Prepoznavanje spisateljskog dara

Author(s): Vitomir Pavlović / Language(s): Bosnian Issue: 24/2007

Pridružujem se disputu o književnom djelu Zlatka Dukića, svjestan da moj prilog neće biti ni učen, ni mudar, ni svečan, ali s mišlju da je njegovo spisateljstvo, praktično, zamamno za razne uglove posmatranja, a da se ne napusti preovlađujuća optika o toleranciji reporterskog i književnog iskaza. Iako sam pomenuo poštapalicu »praktično«, vidjećemo da je tu riječ i o teoriji, ali ne toliko o teoriji književnosti, koliko o teoriji žurnalizma. Otuda će biti nužno da se odmah pređe na temu, a to je moguće reminiscencijom ili pozivanjem na rijetku, ali korisnu praksu u jednoj novinskoj kući koje (bez svoje krivice) nema evo već nekoliko godina.

Zwroty ku przestrzeni w badaniach literackich – próba uporządkowania pojęć i podstawowe rozróżnienia

Author(s): Kamila Gieba / Language(s): Polish Issue: 23/2015

An increased interest in space in the humanities can be referred to as a spatial, topographic or topological shift. This article is an attempt at organizing these concepts and defining the fundamental differences between them. Based on the findings of European and American researchers (including Edward Soja, Sigrid Weigel, Ernest W.B. Hess-Lüttich, and Joseph Hillis Miller) and a Polish literary scholar (Elizabeth Rybicka), the author tries to distinguish, and define the relationship, between spatial, topographic and topological shifts. This article was inspired by the terminological chaos in the Polish humanities.

Transgresja i literatura

Author(s): Grzegorz Pertek / Language(s): Polish Issue: 22/2014

The author of this article attempts to redefine the category of transgression. By preparing a preliminary typology of the existing uses of this concept, he puts forward the hypothesis that, on the one hand, transgression can be identified with (is synonymous with) going beyond the limit of something, and on the other hand, it can be equated with the constant conflict between its empirical and linguistic dimensions as well as its thematization and formalization. The author proposes to define transgression as the act of setting/removing a certain limit. This definition overcomes the above-mentioned difficulties because it not only has an ambiguous aspect (undecidability), i.e. both a positive (construction) and a negative (destruction) dimension, but it also pushes the issues related to transgression into the domain of negotiations, i.e. interactions with the reader (reception, tradition and criticism), from which it derives its inventive potential.

Prospekty i ścieżki awangardy. Przypadek Tadeusza Peipera

Author(s): Joanna Grądziel-Wójcik / Language(s): Polish Issue: 22/2014

The author presents the ways in which “Peiperism”, i.e. a model of thinking about the avant-garde as exemplified by the reception of Tadeusz Peiper’s works, is disintegrating today. Research on avant-garde poetry which privileged a theoretical perspective resulted in the distorted reception of texts, thus building a doctrinal model of the first avant-garde that marginalized or objectified literary works. However, the restoration of the superior role of poetry which was absorbed and dominated by the structural concept of poetic language compels readers to “leave the beaten track” and try to read Peiper’s works in a different way. At the same time, established opinions on the intellectual and nonphysical as well as fully expressible and complex model of the Cracow avantgarde are redefined. A closer look at the texts reveals interpretational differences and shows that avant-garde authors’ utopian projects are not necessarily congruent with their output.

Autor: empiryczny, modelowy czy wirtualny?

Author(s): Paweł Bohuszewicz,Tomasz Markiewka / Language(s): Polish Issue: 22/2014

The article titled Autor: empiryczny, modelowy czy wirtualny? [“An empirical, model, or virtual author?”] presents a discussion about the terms used in the title which was held by the article’s authors. P. Bohuszewicz defends the validity of the concepts of an empirical and a virtual author, the latter being the result of “rewriting” Umberto Eco’s idea of a model author. T. Szymon Markiewka claims that the concept of a model author and that of a virtual author are unnecessary multiplications of theoretical entities: we only need the concept of an empirical author, but we also need to remember about all the complications related to this concept.

„Śmierć w starych dekoracjach”, czyli „aisthesis” według Tadeusza Różewicza

Author(s): Irena Górska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 21/2014

The aim of this article is to present Różewicz’s way of thinking about the concept of aisthesis based on his short story Śmierć w starych dekoracjach [Death in the Old Decorations]. Różewicz, who follows current trends in aesthetics which appreciate the role that the body and all of the senses play in an aesthetic experience, ennobles the very body that remains a center of sensory and aesthetic perception, in accordance with Richard Shusterman’s somatic philosophy. However, Różewicz’s character, who starts with simple sensory impressions, constantly goes beyond the senses and provides a commentary on each new ordinary, everyday experience as well as an experience of art. These commentaries are constructed from memories, images, reflections or free digressions which are often very remote from what they were triggered by. Różewicz emphasizes both the importance of what is rational and what is sensory for an aesthetic experience, thus overcoming a belief which was promoted by traditional aesthetics, i.e. about the exceptionality of psychological attitudes to aesthetic experiences. He extends aestheticism to include areas that are traditionally considered to be unaesthetic in order to capture the full essence of aisthesis. Therefore, he does not differentiate between the experience of art and ordinary, everyday experiences. This is because aisthesis in Śmierć w starych dekoracjach is a force that merges all these experiences into one whole, thus turning an experience of art into an experience of existence.

Hirsch o interpretacji. Analiza krytyczna

Author(s): Andrzej Szahaj / Language(s): Polish Issue: 20/2013

The main aim of the article is to reconstruct and critique E.D. Hirsch’s position in the debate about the necessary conditions and results of any interpretation. The author of this article seeks to demonstrate the difficulties connected with the intentionalist approach to the theory of interpretation which is typical of E.D. Hirsch and which unjustifiably privileges authorial intention. He also attempts to uncover the hidden assumptions of this approach by showing that, generally speaking, the dualist tendencies that are present in Hirsch’s theory cannot be justified. One of the objectives of this article is to propose an alternative approach to interpretation, which has been inspired by Stanley Fish and which emphasizes the integrity and monistic nature of interpretation as well as its constructivist and inevitably evaluative character. The author points to the fact that the arbitrarily established evaluation limits are unjustified as there is an element of evaluation on every level of interpretation and that the difference between understanding and interpretation cannot be validated. Also, one cannot interpret a text without each time referring to the social and cultural context.

Dokuczliwy skrzyp hermeneutycznego koła – komentarz do artykułu Andrzeja Szahaja

Author(s): Danuta Szajnert / Language(s): Polish Issue: 20/2013

This essay is merely an additional commentary on the article entitled “Hirsch o interpretacji. Analiza krytyczna” (“Hirsch on interpretation. A critical analysis”). I do not focus here on Szahaj’s detailed objections to the concepts proposed by the author of Validity in Interpretation. I concentrate instead on the idea that forms the basis for such objections, i.e. radical, cultural interpretative constructivism. As a skeptical intentionalist, I cannot fully share his opinion and, therefore, I draw attention to views according to which the constructivist paradigm is becoming conventionalized and exhausted (especially in the humanities) and to the possible ways in which it can be overcome.

O interpretacji

Author(s): Michał Januszkiewicz / Language(s): Polish Issue: 20/2013

The article entitled “On interpretation” is an attempt to formulate a viewpoint on the issue of textual interpretation. It presents different ideas related to interpretation, including especially those that are concerned with a text’s meaning and with the way in which it is interpreted by the reader. The author proposes another interpretation method which he calls transactional. The primary concern is how to possibly justify the fundamental character of interpretation and interpretative activity while at the same time preserving and respecting the relative autonomy of an interpreted text.

Poezja konkretna w trzech obszarach językowych

Author(s): Aleksandra Kremer / Language(s): Polish Issue: 19/2013

This paper analyzes different paths of the development of both the movement and the notion of concrete poetry in three linguistic regions. The German-language konkrete Dichtung turns out to usually denote the original, historical shape of the movement, which was partly created in German- speaking countries and which has been treated as a literary phenomenon. The English language term concrete poetry is a much broader category which also encompasses visual poetry and avant-garde texts that are distant from the sources of concretism in its early form. The Polish understanding of ‘poezja konkretna’ [concrete poetry] was influenced by both German- and English- language books and by the movement’s regional version, which appeared in Poland as late as in the 1970s. The selected linguistic areas allowed the author to show three basic ways of thinking about concretism, i.e. about its initial, international, and regional versions.

Od Isera do Turnera i dalej. Na styku teorii recepcji i krytyki kognitywnej (przełożył Mateusz Marecki)

Author(s): Craig Hamilton,Ralf Schneider / Language(s): Polish Issue: 18/2012

In this essay, we review the work of Wolfgang Iser, the major proponent of reception theory, and Mark Turner, the major proponent of cognitive criticism. The two theoretical lines advocated by Iser and Turner focus on the cognitive processes involved with reading literary texts. Unfortunately, bibliographic blind spots in both lines lead to the assumption that there is little overlap between reception theory and cognitive criticism. We put this assumption to rest by comparing and contrasting works by Iser and Turner in detail, starting with Iser’s work in the mid-1970s and ending with Turner’s work in the late 1990s.

Teoria literatury doby „zwrotów”: o jubileuszowej ankiecie „Tekstów Drugich”

Author(s): Paweł Bohuszewicz / Language(s): Polish Issue: 17/2012

After 20 years of appearance in print of “Teksty Drugie” magazine, its chief editor, Ryszard Nycz, has prepared some general questions and refers them to the closest collaborators. Many of them are poststructuralistic, but not only: the text of Ewa Domańska consists of the project of return of natural sciences into the core of humanities, and Danuta Ulicka’s text The Archival Turn (As I See It) announces the necessity of a turn to philology – not its 16th or 19th century versions, but postmodern philology.

Próba artykulacji

Author(s): Wojciech Sztaba / Language(s): Polish Issue: 14/2010

Witkacy’s Pure Form expresses the metaphysical essence of art. On the one side, it symbolizes the structure of the world, the unity in plurality (which is demonstrated in the picture’s composition) and, on the other, the notion deals with the processes of creating and perceiving an art work. The moment in which the self feels itself embedded in the wholeness of the world is the moment in which the metaphysical feeling arises, and in which the experience of art is fulfilled. Witkacy provides many examples for situations evoking this feeling. He describes them in his novels, he finds synonyms as suchness, curiosity of existence, mystery of being or unity of identity, he switches from scientific to poetic language. And he emphasizes that this feeling, while defying verbalization, is a real, not a supernatural one: a psychophysical phenomenon accessible to introspection, and inseparable from one's cultural and individual background.

Od „Zarysu teorii nonsensu” do czystego nonsensu w życiu codziennym

Author(s): Krzysztof Obremski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 12/2009

Contrary to common conviction, which treats pure nonsense and logic as a relation of incompatibility and incongruity, it is the relation of contiguity that appears to be fundamental for the principle of the paralogic of pure nonsense. Like in the poetry of nonsense also even nonsensical jokes or absurd situations appear to be peculiarly logical (i.e. paralogical). Studies of metaphor and panegyric seem to be this trope, which most closely leads to the goal which is a theory of literature view of pure nonsense.

Literatura i Biblia. Filiacja niemożliwa (Przełożył Krzysztof Hoffmann)

Author(s): J. Hillis Miller / Language(s): Polish Issue: 11/2009

Krzysztof Hoffmann's translation of Literature and Scripture. An Impossible Filiation, part of J. Hillis Miller's book, For Derrida, Fordham University Press, New York 2009.

Zarys dziejów encyklopedii dla dzieci i młodzieży w Polsce do 1989 roku

Author(s): Agnieszka Wandel / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2017

The aim of the paper is to depict the history of editions and thesubsequent stages in the formation of the editorial form of encyclopaedias forchildren and youth from the first half of the eighteenth century through to1989 years.

Пјесништво и древне загонетке: Порфиријев оглед О пећини нимфи у Одисеји

Author(s): Jovana Šijaković / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 2/2017

The paper aims to give an understanding of Porphyry’s exegetical approach in the essay On the Cave of the Nymphs highlighting its relevance to literary studies. The analysis is centered around the content and compositional issues. It takes into account the relation of the essay to author’s other Homeric studies. Attention is given to the nature of the employed allegoresis and the conceptions guiding the interpretation are explored as well.

Egy regény epicentrumában

Author(s): Zsolt Láng / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 06/2017

Studiile culturale în spațiul academic și educațional românesc

Author(s): Dumitru Tucan / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 55/2017

The paper examines the ambiguous status of Cultural Studies as a discipline in Romanian higher education and Academia; the basis of the analysis is a corpus of publications associated with Cultural Studies that are produced by the members of the academic community of the West University of Timişoara. The premise of the analysis is the observation that Cultural Studies in Romanian universities represent two different projects (i.e. with different genealogies, different methodologies, and different understandings of the cultural phenomenon) that are competing for primacy within the institutionalized academic field. Moreover, there is no real dialogue between these two different projects. First of all, there is the modern project of Cultural Anthropology (that continues the traditional project of ethnology with an innovative theoretical framework). This project, with an extension to Social Anthropology and Cultural History and influenced by the French Academia (Histoire des mentalités, L'École des Annales), seems to occupy the centre of the disciplinary field of Cultural Studies in Romanian Academia at present. The second project, belonging to the British and American Cultural Studies, is a later outcome of British and American Literary Studies. This project has a complex theoretical framework, resulting from the developments of the 20th century Literary Theory and Critical Theory (structuralism, post-structuralism), and gives a complex definition to culture, seen as a “reality” shaped by ideological, social, and economic factors. Although critically questioning the cultural phenomenon, the two projects manifest rather ambiguously in the Romanian Academia as a theoretical speculation that mainly emphasizes the cultural and identitary texture of literature (imagology, cultural geography, feminist criticism etc.). These ambiguous manifestations are the main reasons why there is a deficit of legitimacy for Cultural Studies in the eyes of traditional practitioners of Literary Studies and also this ambiguity makes room for a number of contestations and accusations of dilettantism, eclecticism, and cultural relativism. In fact, these accusations are the consequences of the traditional discourse on culture, rather eager to express identity and ideology, and allergic to the critical principles of Cultural Studies.

Out of that Hole: Reflections of the Demetrian Myth in Six Contemporary Poems

Author(s): Tatjana Bijelić / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2017

Focusing on the most revisited ancient mother–daughter myth, that of Demeter and Persephone, the paper engages with some of Demetercentered appropriations of the myth in contemporary poetry written by women. Through continual reworkings of the archetypal story about the strongest primary bond between two biologically related females and their forced separation due to male intervention, women poets are increasingly addressing the qualities of Demeter’s new-era powers to regain her progeny and restore abundance. While concerned with possibilities of revival and regeneration, contemporary poetic renditions of the mythic framework offer a whole array of plots and images that tend to both perpetuate and challenge original versions of the myth by reassessing the dynamics of mother-daughter disengagement and reunion. The aim of the paper is to examine and juxtapose the strategies of performing the Demeter-Persephone myth in six contemporary Demetrian poems in which their authors extend the mythic space to incorporate other benevolent female characters and their journeys (Fainlight), situate their speakers and Persephones within a national tradition or a familiar setting (Boland), celebrate the birth of a new Persephone (Duffy), embrace the era of contradictions and its impacts on the female body (Ostriker), and fragmenting the myth through the use of various discourses to simulate instant yet profound interplays of deaths and revivals (O’Rourke).