Polish Novel in the 20th Century

The present book “Poland – History, Culture and Society. Selected Readings” is the third edition of a collection of academic texts written with the intention to accompany the module by providing incoming students with teaching materials that will assist them in their studies of the course module and encourage further search for relevant information and data. The papers collected in the book have been authored by academic teachers from the University of Łódź, specialists in such fields as history, geography, literature, sociology, ethnology, cultural studies, and political science. Each author presents one chapter related to a topic included in the module or extending its contents. The book contains the extensive bibliography

Fifty Shades of the Gothic

The article deals with phenomena of the Gothic the most often described as a set of often-linked elements rather than a fixed genre. The text presents a variety of cultural incarnations of the convention: from the eighteenth century novel by horror movies to subcultural style of Goths. This essay also examines the basic Gothic concepts, like the uncanny and the abject, which determine the worlds depicted in Gothic narratives, especially characters who remain in close connection with the space formed as a labyrinth. Finally, the article is an attempt to answer the question about the source of the expansion of the aesthetics of the Gothic in the contemporary culture.The article deals with phenomena of the Gothic the most often described as a set of often-linked elements rather than a fixed genre. The text presents a variety of cultural incarnations of the convention: from the eighteenth century novel by horror movies to subcultural style of Goths. This essay also examines the basic Gothic concepts, like the uncanny and the abject, which determine the worlds depicted in Gothic narratives, especially characters who remain in close connection with the space formed as a labyrinth. Finally, the article is an attempt to answer the question about the source of the expansion of the aesthetics of the Gothic in the contemporary culture

Metafictional potentiality of detective fiction and the metaphysical detective stories

The article examines metatextual devices appearing within texts whose genre affiliation — the implementation of the detective novel convention — is unarguable. Such use of selfreferential strategies is juxtaposed with their applications in texts that in English-language reflection on postmodern and modernist novels are defined as metaphysical detective stories. The article examines the genre aspects of the use of these devices and their consequences for the location of a crime novel within contemporary popular culture

The Unbearable Lightness of Parties or Various Incarnations of Mrs Dalloway

The main issues discussed in this article are the intertextual relationships between two novels: one the most famous modernistic texts — Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf and The Hours by Michael Cunningham. The American writer’s novel alludes already in the title to Woolf ’s work. The Hours was the working title for Mrs Dalloway. The detailed analysis of the various references to it acknowledges the hypotext in the Cunningham novel and proves that intertextuality in this case has its mainly existential dimension: for heroines of The Hours Mrs Dalloway provides an opportunity for not only re-writing or re-reading but for re-existing as well

Opowieść dla braci śmiertelników, czyli "Łaskawe" Jonathana Littella

The central issue raised in the article concerns aesthetic and ethical consequences of the narrative strategy adopted by Littell - the main characters monologue. What does it therefore mean that its reader learns about the represented world (an element of which, after all, is also the Holocaust) from the perspective of a character constructed around the principle of amplification of otherness and even alienation, the narrator who at the same time begins his story with the phrase "the mortal brothers”, establishing a rela- tionship of closeness or identity” Moreover, what is the role of the device consting in the multiplication of inter- and archi-textual references in the novel (to myths, literary texts, musical forms, thus to cultural constructs) while at the same time emphasizing the documentary and referential aspects of the text? Final conclusion of the article is the assertion that Jonathan Littells The Kindly Ones is a melange of many overlapping orders. These include: the "memoir” narrative, the documentary dimension of the Appendix, the debatable "suite-like” character, the questionably lofty dimension of The Oresteia and the sexual excesses of the hero in the oneiric world at the decline of the Third Reich, as if taken straight out of Pier Paolo Pasolinis Solo or the 120 Days oj Sodom. The novel raises many questions and doubst, such as about the appropriateness of the type of devices used in the story one of whose themes is the Holocaust. One may indees infer that Littell falls into the trap of aesthetization, so unfortunate with this subject matter. But it is this very blend of kitsch, horror and moralizing project that is inherent to The Kindly Ones, which causes that for all the reservations one might have as regards various aspects of the novel, it is so disturbing. And for this very reason, the story of this strange hybrid hero, consisting of an excess of elements of uncertain consistency, leaves us alone with the nightmares it had roused in us

Nostalgic Aliens and Troublesome Citizens – on Vampire Stories Once Again

The article examines the representation of a vampire figure in contemporary culture, in particular within the framework of the gothic convention. In particular, the paper focuses on stories in which the vampire — as the classic Other — appears in social relationships. Therefore the article is an attempt to show how texts that can be classified as fantasy or Gothic fiction engage in a modern reality around us

Space and its Cultural Representations

Editorial introduction.The text concerns the consequences of the appearance in the humanities of a phenomenon called the “spatial turn”, which is one of the aspects of the cultural turn. It is a subject of unwavering interest amongst researchers and is broadly understood as an experience of space inhabited and traversed, close and distant, familiar and foreign, open and closed, real and imagined, visually and remembered. Problems related to recording such an experience and its interpretation have prompted those practicing such reflection to look for new methodologies within interdisciplinary studies developed at the intersection of literary studies, cultural studies, geography, history and sociology. The consequence of such attempts is the emergence of new subdisciplines within various humanities. Such as, for example: geopoetics, geoaesthetics, humanistic and cultural geography, autogeobiography and topocentric history. The article also draws attention to the relationship between scientific research in this field and creative practice, mainly literary practice. A large part of the text is devoted to a review of the texts included in this issue of “The Problems of Literary Genres”/”Zagadnienia Rodzajów Literackich” and how they fit into the theoretical reflection under the sign of the spatial turn. The thematic scope here is wide and is not limited only to analyses of literary works. Several articles have been devoted to, for example, spatial film contexts