Eroticism as transgressive sexuality : some reflections on body, death and sex

Artykuł stanowi próbę odejścia od statycznego modelu ciała, które staje się „systemem energii”, „strukturą otwartą”. Model statyczny i dynamiczny - lub inaczej zachowawczy i ekspansywny - można także przenieść na rozważania nad seksualnością i śmiercią. W świetle tego modelu porno­grafia, jako kontrolowany, niekreatywny przepływ energii, stanowi zaprzeczenie estetyki i erotyki, która - w ujęciu Bataille’a - jest „komunikacją, otwarciem poprzez śmierć”

Witkacy's pure form and the concept of the sublime

Theatre in Pure Form, whose artistic potential Witkacy compares to the latent force of the slumbering beast, was proclaimed by his contemporaries, almost in unison, an apology of nonsense or, at best, an implicit parody of some modes of thinking. However, in the course of its reception Witkacy’s idea of Pure Form in theatre has become a dynamic link in the network of post-war avant-garde. It can be related there to the Theatre of the Absurd, the Theatre of Cruelty, Craig’s wholistic concept of mise-en-scene, to name but a few

Mądre spojrzenie/spojrzenie Mądrości

The article raises the question about the way one may confront the vicissitudes of life, in broader terms, one’s attitude towards the world, God and other people. To deal with so complex an issue, I employ the symbolic of the gaze and spatial relations. The major points of reference are biblical: the gaze the Creator endows his creation with, the blank look of Ecclesiastes, Cain’s averted eye, the energy of Wisdom, Job’s humility. Yet the positions thus outlined have their non-biblical and/or non-religious counterparts, both in the past (St. Theresa of Avila) and in the present (R. Spaemann, J.-L. Marion, G.K. Chesterton). They all make a contrast to destructive self-focusing typical for some of the dominant philosophical trends, existentialism inclusive. Ultimately, the article formulates the idea of the wise gaze/the gaze of Wisdom that carries us away from ourselves, gives a (new) chance to life, God and others, thus offering a protection against despair

Subject in difference, or on (feminine) becomings : Deleuze and Guattari's and Cixous' concept of subjectivity

"Is it possible to develop a debate on subjectivity without the familiar notions of the “mind,” “body,” “emotions” or “reason”? This is the case of A Thousand Plateaus. Deleuze and Guattari, in their extensive account of subjectivity, speak as if the pillars of human subjectivity did not exist at all; they allude only to the concept of the body, yet with a queer notion of the “Body without Organs,” which sounds like a blatant provocation (and is often mistakenly received so). To be precise, Deleuze and Guattari do not give an account of human subjectivity; they speak of “monsters and machines”; for them, the human subject should not be separated from the mineral, plant, animal or demonic realms. Their account of subjectivity proliferates with vampires, wolves and rats; they quite seriously pose the questions of becoming-vegetable, becoming-music or becoming-sleep; there is no mention of the tasks of thinkers or philosophers (whom Deleuze and Guattari are, after all) but instead we learn that “writing is traversed by strange becomings” and writers are “sorcerers.” (fragm.

Przestrzeń kobiety w chrześcijańskiej koncepcji Boga : głosy teologów XX-wiecznych a (kon)teksty feminizmu

The book presents a polemic with the feminist critique of Christianity, in particular with regards to the supposed androcentrism of the Christian doctrine. Accordingly, I take into account the relation between the masculine and the feminine element within the major areas of theological investigation, that is, in classical christology, mariology and trinitarian theology, in biblical ontology and Christian personalism. My polemic takes a variety of routes. Its ultimate aim is not simply to dismiss the very idea of Christian androcentrism (the issue is too broad to be covered in a single line of argumentation). Rather, while analyzing feminist discourse on Christianity, I argue the inadequacy of its subject-matter and the ideological distortion of its form. That reveals in turn a considerable communication gap between major voices of contemporary feminism (in particular, French cultural feminism, radical and neo-orthodox feminist theology), on the one hand, and twentieth-century classical theology and biblical exegesis, on the other. More than once feminist discourse on Christianity constructs straw men to sustain the conflict. In large part the argument depends on the use of spatial metaphors. References to spatial experience, I propose, permit one to formulate, instead flexible, descriptions of what man and woman are – in relation to each other (masculinity and femininity) and with regards to the newly born life (fatherhood and motherhood). It is also through references to space that one can see in an other than androcentric manner the most frequent controversies of feminist reflection on Christianity: God the Father; historical Jesus versus Christ the Saviour; Mary, God’s Virgin Mother; the female principle in the mythical and theological context; Sophia (Divine Wisdom) and Three Divine Persons; and the biblical story of woman being made out of man’s rib. Androcentrism implies the idea of one element being prior to another. However, priority amounts to dominance nowhere but in the static system of two antagonized elements. My argument reveals then, step by step, where and how in feminist argumentation androcentrism is imposed on Christian thinking rather than shown to be present in it. The major confusion seems to result from replacing the Christian persona with the modern concept of the Subject (objectifying its Other). The concept of identity thus formulated leaves no room for the dynamic “exchange of gifts”, and this in turn precludes the proper understanding of (fundamental to Christian thinking) ideas of Creation and Incarnation (including the definition of the body that these ideas imply). After all, it is the relational nature of persona (and not the antagonism of Subject–Object) that lends meaning to the images, figures and characters that the feminist critiques of Christianity grapple with

C(i)ałopalenie słowa albo o dwóch metafizykach

Ciało czy mięso, można zapytać, określając materię ludzkiego bytu. Dawno minął już czas pogardy, jaka okrywała niegdyś' ludzkie ciało. Słowa „ciało”, „cielesność” brzmią dziś' dumnie, i w duchu wiary D. H. Lawrence’a (dla którego ciało właśnie było „dobrą nowiną”, bo tylko w ciele i poprzez ciało mogło się dokonać zbawienie człowieka), uprawiamy dziś kult ciała, w nim przede wszystkim szukając źródeł siły i energii. Jednakże, pozostając w ciele, człowiek jest również i „mięsem”: nosi przecież w sobie śmierć, ciało właśnie jest jej zapowiedzią. Wypieranie doświadczenia „mięsności” bytu jest równoznaczne z wyparciem myśli o śmierci, wymazaniem jej obecności z karnawału, jakim staje się wówczas życie (Fragment tekstu)

Wokół mądrości : słowo wstępne

„Pojęcie czystego poznania, czyli czystego zrozumienia pozostaje czymś całkowicie obcym myśli Platona. Jeszcze nie nastała epoka profesorów”, w studium poświęconym filozofii starożytnej Pierre Hadot przytacza znaczące sformułowanie Alfreda Whiteheada. Podkreśla jednocześnie na wiele sposobów, że w przekonaniu starożytnych filozofia to wiedza i życie, „dyskurs, ale i życiowy wybór”. Filozof nie jest zatem „artystą rozumu” ani „przyjacielem opinii”. […] (fragm.

Czym (nie) jest teologia feministyczna?

The paper refl ects on so-called feminist theology. First it deals with its reception by classical theology and reports a form of openness to new perspectives the latter (besides some objections) voices. Then I address the inevitable tension that develops between the two interpretative paradigms should the concepts of “man” and “God” be brought into play. The case study for that part is a self-portrait of a feminist theologian who calls herself a resident alien. What the analysis ultimately shows is a radical difference between the resident alien of postmodernism and the biblical outsider: the prophet; in particular, the way the difference in question resides in a given concept of language. My claim is that the constructionist theories of meaning postmodernism spreads postulate not so much the arbitrariness of sense as the false alternative between biblical God and the truth of the particular

Postsekularyzm - styl późny? : Johna D. Caputo teologia wydarzenia

The article presents selected aspects of John D. Caputo’s theology of the event as an example of a certain “unsubstantiality”, i.e. decline of postsecularism and—in a broader sense— postmodernism. The author pays particular attention to the way in which Caputo presents the nature of the paradox as a manifestation of, on the one hand, the Deleuzian event, and, on the other hand, the Kingdom of God. Moreover, the author comments upon different interpretations of the biblical world seen as the kingdom of paradox, removed from each other in time and the form of the argument, in order to refute the claim that the particular weakness of Caputo’s theory is nothing else but a daring rejection of classical theology. Thus, she alludes frequently to Gilbert K. Chesterton and Paul Ricoeur, and follows the trail of references to the substance which gives abstractions concrete form. Chesterton referred to the biblical world as glass-like, “made of glass”, while Ricoeur, pondering on the nature of God’s existence in relation to the man, used the metaphor of a mountain pass, full of peaks and chasms, akin to the image of pulsing flames. Caputo, however, situates the same mystery at the very beginning and at the very end of his argument—the faint and phantasmal quasi-meaning, which cannot penetrate the language to enter the actual reality—the event

Teologia czy teologia feministyczna? : Mary Daly, "Beyond God the Father"

Odnosząc się do istotnej dla tak zwanej teologii feministycznej pozycji Mary Daly, Beyond God the Father, artykuł bada związki między wiarą i rozumem oraz wiarą i niewiarą, między innymi w oparciu o dzieło Josepha Ratzingera Wprowadzenie w chrześcijaństwo. Zasadniczo, argument stanowi obronę tradycyjnego rozumienia teologii, odwołując się przy tym do zasad logiki bardziej niż dogmatyki. Przeformułowanie pojęcia teologii, jakie dokonuje się w teologii feministycznej, unieważnia sens innych, kluczowych dla teologii pojęć, takich jak wspomniane wiara i rozum. W rezultacie, termin „teologia” traci swój sens i staje się bezużyteczny