Reverse Catastrophe

The principal notion of the article–a “backward catastrophe”– stands for a catastrophe which occurs unseen until it becomes recognized and which broadens its destructive activity until it has been recognized. This concept in the article has been referred to the Shoah. The main thesis is that the recognition of the actual influence of the Holocaust began in Polish culture in the mid-1980s (largely it started with the film by Claude Lanzmann Shoah and the essay by Jan Błoński Biedni Polacy patrzą na getto [“The Poor Poles Look at the Ghetto”]), that is when the question: “What happened to the Jews”, assumes the form: “Did the things that happened to the Jews, also happened to the Poles?”. Cognitive and ethical reorientation leads to the revealing of the hidden consequences of the Holocaust reaching as far as the present day and undermining the foundations of collective identity. In order to understand this situation (and adopt potentially preventive actions) Polish society should be recognized as a postcatastrophic one

Śmierć, śmierć, inne życie. Wieś w literaturze polskiej przełomu XX i XXI wieku

Tekst stanowi omówienie przemian pozycji wsi w kulturze i prozie polskiej przełomu XX i XXI wieku. Podstawowe tezy: 1) w latach 90. XX wieku zanika nurt chłopski w literaturze (ze względu na utratę reprezentacji symbolicznej i politycznej), a w jego miejsce pojawia się proza o tematyce wiejskiej; 2) fabularnym wykładnikiem podwójnej śmierci nurtu chłopskiego staje się motyw umierania wsi (wyludnienia, biedy) oraz status nieumarłych (upiorów, widm) nadawany zbiorowości wiejskiej; 3) dopiero w tekstach drugiej dekady XXI wieku wieś przedstawiana w literaturze zaczyna wytwarzać nowe więzi społeczne, nowe metody produkcji i zmienioną narrację.Exploring the changing position of the village in Polish culture and fiction at the turn of the twenty-first century, Czapliński argues that: 1) the 1990s see a decline in the literary peasant tradition (due to the loss of symbolic and political representation); in its place we get fiction that thematizes the village; 2) in the plot, the double death of the peasant tradition is expressed through the motif of the dying village (depopulation, poverty) as well as the status of the undead (ghosts, spectres) imparted on the village community; 3) only in works of the 2010s, literary representations of the village begin to give rise to new social ties, new methods of production and other narratives

Tożsamość, autonomia, solidarność. Kilka uwag o polonistyce XXI wieku

Artykuł omawia przemiany polonistyki w ciągu ostatnich trzydziestu lat. Przemiany te następowały w wyniku stopniowego otwierania się polonistyki na media inne niż literatura, na obiegi inne niż wysoki, a także na kultury mniejszościowe. W rezultacie przemian powstała polonistyka medioznawcza, a nie wyłącznie literaturoznawcza. Przede wszystkim jednak dzisiejszą dyscyplinę określa (praktykowane w badaniach i dydaktyce) krytyczne nastawienie do wszelkich kanonów, w tym zwłaszcza do kanonu narodowego, który wiązał tożsamość etniczną z tożsamością męską, inteligencką i heteroseksualną. Dzięki poszerzeniu (a więc również rozmyciu) tożsamości polonistyka zachowała znaczną autonomię, którą badacze i nauczyciele łączą z zaangażowaniem. To szczególne powiązanie niezależności z solidarnością określa dzisiejszą polonistykę: może ona zajmować się niemal każdym problemem i wchodzić w naukowe sojusze z dowolną dziedziną, a zarazem ową autonomię zachowuje dzięki angażowaniu się w konflikty kulturowe.The article discusses the transformations of Polish studies over the past thirty years. These changes have occurred thanks to the gradual opening of Polish studies to media other than literature, to circulations other than high culture, and to minority cultures. As a result of these transformations, Polish studies have become media studies, not exclusively literary studies. However, today’s discipline is above all characterized by a critical attitude – practiced in research and teaching – toward all canons, especially the national canon that links ethnic identity with male, intellectual, and heterosexual identity. Thanks to the broadening and blurring of identity, Polish studies have maintained considerable autonomy, which scholars and teachers combine with commitment. This particular connection of independence with solidarity characterizes modern Polish studies: it can address almost any issue and enter into scientific alliances with any field while maintaining this autonomy through engagement in cultural conflict

Zamykanie laboratorium.

Review essay of Arkadiusz Żychliński’s book Laboratorium antropofikcji. Dociekania filologiczne (2014).Artykuł recenzyjny poświęcony książce Arkadiusza Żychlińskiego Laboratorium antropofikcji. Dociekania filologiczne (2014)

Children’s Voices in the Polish Canon Wars: Participatory Research in Action

Despite its rightful concern with childhood as an essentialist cultural construct, the field of children’s literature studies has tended to accept the endemicity of asymmetrical power relations between children and adults. It is only recently, under the influence of children’s rights discourses, that children’s literature scholars have developed concepts reflecting their recognition of more egalitarian relationships between children and adults. This essay is a result of the collaboration between child and adult researchers and represents a scholarly practice based on an intergenerational democratic dialog in which children’s voices are respected for their intrinsic salience. The presence of child researchers in children’s literature studies confirms an important shift currently taking place in our field, providing evidence for the impossibility of regarding children’s literature only as a manifestation of adult power over young generations

Zagłada jako nieczystość

Holocaust as impurityThe study concerns the category of “purification” and contradictory meanings attributed to it in an essay by Błoński titled Biedni Polacy patrzą na getto (The Poor Poles Look at the Ghetto) (1987). The first sense, for the author the only possible, refers to the Christian penitential order (complicity of Poles for the Holocaust – guilty conscience – religion – gaining forgiveness – purification). The two other senses come into conflict with the above characteristics. One of them is associated with social system of purity, which in the post-war Polish culture has appointed the status of dirty matter to the Holocaust. The last refers to the Polish affects that treat the Holocaust as what is disgusting. Three varieties of impurities (fault – dirt – disgust) imply three different ways of purification

In Search of the Third Canon, or Cultural Policies of the Third Republic of Poland (1989–2020)

Culture in Poland after 1989 was managed with two different approaches. In the last decade of the twentieth century and in the beginning of the twenty-first century cultural policy was based on the dogma of self-financing culture. The second period was initiated by the right- wing government in 2005 and is still current politics. Here, cultural policy is based on the dogma of the self-sufficiency of national values. Both concepts result from the belief that the canon is empty but with different implications. In neoliberal practice, everyone has the right to have their own canon, while each canon matters only insofar as it leads to success in life. For a right-wing party, the canon should express national, not classical, values. In the first concept, culture is doomed to rapid commodification, in the second to nationalization. In the first period, culture was granted independence on the condition that artists earn their own living and, moreover, the bond-forming role of culture was neglected. In the second period, the state provides financial support to culture, but limits funding to nationalist initiatives, hence censoring expressions of independent art. The question to be asked: is there a third canon

Literatura i geografia

This article proposes to treat literature as a template of the collective imagination. The basis for discussion is Polish prose from 1986–2016, with the main thesis being that Polish culture has reached the limits of geographical imagination. This is the result of Poland withdrawing from the larger structures to which it once belonged or to which it aspired (its diminishing presence in the European Union, the disappearance of Central Europe, delayed efforts to pursue the Scandinavian model of the state and civic culture, the destruction of relations with Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine). Weakening or breaking ties with neighboring countries has led to isolation from all four sides. In order to get out of this impasse, it is necessary to develop new narratives that would link Poland with the neighboring cultures and would once again put our country back on the European map.  Artykuł stanowi propozycję potraktowania literatury jako matrycy wyobraźni zbiorowej. Podstawą omówienia jest proza polska okresu 1986–2016, a teza główna mówi, że kultura polska dotarła do krańców wyobraźni geograficznej. Jest to rezultatem wyprowadzki z dotychczasowych większych całości, do których Polska należała bądź do których dążyła (osłabienie obecności w Unii Europejskiej, zniknięcie Europy Środkowej, zahamowanie procesu orientowania się na skandynawski model państwa i kultury obywatelskiej, kryzys w stosunkach z Litwą, Białorusią i Ukrainą). Osłabianie bądź zrywanie więzi z państwami sąsiedzkimi prowadzi do czterostronnej izolacji – czyli wspomnianych krańców wyobraźni geograficznej. Wyjście z impasu byłoby możliwe pod warunkiem wypracowania nowych narracji łączących Polskę z kulturami sąsiedzkimi i osadzających nasz kraj na europejskiej mapie