Contact Information
707 S Mathews Ave
M/C 173
Urbana, IL 61801
Office Hours
Research Interests
Czech literature
Forgery and mystification
History of translation
Russian literature
Nationalism in literature
Grants
National Center for Supercomputing Applications, Faculty Fellow 2020
National Council for Eurasian and East European Research, Title VIII National Research Competition Grant
Courses Taught
SLAV 525 Slavic Folklore
RUSS 220 Golden Age of Russian Literature
SLAV 430 History of Translation
SLAV 452 Eastern Europe and EU Integration
SLAV 576 Methods in Slavic Grad Study
RUSS 511 Russian Literature 1800-1855
SLAV 477 Post-communist Fiction
SLAV 120 Russian & E Euro Folktales
Additional Campus Affiliations
Head, Slavic Languages and Literatures
Professor, Slavic Languages and Literatures
Professor, School of Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics
Professor, Program in Medieval Studies
Professor, European Union Center
Professor, Russian, East European and Eurasian Center
Professor, Center for Global Studies
Professor, National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA)
Highlighted Publications
Journal Articles
“Type-Token Ratio and Entropy as Measures to Characterize a Forgery of Oral-Formulaic Epics,” with Demetry Ogoltsev and Michal Ondrejcek, Oral Tradition 36:1 (Spring 2023): 37–62.
"Two Purportedly Medieval Czech Poems." Delos: A Journal of Translation and World Literature, vol. 33, no. 1, 2018, p. 75-89.
"Padělky jako romantická forma autorství: Rukopisy královédvorský a zelenohorský ze srovnávací perspektivy." Česká literatura, no. 1, 2012, p. 26-44.
"Competing Languages of Czech Nation-Building: Jan Kollár and the Melodiousness of Czech." Slavic Review, vol. 67, no. 2, 2008, p. 301–20.
"Narodnost' avant la lettre? Andrei Turgenev, Aleksei Merzliakov, and the National Turn in Russian Criticism." Slavic and East European Journal, vol. 52, no. 3, 2008, p. 351–69.
"Vasilii Zhukovskii as a Translator and the Protean Russian Nation." Russian Review, vol. 66, no. 2, 2007, p. 185–203.
Book Contributions
"The Classical Form of the Nation: The Convergence of Greek and Folk Forms in Czech and Russian Literature in the 1810s." The Voice of the People: Writing the European Folk Revival, 1761-1900, edited by Michael Perraudin, edited by Matthew Campbell. London: Anthem Press, 2012.
"Vasilii Zhukovskii as a Translator and the Protean Russian Nation." Contexts, Subtexts, and Pretexts: Literary Translation in Eastern Europe and Russia, 2011.
"The Rukopis Královédvorský and the Formation of Czech National Literary History." Between Texts, Languages, and Cultures: A Festschrift for Michael Henry Heim, edited by Craig Cravens, edited by Masako Fidler, edited by Susan Kresin. Bloomington, IN: Slavica, 2008, p. 157-67.
Books
The Czech Manuscripts: Forgery, Translation, and National Myth. Ithaca: Cornell UP, imprint of Northern Illinois UP, 2023.
Creating the Nation: Identity and Aesthetics in Early Nineteenth-century Russia and Bohemia. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2010.
Edited Books
The Queen's Court and Green Mountain Manuscripts, With Other Forgeries of the Czech Revival. Ann Arbor: Michigan Slavic Publications, 2018. Winner 2019 AATSEEL Book Award, Best Scholarly Translation
Traditional Slovak Folktales; Collected by Pavol Dobšinský. 2001.
Podcasts and Interviews
SlavicConnexion podcast "Bohemian Forgery: The Legendary Czech Manuscripts and National Myth," Sept. 2, 2023
Radio Prague International interview, "An epic literary hoax: new book explores 19th-century manuscript forgeries that helped found a nation," Nov. 29, 2023
History of Literature podcast, "The Czech Manuscript Hoax," Jan. 25, 2024
The Slavic Literature pod, "The Czech Manuscripts," Feb. 9, 2024
Recent Publications
Cooper, D. L. (2023). The Czech Manuscripts: Forgery, Translation, and National Myth. (NIU Series in Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies). Northern Illinois University Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7591/j.ctv33mgb3h
Cooper, D. L. (2019). Nový překlad Rukopisů královédvorského a zelenohorského do angličtiny. In D. Dobiáš (Ed.), Rukopisy královédvorský a zelenohorský: Studie z recepce v kultuře a umění (pp. 1437-47). Academia.
Cooper, D. L. (2019). Review: J. Kalik and A. Uchitel's Slavic Gods and Heroes. Slavic Review, 78(4), 1092-3.
Cooper, D. L. (2018). Review: T. Hlobil's Výuka dobrého vkusu jako státní zájem II: Závěr rané pražské univerzitní estetiky ve středoevropských souvislostech 1805-1848. Comparative Literature Studies, 50(2), 446-49.
Cooper, D. L. (Ed.) (2018). The Queen’s Court and Green Mountain Manuscripts, with Other Forgeries of the Czech Revival. (Czech Translation Series; Vol. 6). Michigan Slavic Publications.