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When speaking of Zeno's famous paradox (Achilles and the tortoise), Lacan remarks: A number has a limit and it is to that extent that it is infinite. It is quite clear that Achilles can only pass the tortoise - he cannot catch up with it. He only catches up with it at infinity (infinitude).
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Incognito de P. Dumitriu et Le Docteur Jivago de Pasternak sont deux romans publiés en 1962. Ils s’appuient tous deux, selon des modalités et avec des spécificités analysées dans l’article, non seulement sur le modèle du roman bourgeois qui s’appuie sur une trajectoire individuelle, sur un substrat chrétien et, en particulier, recours au mythe christique, qu’il convient néanmoins de dépasser, afin de régénérer ou de mettre à bas un communisme qui a perdu de vue la personne humaine.
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The concept of revolution is not new to the Egyptian nation; a nation known for its long struggle for freedom and democracy throughout ages. This nation witnessed the ancient civilization in the world as well as the firstrevolutions and political upheavals on Earth. The aim of this research accordingly is to shed the light on the most important revolutions known by the Egyptians, especially during the modern and contemporary times embodied in the 1919 Revolution, 23 July Revolution in 1952 (or the Free Officers Revolution), and finally 25 January Revolution in 2011. It also attempts to investigate how these revolutions were presented in fiction and the role of the writers in depicting the various forms of power and class struggle within the Egyptian society. In addition, how these writers felt their responsibility towards their country to the extent that they not only reflect the revolutions but, some of them, predict the revolution before it occurred. The selected novels for such purposes are Naguib Mahfouz's Palace Walk, YusufAl- Sibai's Rudda Qalbi (Give Back My Heart), and Mohamed Salmawy'sButterfly Wings. These selected works are to be critically analyzed in the light of Lukács's Reflection Theory and Foucault's Concept of Power.
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This paper attempts an exploration of the language and style in Ese Ifain Yorubaland with the purpose of revealing the gross under – utilization of the resources of this vital Yoruba cultural heritage. The other purpose in this paper is to show the elaborateness, the universality and the antiquity of Orunmila’s Ifa as the religious and philosophical Scripture of the Yorubas.Through interviews, personal experience, and observation, the paper establishes that the language and style in Ese Ifa is an oral tradition deep lyrooted in the culture of the people and it is essential to preserve its indigenousnature. This is discussed from mythological and spiritual perspectives. It highlights the role of Ese Ifa in the social, religious and political milieu of the Yoruba people; and finally, the paper concludes that even until today, Ese Ifa,with its rich linguistic and poetic features, is recognized by the Yoruba traditional body of knowledge embracing history, philosophy, medicine and folklore despite the trappings of modernization. It is expected that the paper will help in illuminating important aspects of the dynamics and significance of the Yoruba Oracle, Ifa within the context of religion-spiritual vision in the post – colonial Nigeria, in modern Africa and the globalized world.
More...El Canon del Aire. Lectura de "Las Aves"de Aristophanes
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Review of: Das Fremde erfahren. Polen-Litauen, Deutschland und Frankreich in der frühneuzeitlichen Reiseliteratur. Hrsg von Włodzimierz Z i e n t a r a und Liliana L e wa n d o w s k a . Katedra Filologii Germańskiej. Uniw. Mikołaja Kopernika. Toruń 2014. 314 S. ISBN 978-83-940698-2- 7. Reviewed by Norbert Kersken.
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The article analyzes the examples of adaptations of literary works in different media from the perspective of adaptation studies. The focus is placed on the transformation and interpretation of the narrative, characters, images, symbols, space, time of the adapted work in other media. The aim is to identify intertexts and to show the dialogism of the interpretations created by the directors in the general context of adaptation of the same literary work. Two works by the writer Franz Kafka were selected for analysis. The first one is a short story, Metamorphosis (1915). The adaptions are the play, Judgment: Metamorphosis (2012), by the Lithuanian director Paulius Ignatavičius and a film, Franz Kafka. Wonderful Life (1993), by the Scottish director Peter Capaldi. These directors adapt the novel in different ways. Ignatavičius combines it with other works by F. Kafka, and Capaldi looks back at the writer’s biography and the process of writing a short story. The second work by Kafka is the novel, The Castle (1924). Its first adaptation is as a contemporary opera by German independent opera company NOVOFLOT and director Sven Holm – The Castle (Das Schloss, 2013). Here the novel is combined with Franz Schubert’s music, The novel’s second adaption is a film by Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke entitled The Castle (Das Schloß, 1997). It focuses on transposing all elements of the novel’s narrative into cinematic media.
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This essay questions the possibility and validity of multiculturalism by referring to the diagnosis and exposition of instrumental sympathy – a modern affect with an orientalist inclination in disguise – brought up in David Henry Hwang’s masterpiece M. Butterfly. Multiculturalism remains frail and unachievable when the appreciation of an exotic culture is designed to fulfill a desire for appropriation. I also recognize Song’s soft strategy as an effective means to expose the racist will to dominate and subjugate – powered by the hazardous instrumental sympathy – in contemporary multicultural discourse and practice. More than a fictional attraction, the innovation in the exploration of softness makes Song an ideal philosopher that Deleuze and Guattari have sought to call forth to create new assemblages that do not prioritize racial and cultural power. The attainability of multiculturalism, therefore, depends on the degree of nearness to the state of assemblage, in which the mutual recognition of the culturally other, without pre-established prejudices, and mutual respect takes place for the sake of respect.
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During the 1960s and late 1980s, Chinese modern history is full of turbulence and controversy. Chinese exilic intellectuals who chose to flee to overseas during this period bore the weight of private tragedy, historical trauma, and political disputes, which, more or less, is mirrored in their writings. And encountering a profoundly ambivalent, marginal, and “unhealable” condition, Chinese exilic intellectuals fit the notion of metaphoric exile in Said’s sense. However, unlike the exilic intellectuals in the contexts of postcolonialism or imperialism, they on the one hand, voluntarily self-exile themselves from the Chinese collective consciousness to pursue individualism; on the other hand, “Chineseness,” as an indispensable element, is deeply inscribed in their writing with particular nostalgia. Thus, it is unlikely to categorize Chinese exilic intellectuals into any existing theories regarding exile while the understanding of exile should be extended and reconsidered.
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The article examines a mother-daughter relationship in Ewa Kuryluk’s autobiographical novel Frascati using the term “strangeness” as a methodological tool. Maria Kuryluk (Miriam Kohany), a Holocoaust survivor, who keeps her real Jewish identity as well as her pre-war life secret from her progeny, is partly a “stranger” – using Julia Kristeva’s term – in biography of her daughter. As a Jewish woman, a wife of the high-ranking socialist in the communist Poland, but also an unfulfilled artist who suffers from mental illness, Maria experiences many types of exclusion on both the social and the private field. The unspoken trauma and the hidden identity strongly influence the bond with her daughter, Ewa, burdening her with a painful past and a traumatic memory (postmemory). Kuryluk as a writer has to face the ambiguous status of this mother-daughter relationship – strange, yet still intimate – to create a feminine, transgenerational story, both for her mother and herself.
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A.A. Milne is known primarily as an author of four books for children – two volumes of poetry, When We Were Very Young (1924) and Now We Are Six (1927), and also two collections of stories, Winnie-the-Pooh (1926) and The House at Pooh Corner (1928). These books have been extremely successful all over the world, but in Poland the most popular have been the collections of stories about the adventures of the teddy bear and his friends. The translations by Irena Tuwim – Kubuś Puchatek and Chatka Puchatka (both 1938) – have become beloved books for many readers. Shortly after the Second World War and in the next decades the words spoken by Miś o Małym Rozumku [the Bear of a Very Little Brain] and by other animals from the Forest came into use in Polish. Irena Tuwim’s transalation very fast became canonical, but at the same time Winnie-the-Pooh became unknown. This article is devoted to the Polish reception of A.A. Milne’s work for children. It examines why Kubuś Puchatek became so popular in the post-war years, but also how this success have influenced the reception of subsequent translations.
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The article shows examples of Polish-Lithuanian cultural transfers. The legendary Lithuanian hero Margiris and Lithuanian Prince Kęstutis (the father of Vytautas the Great and the uncle of Polish king Władysław Jagiełło) were perpetuated in old chronicles (15th–17th century) and by Polish 19th century researchers of the history of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Owing to their interest in pre-Christian history and folklore, Margiris and Kęstutis became the heroes of numerous literary works: novels, poems and dramas. In the works of Ignacy Kraszewski and Władysław Syrokomla, Margiris became a symbol of true heroism. Unable to defend the fortress of Pilėnai from the Teutonic Order, he burns everything that could be valuable to the enemy together with the inhabitants and commits mass suicide as the last one. Kęstutis, on the other hand, became a model for the last duke – a Lithuanian, allegiant to the faith of his ancestors, a representative of the bygone Lithuania. The 19th century participants in the Lithuanian national revival sought the sources of Lithuanian national identity and culture in the pre-Christian Lithuanian tradition. Since the adoption of Christianity, Lithuania had been gradually losing its independence. It had undergone polonization, russification, or germanization. It had been subject to foreign influences. According to the leading activists from the circle of J. Basanovičius, the national revival had to begin with a turn towards the past: tradition and language, which had been preserved mainly in rural culture. The works Mindowe by Juliusz Słowacki, Tak umierali Litwini (Thus Died Lithuanians) by Drucki-Lubecki or Kiejstut by Adam Asnyk belonged to – as defined by A. Bumblauskas, a contemporary Lithuanian historian – the Great Narrative. These dramas were translated into Lithuanian and were performed on amateur and later professional Lithuanian stages at the turn of the 19th century and in the interwar period. Syrokomla’s Margier and Kraszewski’s Kunigas were translated into Lithuanian, adapted to stage plays, and also served as inspiration for other works of drama. Asnyk’s Kiejstut translated into Lithuanian (1897) and dramas which did not gain attention of Lithuanian circles: F. Jakubowski’s Kiejstut. Tragedia z dziejów Litwy. W pięciu aktach wierszem napisana (Kęstutis. A Tragedy from the History of Lithuania. Written in Verse in Five Acts, 1858) and J. Turczyński’s, Kiejstut (1861), show the final months of the life of Kęstutis, his conflict with Jagiełło and his death in the dungeon. The aged Kęstutis is portrayed as a respected knight, the vanquisher of the Teutonic Order, who subordinated himself first to his brother Algirdas and then to his nephew Jogaila (Jagiełło) for the good of Lithuania. His death brings an end to the period of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania as a fully independent state. In the character of Kęstutis, the playwrights combined the ethos of knighthood, national identity, adhering to faith and tradition with nostalgic awareness of transience, and the prophetic vision of rebirth based on national traditions.
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The text presents an unknown poetic work written by Anna Skarbek-Sokołowska based on the memories of her daughter, Grażyna Lipińska, from her stay in the Soviet prison of inquiry in Minsk in 1940. An unsigned typescript of the poem is in the archive of the Polish Underground Movement Study Trust in London. The text of the poem is also unavailable in Poland. The work is rooted in the tradition of Polish literature, primarily romantic, but also launches the context of religious poetry and philosophical reflection. The authoress presents the original genesis and complicated history of the publication of the poem, pointing to its unusual artistry and the historical truth contained in it.
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The purpose of this article is to analyze the cultural phenomenon of the House of Creative Work institution in the post-war Poland as demonstrated by the stays of four writers – Miron Białoszewski, Tadeusz Konwicki, Leopold Tyrmand, Marek Hłasko – in one of the Houses, Obory near Warsaw. A comparative analysis of the attitude of these writers towards the institution in question, as well as the transformational nature of the relation between its space and literary material creates a dense network of connections between the place, authors, and texts. The article is part of a research in the field of geopoetics and raises questions about the physical and material space of the House in Obory, its symbolic dimension, and the types of narratives that it evokes. The structure of this article is ordered by the primary functions of the house in Obory and the speech genres corresponding to particular functions according to the geoculturology project by Wasilij Szczukin.
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The article discusses the volume Zbigniew Herbert und Österreich edited by Przemysław Chojnowski and devoted to Polish poet Zbigniew Herbert (1924–1998) and his presence in the Austrian culture. The author discusses selected phenomena connected with Herbert’s reception studies in Austria so as to focus on the poet’s friendships with the Austrians who played important roles both in Herbert’s private and official life. The cultural and social activities of A. Hauff-Nagl, W. Krauss and F.T. Csokor serve as “case-studies”, which – interpreted in the light of N. Luhmann’s theories – demonstrate a deep but diversified impact of each of them on the Austrian-Polish relationships in the 1960s.
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Review of: Hans Hettler: Preußen als Kreuzzugsregion. Untersuchungen zu Peter von Dusburgs „Chronica terre Prussie“ in Zeit und Umfeld. Lang. Frankfurt am Main 2014. 738 S. ISBN 978-3-631-65098-1. (€ 112,–.). Reviewed by Marcus Wüst.
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The historical figures Hans Kohlhase and Samuel Zborowski form the basis for two topoi that have, despite cultural and social differences, something in common. Both the title character of Heinrich von Kleist’s novella Michael Kohlhaas and Samuel Zborowski, the protagonist in Juliusz Słowacki’s last published drama personify the radicalism of thought that underlies the European utopian idealism. Kohlhaas, a horse merchant from Brandenburg, is deceived by the Junker Wenzel von Tronka into leaving his two horses as collateral for an illegal transit document. Tronka’s family connections prevent Kohlhaas from finding justice and the latter thus decides to seek justice on his own and at any price. He begins a private war with Tronka, which escalates beyond control. Zborowski, a polish military commander and member of a signifycant noble family, attacks a nobleman who offended him and badly wounds another nobleman trying to mediate the conflict as a result. The incident takes place during a tournament in honour of the newly elected Kind of Poland. This leads to Zborowski being banished. He flees Poland and joins the court of Stefan Batory, the Prince of Transylvania. When Batory later becomes King of Poland, Zborowski returns to Poland despite his outlaw status. Together with his brother he starts a plot against the life of the king, in whom he sees a threat to the freedom of the nobility. Before he manages to realize these plans he is arrested and executed. Despite all the cultural, historical and social differences, there are several commonalities between the two figures. Both the title character from Kleist’s novella, as well as the protagonist of Slowacki’s drama embody a radicality of thought that has its source in European utopian idealism. Kohlhaas and Zborowski act with an unshakeable belief in the correctness of their views; an attitude that conflicts with the compromise-orientated approach inherent to the political system of democracy. Thus, the both characters were often misappropriated in literature or journalism by radical, anti-democratic demagogues, especially in the days before and after World War I. But while the radical attitudes of Kohlhaas and Zborowski are prone to escalation, the subversive power of radicalism gives each revolution intended to realize utopian ideals its own dynamic that leads to the revolution ending in a bloodbath instead of a utopia. Both figures represent not only a ruthless idealism willing to accept anything, including murder, as long as it leads to the realization of the postulated ideals. The stories of both figures may also be understood as paradigmatic examples for the dynamic of violence. Violence, once set in motion, can escalate to an unimaginable extent and become a purpose in and of itself, even if it was initially unleashed only in the name of a supreme ideal. Authors who have taken up the subject matter and tried to adapt its ideology seem to be aware of this phenomenon and, although they use the radicalism of Kohlhaas or Zborowski for their own purposes, they always maintain a certain distance from the characters. The literary adaptation of the two historical rebels and their fate reveals the logical contradiction of utopian idealism. The totalitarian claims of the ideal can escalate such that – paradoxically – it finally demands abandoning the ideal for its own sake.
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Review of: Klaus Garber: Martin Opitz, Paul Fleming, Simon Dach. Drei Dichter des 17. Jahrhunderts in Bibliotheken Mittel- und Osteuropas. (Aus Archiven, Bibliotheken und Museen Mittel- und Osteuropas, Bd. 4.) Böhlau. Köln u.a. 2013. XVII, 648 S. ISBN 978- 3-412-20648-2. (€ 89,90.). Reviewed by Wolfgang Kessler.
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