Tryby literaturoznawczej bezczynności
Modes of Literary Idleness

Circle of Polonists at the University of Poznań

Author(s): Adela Kobelska
Subject(s): Studies of Literature, Polish Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
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.

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