Podmioty bezczynności
The Actors of Idleness
Contributor(s): Magda Nabiałek (Editor), Anna Piniewska (Editor), Piotr Sidorowicz (Editor), Łukasz Wróbel (Editor)
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, Polish Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: idleness; literary theory; literary criticism; actors of idleness; Parabasis Series
Summary/Abstract: The subject of the monograph arose from two needs: theoretical and social. The reflection on “idleness” was not about fetishization of the factual state or nihilistic drafting of the end of agency, but about critical reflection on what failed, what is dependent, seemingly active, overactive, scruffy, impotent, vanishing, idle, depressing, melancholic, ineffective, discontinued, unknown or acting against idleness. On the one hand, idleness has creative potential, on the other hand, there is always someone else: the state, authorities, society, institution, group, community, individual, creator.
Series: Parabaza
- E-ISBN-13: 978-83-235-6345-7
- Print-ISBN-13: 978-83-235-6337-2
- Page Count: 438
- Publication Year: 2024
- Language: Polish
Biogramy autorów
Biogramy autorów
(About the authors)
- Author(s):Not Specified Author
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Language and Literature Studies
- Page Range:419-423
- No. of Pages:5
Hercen, wolność, my
Hercen, wolność, my
(Herzen, Freedom, We)
- Author(s):Katarzyna Kuczyńska-Koschany
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Studies of Literature, Polish Literature
- Page Range:11-21
- No. of Pages:11
- Keywords:Herzen; freedom; refugees; Russia; Poland; role of intellectuals
- Summary/Abstract:The essay is an attempt to measure the concept of freedom and define the role of an intellectual in the face of the conflicts of the 2020s. The paper also recalls the figure of Alexander Herzen and calls for adopting his attitude nowadays. In this way the author tries to ask a question about the role of an intellectual in Central and Eastern Europe.
- Price: 4.50 €
Marionetka i linoskoczek
Marionetka i linoskoczek
(Marionette and Tightrope Walker)
- Author(s):Magda Nabiałek
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Studies of Literature, Polish Literature
- Page Range:23-45
- No. of Pages:23
- Keywords:drama; marionette; tightrope walker
- Summary/Abstract:The article presents suggestions for reading lesser-known dramas of the 1920s and 1930s with a special focus on the figures of the dramatis peronae. The author proposes two figures – a marionette and a tightrope walker, the use of which allows us to see, on the one hand, the social dimension of drama, on the other – the reflections activated in it from the anthropological, existential and metaphysical order.
- Price: 4.50 €
„To nie dziewczę mówi, ale przez dziewczę mówi”
„To nie dziewczę mówi, ale przez dziewczę mówi”
(‘It Is Not the Girl Who Speaks, but Through the Girl It Speaks’)
- Author(s):Agata Żaglewska
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Studies of Literature, Polish Literature
- Page Range:47-72
- No. of Pages:26
- Keywords:Deotyma; improvisation; performance; ineffectiveness
- Summary/Abstract:The article discusses Jadwiga Łuszczewska’s (Deotyma) improvised poetry performances from the point of view of the artist’s inaction. I describe Deotyma’s performances and point out external factors – historical, environmental, moral – which significantly impacted the structure of the performances, even more significantly than the artist herself. Finally, I summarise the nature of Łuszczewska’s improvised shows by naming them ‘faulty (ineffective, missed) performances’.
- Price: 4.50 €
„To bieda, że nic zacząć nie mogę…” – Szczęsny Kossakowski jako podmiot bezczynności
„To bieda, że nic zacząć nie mogę…” – Szczęsny Kossakowski jako podmiot bezczynności
(‘It Is a Pity that I Cannot Start Anything…’ – Szczęsny Kossakowski as a Subject of Idleness)
- Author(s):Helena Markowska-Fulara
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Studies of Literature, Polish Literature
- Page Range:73-92
- No. of Pages:20
- Keywords:Juliusz Słowacki; Horsztyński; irony; Hamlet; network theory; drama
- Summary/Abstract:This paper attempts a comprehensive analysis of Juliusz Słowacki’s "Horsztyński" as a drama posing the question of individual subjectivity and its (in)existence in relation to others. This problem is framed in the drama itself by three questions: What am I?, What am I thinking? and What to do? The interpretation is supported by a reconstruction of the structure of Horsztyński using a model created with inspiration from network theory. The author posits the thesis of the inability of the protagonist, Szczęsny, to take action as being written into the very structure of the piece.
- Price: 4.50 €
O impotencji, zaniku woli oraz braku sprawczości (Flaubert, Melville)
O impotencji, zaniku woli oraz braku sprawczości (Flaubert, Melville)
(On Impotence, Atrophy of the Will and Lack of Agency (Flaubert, Melville))
- Author(s):Łukasz Wróbel
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Studies of Literature, Polish Literature
- Page Range:93-116
- No. of Pages:24
- Keywords:Flaubert; Melville; potentiality; potence; will; agency; impotentiality; impotence
- Summary/Abstract:The aim of this article is to read Gustave Flaubert’s "Bouvard and Pécuchet" and Hermann Melville’s "Bartleby, the Scrivener. A Story of Wall-Street" in the light of the demiurgic impotence, creative unproductivity, atrophy of the will and loss of agency – problematised and fictionalized in them. The works’ protagonists are characters experiencing the loss of a transcendent and/or quasi-transcendental signifié, figures of a weak subject affected by multidimensional disintegration, functioning amidst the ruins of a once stable world.
- Price: 4.50 €
Imperatyw deskryptywny w "Dociekaniach filozoficznych" Ludwiga Wittgensteina
Imperatyw deskryptywny w "Dociekaniach filozoficznych" Ludwiga Wittgensteina
(Descriptive Imperative in Ludwig Wittgenstein’s "Philosophical Investigations")
- Author(s):Monika Kopcik
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Studies of Literature, Polish Literature
- Page Range:117-136
- No. of Pages:20
- Keywords:descriptive imperative; Philosophical Investigations; Ludwig Wittgenstein
- Summary/Abstract:The aim of the article is to define the status of the subject in "Philosophical Investigations", implied both by Ludwig Wittgenstein’s descriptive mode of investigation and by composition of remarks in the so-called Part I. The philosopher examines utterances that belong either to the philosophical discourse or to communal practices involving words. The descriptive method limits the function of the subject to simply registering forms of expression that spontaneously come to mind. The subject’s inaction, dictated by the ‘descriptive imperative’ (explanations must be replaced by mere description), serves to distinguish various language games and to demarcate points of view.
- Price: 4.50 €
Niechlujna wirtuozeria Stefana Themersona
Niechlujna wirtuozeria Stefana Themersona
(The Sloppy Virtuosity of Stefan Themerson)
- Author(s):Karolina Kulpa
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Studies of Literature, Polish Literature
- Page Range:137-163
- No. of Pages:27
- Keywords:sloppiness; avant-garde; Franciszka Themerson; sloppiness; Stefan Themerson; weak avant-garde
- Summary/Abstract:The article focuses on the strategy of sloppiness, which was first formulated in Stefan Themerson’s theoretical text "The Urge to Create Visions" (1937). It is considered an artistic trick, a means of expression and a particular kind of creative inaction. Sloppiness is juxtaposed with such categories as Breton’s perturbation, Witold Lutosławski’s ‘controlled aleatorism’, Karol Hiller’s ‘revolted matter’, Italian spazzatura, or Boris Groys’ ‘weak avant-garde’, among others. The author shows that the aesthetic sloppiness postulated by the Themerson is an original concept of the Polish artists (although related to similar tendencies of avant-garde movements), moreover, it is realised in their film, painting and prose works.
- Price: 4.50 €
Tryby literaturoznawczej bezczynności
Tryby literaturoznawczej bezczynności
(Modes of Literary Idleness)
- Author(s):Adela Kobelska
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Studies of Literature, Polish Literature
- Page Range:165-184
- No. of Pages:20
- Keywords:idleness; Poznań Circle of Polonists; Konstanty Troczyński; cultural history of literary studies; sociology of knowledge; science studies; social role of the man of knowledge; scholar; commonality
- Summary/Abstract:The paper proposes to extend the field of the history of literary studies by examining a specific set of non-academic practices. Despite the fact that these practices such as school teaching, editing or writing for newspapers, radio broadcasting, literary creation, involvement in projects of various cultural and artistic associations are not academic, they could be seen as driven by a critical disposition specific to modern literary theory. The author tries to show the advantages of such a change of perspective by using the example of The University of Poznań Circle of Polonists in the twenties and thirties of the twentieth century. She points out that the dominant modus operandi of the members of the Circle corresponds to the type of a man of knowledge whom Florian Znaniecki called “a disseminator of knowledge” – a scholar whose role is scientifically unproductive, but socially very important.
- Price: 4.50 €
W sprawie rozprawy tendencyjnej
W sprawie rozprawy tendencyjnej
(About the Tendentious Dissertation)
- Author(s):Piotr Sidorowicz
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Studies of Literature, Polish Literature
- Page Range:185-204
- No. of Pages:20
- Keywords:Żółkiewski; Mickiewicz; entanglement; involvement; marxism
- Summary/Abstract:The paper focuses on the issues of scientific activity and inactivity as well as academic involvement. Stefan Żółkiewski’s "Spór o Mickiewicza" was used as the research material, which was not valued for its scientific content, but is described as a fact entangled in ideological and political relations. However, it is not a simple criticism of Żółkiewski’s approach, but an attempt to understand the entanglement of this particular book in the researcher’s legacy. Consequently, the revision of the methodological basis of this dissertation has been supplemented by contextual analysis in order to clarify a specific act of scientific communication.
- Price: 4.50 €
(Bez)czynność interpretacji na przykładzie "Odyseusza przy maszcie" Marcii Sá Cavalcante Schuback
(Bez)czynność interpretacji na przykładzie "Odyseusza przy maszcie" Marcii Sá Cavalcante Schuback
((Dis)interpretation on the Example of "Ulysses at the Mast" by Marcia Sá Cavalcante Schuback)
- Author(s):Aleksandra Ziobro
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Studies of Literature, Polish Literature
- Page Range:205-217
- No. of Pages:13
- Keywords:sirens; Homer; dualis; etymology
- Summary/Abstract:The point of this article is analyzing the functionality of etymological and grammatical references in Marcia Sá Cavalcante Schuback’s "Ulysses at the Mast" ("Odyseusz przy maszcie") from the collection of essays Pochwała nicości. The author assumes that usage of dualis by Homer must mean that sirens were specifically two and she’s creating her interpretation based on this assumption. Furthermore, she uses debatable etymology and quotes meanings of the words that don’t occur in dictionaries. References of this kind are supposed to legitimise the interpretation but in effect they make the validity of the essay dubious.
- Price: 4.50 €
Przeciwko bezczynności – żydowskie młodzieżowe farmy rolnicze
Przeciwko bezczynności – żydowskie młodzieżowe farmy rolnicze
(Against Idleness – Jewish Youth Farms)
- Author(s):Alina Molisak
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Studies of Literature, Polish Literature
- Page Range:219-244
- No. of Pages:26
- Keywords:youth; Zionism; farms; interwar Poland; magazines
- Summary/Abstract:The analysis of two selected magazines (“Zew Młodych” and “Diwrei Akiba”), published by youth Zionist organizations that established and operated agricultural farms in interwar Poland, aims to show the activity of the young generation of Jews. Daily activities and farm work as well as engaged journalism or other forms of writing are evidence of the importance of the gesture of empowerment, the pursuit of causality and in such a way of forming a modern identity.
- Price: 4.50 €
O niepełnosprawności
O niepełnosprawności
(On Disability)
- Author(s):Anna Piniewska
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Studies of Literature, Polish Literature
- Page Range:245-264
- No. of Pages:20
- Keywords:disability; ableism; language; idleness
- Summary/Abstract:The aim of this article is to discuss selected practices of violence that generate idleness of people with disabilities or the conceptualization of such people as idle, unable to act, dependent, and therefore (according to ableist rhetoric) useless or even unworthy of life. Thus, I will reflect on various language phenomena related to the perception of disability, for the description of which the category of idleness – although rather absent in critical disability studies – may prove adequate.
- Price: 4.50 €
„Żaden pałac nie runie sam z siebie”
„Żaden pałac nie runie sam z siebie”
(‘No Palace Will Collapse by Itself’)
- Author(s):Jadwiga Biernacka
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Studies of Literature, Polish Literature
- Page Range:265-286
- No. of Pages:22
- Keywords:literary journalism; effectiveness; currentness; press; hero; change; activity; idleness
- Summary/Abstract:The effectiveness of literary reportage, understood as its ability to cause changes in the described society, is for some researchers, but above all creators, one of the most important determinants of the genre. Many journalists set themselves the goal of changing reality and influencing the fate of their heroes, but very few succeed. This only happens when the story persuades its readers to intervene. Because the mere publication of a story, no matter how interesting or innovative it is, has no such power. The aim of this article is therefore to examine what conditions must be met (by various elements and various participants in communication) for the reportage to trigger real changes. Contrary to the definitions and hopes of their creators, it is the feeling of helplessness and inaction, and not revolution or even evolution, that are the most common products of reading reportages. Only some texts manage to reach the right audience, present the right characters, hit the right place and time to initiate the postulated change. On the example of several Polish, European and American works, the effectiveness of which has been confirmed, I will try to answer the question of what the “right” of all the indicated categories means.
- Price: 4.50 €
Bezczynność bohaterki drugoosobowej biografii
Bezczynność bohaterki drugoosobowej biografii
(The Idleness of the Protagonist in the Second Person Biography)
- Author(s):Joanna Jeziorska-Haładyj
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Studies of Literature, Polish Literature
- Page Range:287-303
- No. of Pages:17
- Keywords:second-person narration; biography; Marguerite Yourcenar
- Summary/Abstract:The article tackles the problem of the status of the protagonist in second person biography. I consider him to be an inactive subject, a silent addressee listening to the story of his own life, subordinated to the interpretative activity of the overactive narrator. My case study is Michèle Sarde’s "Vous, Marguerite Yourcenar", a biography of the author of Hadrian’s Memoirs. The consequent second person narrative feigns an intimate, empathetic dialogue with the protagonist, while presenting an arbitrary and definite reinterpretation of certain facts. The narrator, using psychoanalytical devices, puts forward a couple of strong theses concerning Yourcenar’s life and works. She claims that all the crucial experiences took place in her youth, before the emigration. The second person is accompanied by other mechanisms of beletrisation, shifting the biography in the direction of the biographical novel.
- Price: 4.50 €
Depresja a melancholia
Depresja a melancholia
(Depression Versus Melancholy)
- Author(s):Zuzanna Sala
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Studies of Literature, Polish Literature
- Page Range:305-327
- No. of Pages:23
- Keywords:depression; melancholy; hauntology; dyschrony
- Summary/Abstract:The article discusses three books of interpretative essays from the past decade that use the category of “depression” to analyze texts: "Ghosts of my Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures" by Mark Fisher (2014), "Going Nowhere, Slow: The Aesthetics and Politics of Depression" by Mikkel Krause Frantzen (2018) and "Pokolenie wyżu depresyjnego. Biografia" ["The Depression Boom Generation. A Biography"] by Michał Tabaczyński (2019). In the article the authors’ decision to include the psychopathological term in the titles or subtitles of their works (not the transhistorical category of “melancholy”) is understood in the socioeconomic context. The inspired on critical theory interpretations made by the authors in question, provide a basis for exploring the features of depressive literature in a non-individual context and for examining the aesthetic consequences of dealing with depression in literature and art.
- Price: 4.50 €
"Mój rok relaksu i odpoczynku" Ottessy Moshfegh i "Serotonina" Michela Houellebecqa w świetle koncepcji bezczynności Giorgia Agambena
"Mój rok relaksu i odpoczynku" Ottessy Moshfegh i "Serotonina" Michela Houellebecqa w świetle koncepcji bezczynności Giorgia Agambena
(Agamben’s Concept of Idleness in Michel Houellebecq’s "Serotonin" and Ottessa Moshfegh’s "My Year of Rest and Relaxation")
- Author(s):Wiosna Szukała
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Studies of Literature, Polish Literature
- Page Range:329-354
- No. of Pages:26
- Keywords:inoperativity; inoperosità; Agamben; Houellebecq; Moshfegh
- Summary/Abstract:The aim of this paper is to compare literary representations of inactivity in the light of Giorgio Agamben’s political philosophy. The subject of the analysis are two novels published at the same time, just before 2020: "Serotonin" (2019) by Michel Houellebecq and "My Year of Rest and Relaxation" (2018) by Ottessa Moshfegh. The protagonists of both narratives experience a crisis, a sense of ending, a broadly understood exhaustion, causing in them the need to temporarily withdraw from the world and reflect on the current form of life. The author looks at the genesis of the existential strategy of inaction undertaken by the narrators, the elements that constitute it, and the results which it leads to. Then, using the critical categories proposed by the Italian philosopher – such as inoperosità, potentiality, katargeo, acedia, bios/zoe, habit – she reflects on the subversive potential of inactivity presented in the novels.
- Price: 4.50 €
„O końcu świata, który trwa, przypominam sobie nieczęsto, są bowiem sprawy ważniejsze”
„O końcu świata, który trwa, przypominam sobie nieczęsto, są bowiem sprawy ważniejsze”
(‘The End of the World, Which Lasts, I Do Not Often Remember About, Because There Are More Important Things')
- Author(s):Mateusz Kaliński
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Studies of Literature, Polish Literature
- Page Range:355-380
- No. of Pages:26
- Keywords:Polish poetry; ecopoetics; ecocritics; hauntology; climate catastrophe
- Summary/Abstract:The aim of this article is to analyze Małgorzata Lebda’s "Mer de Glace" (2021) in terms of the tension that seems to arise between the seemingly calm, harmonious everyday life and the “end of the world”, which can be identified as a climate catastrophe. Using the Derridian concept of hauntology, I try to read Lebda’s works as a testimony of attempts to exorcise the spectrum of the ongoing crisis by creating alternative, non-anthropocentric models of being in the world and immersing them in everyday life.
- Price: 4.50 €
Dyskursy nibyczynności
Dyskursy nibyczynności
(Discourses of Quasi-Activity)
- Author(s):Agnieszka Kluba
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Studies of Literature, Polish Literature
- Page Range:381-397
- No. of Pages:17
- Keywords:discourse; quasi-activity; performativity; agency; anthropocene; declarativism; sociologicalism; thematicism; anthropocentrism; moralism; Asianization; technocratization; literality; dehumanization
- Summary/Abstract:The article introduces the notion and term of “quasi-activity” to capture a certain variety of talkative contemporary inaction, hiding behind the idea of causative words and involuntarily succumbing to dehumanizing technocratic mechanisms. The author presents the contemporary eagerness of multiplying discourses, terms, concepts and various categorical games – in the humanities and public space – as a kind of substitute activities, distracting from interventions that could significantly transform the world around. As an example of the extreme divergence of discursive practice from the requirement of actions implied by the object, the example of the anthropocene theory is indicated. The thesis of the article is also illustrated by examples taken from other areas of discursive practice.
- Price: 4.50 €
Dodatek folklorystyczny
Dodatek folklorystyczny
(Folklore supplement)
- Author(s):Magda Nabiałek, Anna Piniewska, Piotr Sidorowicz, Łukasz Wróbel
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Studies of Literature, Polish Literature
- Page Range:399-417
- No. of Pages:19
- Keywords:idleness; literary theory; literary criticism; actors of idleness; Parabasis Series
- Summary/Abstract:The subject of the monograph arose from two needs: theoretical and social. The reflection on “idleness” was not about fetishization of the factual state or nihilistic drafting of the end of agency, but about critical reflection on what failed, what is dependent, seemingly active, overactive, scruffy, impotent, vanishing, idle, depressing, melancholic, ineffective, discontinued, unknown or acting against idleness. On the one hand, idleness has creative potential, on the other hand, there is always someone else: the state, authorities, society, institution, group, community, individual, creator.
- Price: 4.50 €
