Exploring the Outside and the Inside: Double Vision in Joan Slonczewski’s "Brain Plague"

With its vision of how the possibility of enhancing the human brain by means of intelligent microbes would change the nature of humanity, Slonczewski’s Brain Plague (2000) provides a fertile ground for multiple interpretations. Deploying the theme of intelligence and the brain, it belongs to the literature linked to the life sciences. In terms of its generic aspect, the novel should be classified as hard science fiction, because it is predicated on scientific underpinnings. In this paper, however, Brain Plague is, in the first place, viewed as a double parabolic projection serving as a social critique of the actual world and as an educational tool. Employing the notions of parabolic projection and conceptual metaphor, both formulated under the cognitive poetics paradigm, the paper seeks to demonstrate how Slonczewski, a scientist holding a PhD in biology and a popular writer, elicits in the reader the aesthetic effect called cognitive engagement.    &nbsp

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

Manipulation with Frames in the Time Weekly Special Report Issue (20 May 2011)

On 20 May 2011, the Time weekly published a special report issue in its entirety covering the killing of Osama bin Laden. Clearly, owing to its thematic coherence, the Time Special Report issue could be examined through the lenses of qualitative content analysis tools. This paper, however, applies Goffman’s Frame Analysis. Based on two basic assumptions: (1) that the “frame” amounts to the structured knowledge and (2) that the language of media reports is never neutral, but highly constructed, the paper argues that the examined Time issue is fundamentally built on three frames: the “war on terror” frame, the “hero” vs. the “enemy no. 1” frame and, finally, the “indestructible USA” vs. the “primitive, yet promising Islamic countries” frame. In addition, drawing on the cognitive concepts of figure/ground organization and focalization, as well as the notion of metaphor, it investigates how the above distinguished frames are manipulated and modified

Humanity Scripts in Doris Lessing’s The Marriages between Zones Three, Four, and Five and The Cleft

Despite a span of thirty-seven years stretching the dates of their publication, Lessing’s The Marriages between Zones Three, Four, and Five 1980 and The Cleft 2007 share a common theme and genre space fiction. Set in an unspecified past in imaginary universes, they both chronicle how two geographically separate and culturally divergent communities join forces in a collective struggle to subvert the effects of an inscrutable power enveloping their respective lands. This paper argues that, through their foregrounding of utopian longing, The Marriages and The Cleft present a coherent vision of humanity and thus can be seen as instruments to “cultivate humanity” Nussbaum 1997. Employing the cognitive tools of schemas and scripts Schank and Abelson 1977, the paper explores the ways Lessing enforces her social project and, simultaneously, attempts to modify the reader’s cognitive schema of humanity through cognitive scripting. It arrives at two main conclusions. First, Lessing’s five-component humanity script not only closely corresponds to M. Scott Peck’s 1987 well-established model of community building, but it outweighs the latter in its scope. Second, in her formulation of the concept of ideal society, Lessing, rather than resorting to radical approaches and ideologies, opts for “reforming society in movement and change” Greene 1994: 188.Despite a span of thirty-seven years stretching the dates of their publication, Lessing’s The Marriages between Zones Three, Four, and Five 1980 and The Cleft 2007 share a common theme and genre space fiction. Set in an unspecified past in imaginary universes, they both chronicle how two geographically separate and culturally divergent communities join forces in a collective struggle to subvert the effects of an inscrutable power enveloping their respective lands. This paper argues that, through their foregrounding of utopian longing, The Marriages and The Cleft present a coherent vision of humanity and thus can be seen as instruments to “cultivate humanity” Nussbaum 1997. Employing the cognitive tools of schemas and scripts Schank and Abelson 1977, the paper explores the ways Lessing enforces her social project and, simultaneously, attempts to modify the reader’s cognitive schema of humanity through cognitive scripting. It arrives at two main conclusions. First, Lessing’s five-component humanity script not only closely corresponds to M. Scott Peck’s 1987 well-established model of community building, but it outweighs the latter in its scope. Second, in her formulation of the concept of ideal society, Lessing, rather than resorting to radical approaches and ideologies, opts for “reforming society in movement and change” Greene 1994: 188

A Debate on the Relationship between Poetry and Politics in W.H. Auden’s In Memory of W.B. Yeats and A. Ostriker’s Elegy before the War

W.H. Auden’s In Memoriam W.B. Yeats and A. Ostriker’s Elegy Before the War are two pre-war elegies, in which personal and political dimensions are juxtaposed. W.H. Auden’s poem portrays the death of a celebrity against the background of the perplexing 1930s when there was evident growing anxiety about Facism and its repercussions. In her long, 7-section work, A. Ostriker not only commemorates her dead mother, she also formulates a very powerfully articulated anti-war manifesto, in which she both denounces American imperialism during the 2nd Iraq war and questions the meaning of war and violence. W.H. Auden’s elegy serves as a starting point for a debate A. Ostriker sparks over the role of poetry and its relationship with politics. When analysed together with the author’s essays on poetry, their other famous poems and their post-war elegies (The Shield of Achilles and TheEight and Thirteenth), the two poems taken under examination display that the poets’ stance concerning the role of poetry is neither explicit nor consistent. It is interesting also how the debate can be perceived in the context of a dilemma signaled in A. Ostriker’s Poem Sixty Years After Auschwitz where the poet deliberates over what should be the appropriate shape and tone of poetry after the Holocaust

A Debate on the Relationship between Poetry and Politics in W.H. Auden’s In Memory of W.B. Yeats and A. Ostriker’s Elegy before the War

W.H. Auden’s In Memoriam W.B. Yeats and A. Ostriker’s Elegy Before the War are two pre-war elegies, in which personal and political dimensions are juxtaposed. W.H. Auden’s poem portrays the death of a celebrity against the background of the perplexing 1930s when there was evident growing anxiety about Facism and its repercussions. In her long, 7-section work, A. Ostriker not only commemorates her dead mother, she also formulates a very powerfully articulated anti-war manifesto, in which she both denounces American imperialism during the 2nd Iraq war and questions the meaning of war and violence. W.H. Auden’s elegy serves as a starting point for a debate A. Ostriker sparks over the role of poetry and its relationship with politics. When analysed together with the author’s essays on poetry, their other famous poems and their post-war elegies (The Shield of Achilles and The Eight and Thirteenth), the two poems taken under examination display that the poets’ stance concerning the role of poetry is neither explicit nor consistent. It is interesting also how the debate can be perceived in the context of a dilemma signaled in A. Ostriker’s Poem Sixty Years After Auschwitz where the poet deliberates over what should be the appropriate shape and tone of poetry after the Holocaust

A debate regarding the relationship of poetry and politics in In Memory of W. B. Yeats by W. H. Auden and Elegy Before the War by A. Ostriker

Pamięci W. B.Yeatsa W.H.Audena i Elegia przed wojną Alicii Ostriker to dwie elegie „przedwojenne”, w których pierwiastek osobisty zestawiony jest z pierwiastkiem politycznym. Wiersz Audena ilustruje śmierć znanej osobistości na tle niespokojnych lat 30. XX wieku, kiedy powszechny był strach przed faszyzmem i jego reperkusjami. W długim, 7-fragmentowym dziele Ostriker ramą staje się portret zmarłej matki poetki, a wypełnieniem ognisty i ironiczny antywojenny manifest, w którym autorka nie tylko atakuje amerykański imperializm uwidaczniający się podczas II wojny irackiej, ale też zastanawia się nad sensem wojny i przemocy. Elegia urodzonego w Wielkiej Brytanii poety, a szczególnie użyta tam dwuznaczna fraza »poetry makes nothing happen«, jest punktem wyjścia i pretekstem dla Ostriker do zainicjowania dialogu na temat roli poezji i jej związku z polityką. Analiza obu wierszy w zestawieniu z esejami obojga autorów na temat poezji, ich innymi dziełami, a także „powojennymi elegiami” (The Shield of Achilles i The Eight and Thirteenth) pokazuje, że stanowisko obojga poetów odnośnie do roli poezji jest niejednoznaczne i zmienne. Ciekawe są również ich poetyckie rozważania w kontekście dylematu zasygnalizowanego w wierszu Ostriker pt. Wiersz 60 lat po Auschwitz, w którym poetka zastanawia się, jaki ma być kształt poezji i jej wydźwięk po Holocauście.In Memory of W. B. Yeats by W. H. Auden and Elegy Before the War by A. Ostriker are two “pre-war” elegies, in which the personal element is confronted with the political. The Auden’s poem portrays the death of a known figure with the background of the unsteady 30s of the 20th century, when the fear of fascism and its repercussions was common. In the long, 7-pieces work of Ostriker framework is the portrait of the poet’s dead mother, and the inlay is the ardent and ironic anti-war manifesto, in which the author not only attacks the American imperialism obvious during the Iraqi war, but she also meditates on the sense of war and violence. The elegy of the poet born in Great Britain, and especially the phrase “poetry makes nothing happen”, is the starting point and a pretext for Ostriker to initiate a dialogue regarding the role of poetry and its relationship to the politics. The analysis of both poems in regard to the essays of both authors discussing the sense of poetry, their other works, and also the “post-war elegies” (The Shield of Achilles and The Eight and Thirteenth) reveals that the stance of both of the poets regarding the role of poetry is ambiguous and unstable. Also interesting are their poetical considerations in the context of the dilemma indicated in the Ostriker’s Poem 60 Years after Auschwitz, in which the poet wonders, what should be the shape of poetry and its overtone after the holocaust

Poetyka kognitywna - "nowy rozdział w historii badań literackich" czy użyteczne narzędzie analizy literackiej?

Mateusz Marecki's review of "Cognitive Poetics in Practice" edited by Joanna Gavins and Gerard Steen (2003)