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Import/Export: Trafficking in Cross-Cultural Shakespearean Spaces

Author(s): Christy Desmet / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2017

This essay examines the phenomenon of cross-cultural Shakespearean “traffic” as an import/export “business” by analyzing the usefulness of the concept crosscultural through a series of theoretical binaries: Global vs. Local Shakespeares, Glocal and Intercultural Shakespeare; and the very definition of space and place within the Shakespearean lexicon. The essay argues that theoretically, the opposition of global and local Shakespeares has a tendency to collapse, and both glocal and intercultural Shakespeares are the object of serious critique. However, the project of cross-cultural Shakespeare is sustained by the dialectic between memorialization and forgetting that attends all attempts to record these cross-cultural experiences. The meaning of crosscultural Shakespeare lies in the interpreter’s agency.

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Maria Magdalena – bohaterka jezuickiej epigramatyki. Przegląd źródeł

Author(s): Jarosław Nowaszczuk / Language(s): Polish Issue: 3/2017

The body of epigrams authored by Jesuit poets of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries comprise many texts with Mary Magdalene as a character. They were written by representatives of a few generations of authors, regardless of their origins. Such texts can also be found in the work of the most remarkable authors, including – to mention only a few – Bernardus Bauhusius, Franciscus Remondus, Matthias Casimirus Sarbiewski, Petrus Alois, Petrus Iustus Sautel and many others. A revival of interest in supernatural mediators came after the Council of Trent, particularly following the publication of On the Invocation, Veneration, and Relics of Saints, and on Sacred Images (De invocatione, veneratione et reliquis sanctorum et sacris imaginibus) and the Roman Martyrology (Martyrologium Romanum). The saints glorified in poetry are mainly representatives of modern times, including the Society of Jesus (Societas Iesu) itself. The biblical character of Mary Magdalene has a special place among these “modern” characters.An analysis of Latin collections of epigrams published in print indicates a tendency to produce poetic cycles or to arrange poems according to a particular central rule, especially the chronology of the events in biographical entries on the saint. Such epigrams were written predominantly in the late Renaissance and early baroque, with not so many in the second half of the 17th century. It seems that reading tastes and habits changed considerably during that period. Short texts with blunt conclusions became popular. The themes from previous texts dedicated to Mary Magdalene, such as earthly love versus supernatural love, crying and the fire of love, found their way into other literary genres. However, this ‘migration’ phenomenon has not been explained to this day. As a matter of conjecture, the transition of artistically sublime motifs into lyrical forms may have been strongly influenced by the theory of concepts. After all, it must be admitted that epigrams honouring Mary Magdalene paint a clear picture of the predominant cultural trends in the Renaissance and baroque times and testify to the literary preferences and literary theory of those days.

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Profesor Janina Niemirska-Pliszczyńska – wybitny dydaktyk i badacz antyku grecko-rzymskiego

Author(s): Anna Budzeń / Language(s): Polish Issue: 3/2017

The author of this article examines two main areas of life of professor Janina Niemirska-Pliszczyńska; both – her educational and scholar activities in order to prove her great contribution to literature and culture not only in our country but also abroad. As a teacher of Latin first in Unia Lubelska Grammar-School and after World War II also in Stanisław Staszic Grammar-School in Lublin, prof. Niemirska-Pliszczyńska demonstrated much pedagogical talent, distinguished knowledge and love for the Greek and Roman Antiquity. As the academic in the Classical Philology Department at the Catholic University of Lublin (from 1952) Prof. Pliszczyńska gave lectures on Greek and Roman literature and conducted Greek seminar, proseminar and from 1967 also a doctoral seminar. She was the supervisor of about forty MA dissertations and six doctoral theses as well. To help teachers of classical languages in their didactic work and to make learning Greek and Latin easier for students, Prof. Pliszczyńska wrote and published Greek and Latin textbooks and articles on teaching of Latin in the journal Paideia that she edited herself. In spite of many years’ work at secondary schools and her demanding educational activities at the University, she raised excellent literary output including two monographs: De elocutione Pliniana (Lublin 1955) – all written in Latin and: Wokół Dolonei (Around Doloneia, Lublin 1966) on the authenticity of the tenth song in Homer’s Iliad. It also included several articles on Homer’s epics, Pausanias’ periegesis, Plato’s dialogues, Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, St. Paul’s letters and language of Clement of Alexandria. And finally it included Prof. Pliszczyńska’s perfect translations of Greek and Roman literature: Żywoty cezarów (The Twelve Caesars, The Lives of the (Twelve) Caesars, Lives of the Caesars – LOEB 1997) by Suetonius, Wędrówki po Helladzie (Description of Greece) by Pausanias and Dywany, Stromateis (Stromata) by Clement of Alexandria. For her outstanding achievements Prof. Pliszczyńska was awarded Silver Cross of Merit (1944) and Knight’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta (1973).

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Not Minding the Gap: Intercultural Shakespeare in Britain

Author(s): Varsha Panjwani / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2017

The article takes issue with the perceived space/gap between the multiple identities of mixed-heritage groups, as most of these people often pick and choose elements from all of their identities and amalgamate them into a cross-cultural whole. In recent years, such mixed-heritage groups in the U.K. have increasingly found cultural expression in Shakespeare. Focusing specifically on a number of recent Shakespearean productions, by what I term Brasian (my preferred term for British-Asians as it suggests a more fused identity) theater companies, the article demonstrates how these productions employ hybrid aesthetic styles, stories, and theater forms to present a layered Braisian identity. It argues that these productions not only provide a nuanced understanding of the intercultural map of Britain but are also a rich breeding ground for innovative Shakespeare productions in the U.K.

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Seeing with a Filmmaker’s Eyes: Glimpses of Mobilized Landscapes in Stan Brakhage’s The Wonder Ring (1955) and Visions in Meditation #2: Mesa Verde (1989)

Author(s): Kornelia Boczkowska / Language(s): English Issue: 11/2017

In this paper I present various ways in which Stan Brakhage’s The Wonder Ring (1955) and Visions in Meditation #2: Mesa Verde (1989) tend to challenge the concept of American landscape by means of cinematic conventions traditionally associated with phantom rides, city symphonies and contemporary road movies. It seems that Brakhage’s works do not only employ non-standard editing, camera movement and extended shot to reproduce a continuous flow of motion, but they also exploit the dynamics between the spectactor’s “mobilized virtual gaze” (Friedberg, Window 2) and passing views by evoking a distorted experience of sensational and meditative voyages, hence questioning panoramic perception and an idealized image of American (film) landscape intrinsically bound with the natural and technological sublime. Particularly, both films draw on rapid handheld camerawork, superimpositions, anamorphic lens, bright or dim exposures, fades, odd angles, softened focus and other techniques to defamiliarize and objectify the protagonist’s journey and thus document Brakhage’s perception and extra-objective reality.

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Some Leaks, Some Draughts: On Three Unstaged Polish Translations of Harold Pinter’s Plays

Author(s): Łukasz Borowiec / Language(s): English Issue: 11/2017

The article discusses translations of three plays by Harold Pinter (The Room, Party Time, Moonlight) which so far have not been staged in Poland. The plays are significant since they represent three major stages in Pinter’s playwriting career while simultaneously enriching and extending Pinter’s predominant motifs and concerns. So as to reflect the inherent duality of the dramatic text (which can be treated both as a literary work and a script for potential performance), the article investigates the translations of the plays by placing emphasis on their literary as well as theatrical features. This is done with a view to presenting challenges facing translators of Pinter’s plays and to reflect on selected translator’s choices and strategies which might have a bearing on the interpretation by potential readers as well as theatre practitioners. It is especially relevant in the light of Pinter’s determination in underlining the importance of the dramatic text in the actual performance.

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“You Can’t Opt Out”: The Inescapability of Virtuality in Joshua Ferris’s To Rise Again at a Decent Hour

Author(s): Piotr Czerwiński / Language(s): English Issue: 11/2017

The paper looks at how Joshua Ferris’s To Rise Again at a Decent Hour reflects the increasing importance of virtuality in shaping human identity. It argues that in the age of ubiquitous computing, facilitated by wearable technology, the virtual has become an intrinsic part of human phenotype. Consequently, the self can be construed as a construct relying both on the real and the virtual for creating identity, which is a dynamic entity undergoing unceasing modifications. Additionally, due to the transparency and omnipresence of wearable technology the process appears to be unconscious to an individual and, therefore, inevitable and irreversible.

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The Author’s Second Self or a Set of Implicit Norms: The Concept of the Implied Author and Its Discontents

Author(s): Grzegorz Maziarczyk / Language(s): English Issue: 11/2017

Despite being a standard element of formalist poetics, the notion of the implied author actually resists easy conceptualisation. This paper analyses classical Western theorisations of the implied author and relates them to relevant Polish literary-theoretical studies in order to assess the utility of the concept. It demonstrates that the implied author can be construed as an anthropomorphic entity (re-)constructed by the reader on the basis of textual signals. Thus understood, the notion of the implied author throws into sharp relief a lack of straightforward correlation between the real author and the idea of author derived from the text, and therefore proves to be a useful literary-theoretical tool.

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“This England”: Re-Visiting Shakespearean Landscapes and Mediascapes in John Akomfrah’s The Nine Muses (2010)

Author(s): Maurizio Calbi / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2017

The paper will offer a reading of John Akomfrah’s The Nine Muses (2010), a 90-minute experimental feature film that has been defined as “one of the most vital and original artistic responses to the subject of immigration that British cinema has ever produced” (Mitchell). It will focus on the multifarious ways in which the film makes the “canonical” literary material that it incorporates, including Shakespeare, interact with rarely seen archival material from the BBC regarding the experience of Caribbean and South Asian immigrants in 1950's and 1960's Britain. It will argue that through this interaction the familiarity of Western “canonical” literature re-presents itself as an uncanny landscape haunted by other stories, as a language that is already in itself the “language of the other” (Derrida). In particular, it will claim that Shakespearean fragments are often used in an idiosyncratic way, and they repeatedly resonate with some of the most fundamental ethical and political issues of the film, such as the question of England as “home” and migration. The paper will also argue that the decontextualization and recontextualization of these fragments makes them re-emerge as part of an interrogation of the mediality of the medium, an interrogation that also offers insights into the circulation of Shakespeare in the contemporary mediascape.

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The Renaissance Melancholy Assemblage, Space, and the Baroque Problem of Thought

Author(s): Kamil Rusiłowicz / Language(s): English Issue: 11/2017

The article discusses Drew Daniel’s theory of the melancholy assemblage. By juxtaposing Daniel’s appropriation of Deleuze and Guattari’s ideas with Manuel De Landa’s discussion of the assemblage theory, it addresses the issue of space which, in spite of being one of the parameters of an assemblage, is absent from Daniel’s The Melancholy Assemblage. Therefore, the first question asked in the present article concerns the reason behind Daniel’s neglect of the spatial dimension of an assemblage. The second issue discussed in the article concerns the tension between forces of territorialization and deterritorialization in a melancholy assemblage. By approaching the issue from the vantage point of the neobaroque theory, the article argues that Daniel’s Renaissance melancholy assemblages already touch upon the problematic relation between performance and essence that would find its full manifestation during the Baroque.

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Modernity and Utopia in Bruno Latour’s We Have Never Been Modern and Gabriel Josipovici’s What Ever Happened to Modernism

Author(s): Magdalena Sawa / Language(s): English Issue: 11/2017

This article seeks to explore the relation between utopia and modernity on the basis of Thomas More’s Utopia (1516) as well as two seminal contemporary studies: Bruno Latour’s We Have Never Been Modern (1992) and Gabriel Josipovici’s What Ever Happened to Modernism? (2010). The ambiguous nature of the modern prototype of utopia which displays both the eutopian and the dystopian (self-critical) impulse seems reflected in the nature of modernity. With auto-criticism inscribed in the constitution of both utopia and modernity, the leading desires of the modern period—for a greater emancipation and domination—prove to be its greatest burden both in the socio-political sphere as well as in art and literature.

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Artistic Experiment as a Cognitive Strategy of the Contemporary Novel: A Case Study of Onde estas? by Sebastian Bukaczewski

Author(s): Joanna Klara Teske / Language(s): English Issue: 11/2017

There are many ways in which the term experiment may be used with reference to art and, in particular, the novel. Most commonly the term is used for innovative techniques employed in artefacts. But artistic experiment may also consist in (1) the reader using artefacts to evoke her aesthetic response and enhance thereby her introspective potential, (2) the author (and the reader) exploring in the mode of fiction how real people might behave in certain situations, (3) the reader testing upon herself a hypothesis inscribed in the novel’s design. In this paper, the theoretical considerations are illustrated with an in-depth study of Bukaczewski’s Onde estas? as well as a brief discussion of other contemporary novels.

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Word, Colour and Sound: John Gould Fletcher’s Hybrid “Colour Symphonies”

Author(s): Sławomir Wącior / Language(s): English Issue: 11/2017

The paper undertakes as its subject the problem of complexity in the composition of a cycle of poems called “Colour Symphonies” written by an American modernist poet John Gould Fletcher in the first decades of the twentieth century. The uniqueness of composition of the entire cycle as well as its separate “colour” parts consists in combining visual representations with diverse sonic effects in a joint effort of creating in this way a singular poetic verbal equivalent. Such hybrid-like compound becomes in turn a carrier of emotional states which the poet attempts to render in successive parts of the cycle. Fletcher’s sequence of colour symphonies is a supreme example of modernist hybridity of composition so characteristic for its numerous poetic groups like for example Imagism.

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Nos/Otras Living in Nepantla: Gloria Anzaldúa’s Concepts of Borderland Identity in Contemporary World

Author(s): Grażyna Zygadło / Language(s): English Issue: 11/2017

This text is devoted to Borderlands identity theory created by Gloria Anzaldúa, Mexican–American writer and activist, in the context of feminist criticism of women of color, or Third World feminism. The author discusses some of the most important concepts and theories created by Anzaldúa throughout her literary career such as: a vision of El Mundo Zurdo; the idea of bridging understood as a connection between women from different backgrounds; theory of inclusivity which encompasses various previously excluded categories of oppresion (ethnicity, sexuality, class, origin, etc.); the idea called New Tribalism; the concept of Nepantla; theory of nos/otras; and finally the idea of conocimiento, which is an alternative method of knowledge acquisition resulting from the awakening of consciousness. The major goal of the paper is to show how certain ideas, which have been present in literature and the humanities for many years, can now be applied in the contemporary world as a solution to the problem of incomprehension of differences between “us” and “others.”

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ALHAMIJADO ILMIHAL ABDULVEHHABA ILHAMIJE ŽEPČAKA

Author(s): Elvir Duranović / Language(s): Bosnian Issue: 38/2017

The paper presents so far known aljamiado manuscripts of Ilmihal by Abdulbvehhab Ilhamija Žepčak, indicating the specificity of the manuscript graphy per Rs 94 of the National and University Library in Sarajevo. Comparative analysis between Ilhamija’s Ilmihal and other aljamiado religious textbooks of 19th century has been conducted. Transliteration of the full text of Ilmihal with commentaries has been offered, including a dictionary of Arabisms, Truisms, and localisms, providing a more complete picture of this significant aljamiado work.

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Of Monsters, Myths and Marketing: The Case of the Loch Ness Monster

Author(s): James Moir / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2015

This paper examines the status of the Loch Ness Monster within a diverse body of literature relating to Scotland. Within cryptozoology this creature is considered as a source of investigation, something to be taken seriously as a scientific or quasi-scientific object to be studied and known, particularly in light of its elusive nature. In terms of mythology the creature is bound up with Scottish cultural identifications through references to a rugged wilderness landscape and to iconic, if stereotypical, images of tartanry, bygone castles, and folklore. Both sets of ideas have been used with great effect to generate a diversity of literature: from books and scientific papers that chronicle the sightings and “hunt” for the creature as well the possible case for it being a line of long-surviving plesiosaurs, through to children’s literature that deals with the mythic element that is so often used to appeal to childhood imagination, and on to a plethora of tourist marketing booklets and brochures.

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Poza metaforą – autyzm jako impas hermeneutyczny w powieści postkolonialnej

Author(s): Dorota Kołodziejczyk / Language(s): Polish Issue: 30/2017

A lot of postcolonial novels feature characters with disordered communication, unable to express their will, existing outside of language. These most often unnamed traces of autism and/or intellectual disability become in fictional narrative an element disturbing the expected outcome of postcolonial vindications, out of which the most important is regaining by a marginalized character the sense of subjectivity, realized as a possibility to tell one’s own story. Basing on Ato Quayson’s concept of “aesthetic nervousness”, the article traces how literary and cultural representations of disability introduce into a text affective-cognitive mechanisms which reveal, as Ato Quayson says, “heremeneutic impasse” caused by a confrontation of the norm with disability. This blocked path of text interpretation poses the radical example of untranslatability which will not be abated or compensated by the effort to substitute lack represented by the autistic subject (lack of speech, communication, subjectivity – in general – lack of participation in the universe of interlocution, as Seyla Benhabib calls it). Hermeneutic impasse is, then, inscribed in the very narrative structure featuring an autistic character. On the basis of J.M. Coetzee’s novels, the article analyses this impasse as resistance that untranslatability poses against the attempts to understand, that is, represent, such a subject. These attempts, ethical as to their purpose, end up, however, in containment.

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Czytanie jako działanie, dzieło jako zdarzenie. Czy możliwa jest poetyka literatury interaktywnej?

Author(s): Elżbieta Winiecka / Language(s): Polish Issue: 30/2017

The article describes new phenomena in the field of literature that have developed under the influence of digital technology. It points out to the conversion of the ontology of works and modification of the nature of perception that are associated with digital media. Literature created in digital technology becomes an audiovisual and multimedia experience. Its audience is given a new kind of experience based on participation. Participation is related to interactivity, which is one of the basic features of digital objects. They need action rather than contemplation to reveal. The authoress points out that, in new literary phenomena, digital medium becomes an important part of the work. It influences its structure, functions, manner of existence, and strategies for impact on the recipient. Every act of interactive reading is transformed into a performance – a oneoff and a unique event. Reading is transformed from contemplation into action engaging the reader’s physicality. Description of this modification of literary communication and the poetics of reception can be the key to understanding the essence of e-literature.

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Odra – rzeka ekoparadygmatyczna

Author(s): Anna Barcz / Language(s): Polish Issue: 30/2017

The author aims at presenting examples of literary descriptions of Odra flooding (especially in the context of the most recent in 1997 and 2010) and the river regions in the perspective of aquacriticism. This approach belongs to a wider concept of ecocriticism which perceives the river as a key part of environment. The question being posed is what kind of influence can be traced in literary texts representing floods and how does literature influence perception of aquatic catastrophes such as floods. Since flood belongs to the catastrophe discourse, it blurs anthropocentric knowledge on rivers and indicates aquacentric modes of recognition. The ecoparadigmatic role of Odra is indicated by Silesian authors (in the collection Wie die Oder rauscht) and writers biographically connected with the river (Tokarczuk). The environmental function of the river can be better acknowledged through literary fiction that “gives voice to the river”.

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Gra w baśnie. O relacji baśni i gier wideo

Author(s): Agnieszka Polachowska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 30/2017

The article presents the new-founded relations between the genre of fairytale and its representations in video games. Following the concept of multimedia genres created by Edward Balcerzan, the article demonstrates a holistic view of the term “genre”. It combines it with the media theory by Krzysztof Kozłowski, which emphasizes social connotations of each medium and their ability to represent different genres. On the other hand, each and every genre can manifest itself through various media that enables mutual development. This theory finds its reflection in the analysis of the above-mentioned relations. The author applies the theoretical tools used for the analysis and interpretation of literary fairytales to video games based on the fairytale motifs. Two chosen examples, Trine by the Frozenbyte studio and Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons by the Starbreeze studio, represent not only a new way to fulfill the potential of the genre, but also innovative solutions in the evolution of gaming.

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