Państwo bez wstrętu
The State without Disgust
Author(s): Przemysław CzaplińskiSubject(s): History, Social Sciences, Language and Literature Studies, Literary Texts, Jewish studies, Fiction, Studies of Literature, Sociology, Social history, Recent History (1900 till today), Novel, Polish Literature, Demography and human biology, Environmental interactions, Pre-WW I & WW I (1900 -1919), History of Antisemitism, Ethnic Minorities Studies, Sociology of Politics
Published by: Instytut Badań Literackich Polskiej Akademii Nauk
Keywords: collective hero; bioclass; biomass; biopolitics; modernity; the state; disgust
Summary/Abstract: In this article Czapliński proposes to read Stefan Żeromski’s novel Before the Spring as a rather cruel project of the modern state. In this state the key subjects are communities (bioclasses and social classes) whose raison d’être are reproduction and productiveness. The biopolitical state must take them into consideration, as their usefulness transcends their own disgustingness. The state need not consider infertile classes (the landed gentry) or unproductive classes (parts of the Jewry), as their inability to meet the new criterion they are inexorably stigmatized as odious.
Journal: Teksty Drugie
- Issue Year: 2016
- Issue No: 1
- Page Range: 108-125
- Page Count: 18
- Language: Polish
- Content File-PDF