Petr Kopecký is an associate professor at the Department of English and American Studies, University of Ostrava, Czech Republic. In 2003-2004, he was a Fulbright research scholar at San José State University, California. His first book The California Crucible: Literary Harbingers of Deep Ecology was published by the University of Ostrava Press in 2007. In 2013, he published a book titled Robinson Jeffers a John Steinbeck: Vzdálení i blízcí in which he examines the contact zones in the writings of these two Californian authors through an ecocritical perspective. As an educator and independent city council member, he advocates the inclusion of media literacy, critical thinking and democratic education into curricula.