narratives of nation-building in settler colonies. Her research was supported by a number of grants and fellowships, including the Endeavour Post-doctoral Research Award at the University of Sydney (2011) and the University of New South Wales (2006), and the Group of Eight European Post-doctoral Fellowship at the University of Queensland in Brisbane (2008). She co-authored Alternatives in Biography with Stephen Hardy, Michael M. Kaylor and Kateřina Prajznerová (MUNI Press, 20111) and published articles and chapters in the following books and journals: Life Writing journal (2020), Handbook of Autobiography/Autofiction (De Gruyter, 2017), European History of English Studies: Gender (Peter Lang, 2015), A Companion to Aboriginal Literature (Camden House, 2013), Contemporary Canadian Literature in English: European Perspectives (Al. I. Cuza Press, 2012), Postcolonial Issues in Australian Literature (Cambria Press, 2010); Zeitschrift für Australienstudien (2015), JEASA (2013), Antipodes journal (2013), Central European Journal of Canadian Studies (2008), Brno Studies in English (2011, 2010, 2007). She is currently working on a book project related to Australian memoirs of settler belonging, which was supported by The Czech Science Foundation (GAČR). She is also the general editor of JEASA (Journal of the European Association for the Studies of Australia) and served as Erasmus mobility coordinator from 2009 to 2016.

Simona Kalová působí na katedře od roku 2009, předtím pracovala jako učitelka jazykové školy, překladatelka a tlumočnice. Je odbornou asistentkou a učí v bakalářském programu. Simona vyučuje a koordinuje kurz praktického jazyka v prvním ročníku, zaměřený na rozvoj jazykových dovedností. Spolu s kolegou Chrisem Rancem vede také kurz Czenglish, v němž se soustředí na potlačení negativních vlivů mateřského jazyka na osvojení angličtiny. Simona absolvovala magisterské studium anglického a italského jazyka a literatury na FF Masarykovy univerzity, a získala titul Ph.D. v oboru Didaktika cizího jazyka na PdF MU (2020). Za svoji disertační práci s názvem Na přesnosti záleží: zkoumání přesnosti žákovského jazyka u pokročilých studentů angličtiny v českém terciárním vzdělávání, získala cenu děkana PdF MU za významný tvůrčí čin studentů. Ve svém výzkumu se Simona zaměřuje na aspekty žákovského jazyka, úlohu chyb a otázky normy ve výuce angličtiny.

Filip Krajník is an Assistant Professor in the field of British Literature. His interests include William Shakespeare, Elizabethan theatre, late mediaeval English literature, literary representations and the intellectual history of sleeping and dreaming, the work of the American SF author Philip K. Dick, and literary translation. Filip graduated from Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic, with a Bachelor’s degree in English and Czech Language and Literature, then gained his Master’s degree in English and Czech Philology at Palacký University in Olomouc, Czech Republic, and a PhD in English Literature at Durham University, United Kingdom. The title of his doctoral thesis was “In the Shadow of Night: Sleeping and Dreaming and Their Technical Rôles in Shakespearian Drama”. Currently, he teaches courses on English Renaissance literature and mediaeval dream-visions. Filip is also a translator of several short-stories and novels from English, including Matthew Nicholls’s A Fistful of Cherries (as Tajemství modrých třešní) and Philip K. Dick’s The Divine Invasion (as Božská invaze), Deus Irae, and The Penultimate Truth (as Předposlední pravda). His translation of Geoffrey Chaucer’s dream-vision The Parliament of Fowls into Czech, including his introduction and notes, was published in 2014.

Linda Nepivodová působí na katedře jako specialistka na jazykové zkoušky a na přípravu učitelů. Kromě toho vyučuje učitelství angličtiny na Pedagogické fakultě. V létě obvykle působí v Británii v managementu ELT jako akademická manažerka pro školy TARGET, které se zaměřují na mladé studenty. Linda má bakalářský diplom z angličtiny a latiny (2004), magisterský z anglického jazyka a literatury se specializací na testování (2007) a Ph.D. z didaktiky cizího jazyka (2018). Má kvalifikaci CELTA a DELTA, pracuje jako nezávislá lektorka CELTA a je examinátorkou pro cambridgeské jazykové zkoušky Cambridge Main Suite and Young Learners’ Exams. Ve výzkumu se zaměřuje na testování a hodnocení, opravy chyb a akvizici druhého jazyka. Je jednou z autorek publikace Chci studovat angličtinu (Barrister a Principal, 2011), poskytující zájemcům testy a strategie pro zvládnutí přijímacích zkoušek na Katedru anglistiky a amerikanistiky. Jako host přednášela ve Velké Británii, USA, Řecku, Maďarsku a jinde a vystoupila s příspěvkem na četných mezinárodních konferencí. Pochází z muzikální rodiny a ráda zpívá.

Markéta Pilařová

Jiří Rambousek graduated in computer science from the Technical College in Brno, and in English and Czech Language and Literature from the Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University. He was the first Head of the Faculty of Arts IT Center. (In November 1989, the Center was used for printing materials during the students’ strike—see materials and his photos from the time). After leaving the IT Center, Jiří never gave up his IT activities completely: he helped introduce e-learning to the English Department and the Faculty of Arts, and initiated a complete retro-digitization of all scholarly articles by the Faculty of Arts staff (some two hundred thousand pages; to be launched soon). He also published several articles on e-learning. After completing his studies at the Faculty of Arts in 1991, Jiří became active as translator and began to teach courses in translation, and became a full-time member of the English Department in 1995. He also served as its Head in 1999-2001, and was Faculty of Arts vice-dean for IT in 2006-2010. He ran three subsequent grant projects establishing access to selected on-line resources for English studies for the entire Czech academia, and participated in several research grants such as Postavení literárního překladu v české společnosti po roce 1945 (Situation of literary translation in the Czech society after 1945; Jiří and the Brno Department were responsible for Anglophone literatures in the joint grant with Faculty of Arts, Charles University, with Stanislav Rubáš as Head of the research). Jiří’s fields of interest are history of translation, translation of children’s literature, and lexicographical aspects of translation.

Lucie Seibertová focuses on literary translation and authorship studies. She earned her master’s degree in English and French from Masaryk University in 2009. Her research interests include translation plagiarism, copyright, collaborative authorship, and works by disabled authors.
Between 2009 and 2011 she participated in the project Postavení literárního překladu v české společnosti po roce 1945. It resulted in the publication of the book Slovo za slovem: S překladateli o překládání (Prague: Academia, 2012), which is a collection of interviews with 27 Czech translators active under the communist regime.
She has also presented research at several international conferences, including 10th ESSE International Conference (2010) and 7th International Postgraduate Conference in Translation and Interpreting (2011).

Thomas Donaldson Sparling

Jeffrey Vanderziel’s path into the disciplines of literature and cultural studies has been an uncommon one. As an American doctoral student who came to the region doing field work in Anthropology, he first encountered today’s Czech Republic in the 1980s (before the Velvet Revolution). Returning to the country in the 90s during the heady years of post-Cold War transformation, he joined Masaryk University’s Department of English and American Studies as a lecturer. He became Department Chair in 2002. In his decade at its helm, it has been his blessing and burden to guide the Department’s development through constant challenges and exciting advances. Dedicated and talented colleagues have helped him to create a modern department noted for high standards and academic excellence, where students train in the most contemporary global research in Anglo-American and Anglophone literature and cultural studies, linguistics and teacher training. Jeff is proud to lead a faculty that is passionate about advanced research and equally committed to pedagogy, whose students go on to succeed as professionals in diverse fields: as university educators, journalists, historians, diplomats, entrepreneurs, translators, and secondary school teachers. Besides his administration of the department’s daily workings and its long term ambitions, Jeff teaches and publishes on North American Indigenous People’s History, Literature and Culture, Migration and Immigration in North America, Gay Studies, African American History and Culture, and American Geographies. His publications include the books, Identity through Art, Thought and the Imaginary in the Canadian Space (2009) and Winnetou Doesn't Live Here: an Anthology of Contemporary American Indian Short Stories (2003).

Stephen Hardy se narodil v Manchesteru v Anglii, na univerzitách v Yorku a Warwicku vystudoval oboru Angličtina a příbuzné literatury, Učitelství lingvistiky a angličtiny a Britská kulturní studia. Vyučoval anglický jazyk a literaturu v Anglii, Skotsku, Švédsku, Dánsku a Řecku. V roce 1986 byl vyslán jako lektor British Council do Olomouce, od roku 1989 pak vyučuje literaturu a kulturní studia na naší katedře. V současnosti vyučuje britskou literaturu devatenáctého a dvacátého století, irskou literaturu dvacátého století, poválečnou americkou beletrii, britskou poezii dvacátého století a britská kulturní studia. Jeho hlavním výzkumným zájmem jsou vztahy mezi kulturní geografií, filozofií a poválečnou britskou a americkou literaturou. Mezi jeho nedávné významné publikace patří Relations of Place: Aspects of Late Twentieth Century Fiction (2008) a sekce „Versions of Pastoral Biography: Ackroyd, Carter, Berger“ v knize Alternatives in Biography: Writing Lives in Diverse English-Language Contexts (2012; knihu redigoval spolu s M. Horákovou, M. M. Kaylorem a K. Prajznerovou). V současné době je v tisku kniha hledající vztahy mezi některými aspekty procesní filozofie, městské geografie a environmentálního myšlení a mezi nedávným vývojem v britské poezii, románech a kulturních dějinách.

Miroslav Ježek se zaměřuje na sociolingvistiku a jazykové variace a změny, zejména na výslovnost a její standardní i nestandardní varianty. Titul Ph.D. v oboru anglické jazykovědy získal na Masarykově univerzitě v roce 2017. Prezentoval své příspěvky na řadě konferencí v České republice i v zahraničí, zejména v Lodži na konferencích Akcenty. Vyučuje kurzy Úvod do jazykovědy a Úvod do fonetiky a fonologie.

Renata Kamenická is an assistant professor in the field of translation studies and the head of the program in English-language Translation. She teaches courses covering the theory of translation, text and discourse analysis for translators, translation skills cultivation, translation-specific tendencies and various courses in literary translation. Her research interests include translational explicitation and implicitation as symptoms of translator style, various aspects of literary stylistics for translators, application of cognitive styles in translation pedagogy and empirical research in cultural translation practices, on which topics she has published a host of articles in various journals and edited volumes. She has delivered papers at international conferences in the Czech and Slovak Republic and abroad (Ireland, Germany, Spain, Italy, Hungary) and held guest lectures at foreign universities (Finland, Portugal) as well as workshops for the Czech unit of DGT Luxembourg (2010, 2011). Alongside her academic career, Renata Kamenická has continued to be a translator, with about a dozen book translations (both popular science and fiction) published – novels by W. Trevor and K. Ishiguro among them. She enjoys working with students and has supervised nearly forty Master’s theses in translation studies. She is a member of the editorial board of Brno Studies in English.

Jana Pelclová is an Assistant Professor in the field of linguistics. Her research interests lie in stylistics, pragmatics and the discourse of advertising. She also focuses on the language and characterization in children’s fiction, and on linguistic landscape. She co-edited Persuasion in public discourse: Cognitive and functional perspectives (2018, John Benjamins, with Wei-lun Lu), her chapter “Meaning you have been known to act rashly”. How Molly Weasley negotiates her identity as a moral authority in conflicts in the Harry Potter series was published in Manners, Norms and Transgressions in the History of English. Literary and linguistic approaches (2020, John Benjamins, edited by A. H. Jucker and I. Taavitsainen). Her articles have been published in Topics in Linguistics, Kalbu Studijos/Studies about languages (a member of the editorial board) and in Brno Studies in English. At the department, she teaches English Grammar and Introduction to Stylistics (in the Bachelor’s Degree Studies), and a couple of courses in the Master’s Degree Studies, e.g. Discourse of Folktales, Language of Advertising, Pragmatics or Reading Harry Potter: Linguistic, Literary and Cultural Analyses (with F. Krajník, Ph.D.).

Christopher Adam Rance

Jitka Sedláčková

Jeff Smith, Assistant Professor, holds an M.A. and Ph.D. in English Language and Literature from the University of Chicago and a Master of Fine Arts degree from the School of Theater, Film and Television at the University of California - Los Angeles. His research and teaching focus on the literatures and cultures of America, with particular attention to the interplay of literature, politics and the popular arts. His first book, Unthinking the Unthinkable (Indiana University Press), which grew in part out of work he did at the British Film Institute on a U.K. Fulbright Fellowship, applied literary and film analysis to examine the cultural origins of the Cold War nuclear threat; his second book, The Presidents We Imagine (University of Wisconsin Press, Studies in American Thought and Culture series), completed while he was a Visiting Fellow at Oxford University’s Rothermere American Institute, is a comprehensive analytical history of representations of American presidents and presidential politics in fiction, stage plays, film, television and digital media. Jeff has presented papers at the national conventions of the Modern Language Association, the Society for Cinema Studies and the Popular Culture Association, and his articles have appeared in various journals including Film/Literature Quarterly, Studies in American Humor, the European Journal of American Culture, College English, and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. A former news reporter, he has written for the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times, served as a consultant and project manager for U.S. television news networks, and taught media studies, communications and writing at UCLA and the University of Southern California, as well as American literature, film and cultural history as a Fulbright lecturer in Bulgaria and the Czech Republic. Having written and directed for theater companies in Chicago, London and Los Angeles, he also currently serves as Artistic Director of the Gypsywood Players.

Kateřina Tomková’s lifelong passion for the spoken form of English was established at the age of 6 when she chanced to spend a year in Canada. Quite an early start by those times' standards, and she has followed her fascination ever since. She obtained her PhDr. degree in English and French from Masaryk University in 1986, has worked at the Department of English and American Studies since 1990 and has run her private English-language total-immersion preschool and afternoon classes since 1993. Katka's professional interests include English Phonetics and Phonology, the synthesis of pronunciation and other speaking skills at different academic levels, the use of music and drama for speech training, pronunciation varieties of English and the perceptions of non-native pronunciation of English by native speakers, which was the topic of her Ph.D. dissertation of 2008. Katka has taken part in conferences organized by her department, in a Summer School of English Phonetics at University College London and will give a paper at the Accents 2012 Conference in Lodz, Poland. Katka is the entrance exam coordinator for the department.

Jitka Vlčková joined the department in 1993 after having been a freelance translator for the Academy of Sciences for more than a decade. Her research career has centered on the social content of the history of Australia, from the past to the present. She has published a number of articles on various aspects in communication, with a focus on cross-cultural interaction. She has held several fellowships including London University, University of NSW and Technical University Archangelsk and obtained grants for a short-term study at the University of Goteborg in Sweden and the University of Pennsylvania in the United States. Her present research is aimed at indigenous peoples and minority issues related to status, gender, identity and racism. Apart from the communities in Anglo-Saxon countries her intellectual interests center on disadvantaged groups in the Czech Republic.