The paper presents Josefina Niggli, an American mid-twentieth-century writer who was born and grew up in Mexico, and her novel Mexican Village. A connoisseur of Mexican culture and tradition, and at the same time conscious of the stereotypical perceptions of Mexico in the United States, Niggli saw it as her literary goal to “reveal” the “true” Mexico as she remembered it to her American readers. Somewhat forgotten for several decades, Niggli, preoccupied with issues of marginalization, hybridization, and ambiguity, is now (...) becoming of interest to literary critics as a forerunner of Chicano/a literature. In her novel Mexican Village, set in the times of the Mexican Revolution, she creates a prototypical bicultural and bilingual Chicano protagonist, who becomes witness to the rise of Mexico’s modern national identity. (shrink)

In American ethnic literature of the last three decades of the 20th century, recurrent themes of mobility, travel, and “homing in” are emblematic of the search for identity. In this essay, which discusses three short stories, Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use,” Louise Erdrich’s “The World’s Greatest Fishermen,” and Daniel Chacon’s “The Biggest City in the World,” I attempt to demonstrate that as a consequence of technological development, with travel becoming increasingly accessible to ethnic Americans, their search for identity assumes wider range, (...) transcending national and cultural boundaries. (shrink)

Treścią artykułu jest charakterystyka cech swoistych polskiej wersji modernizmu. Analiza polskiej myśli estetycznej z przełomu XIX i XX w. wskazuje, że program polskich modernistów niesłusznie utożsamia się z estetyzmem. Wydaje się, że modernistycznego odwrotu od rzeczywistości nie należy traktować jedynie jako ucieczki od skomplikowanych problemów ówczesnej codzienności. Równie uprawnione jest interpretowanie go jako sposobu wiodącego do zachowania wartości humanistycznych, które zatraciły się w otaczającej artystów rzeczywistości. Aksjologię modernistów uzasadniało założenie o monistycznym charakterze bytu. Jego naturalną konsekwencją było traktowanie sztuki - (...) ze względu na jej cechy - jako jedynego rodzaju działalności ludzkiej, który umożliwia kontakt z Absolutem. Bowiem zbliżenie do istoty rzeczy jest możliwe jedynie poprzez dzieło sztuki stanowiące przekaz wartości absolutnych. Wysoka ranga twórczości wynika z faktu, iż wartości te są zapośredniczone w duszy twórcy. (shrink)

Δημοσίευση δυό επιγραφών του Έθνικοΰ Μουσείου της Βαρσοβίας. Ή πρώτη είναι « επιτάφιος συντρόφου » δηλαδή ενός « θρεπτου », στον όποιο οι συμφοιτητές του ανέγειραν ένα ταπεινό ταφικό μνημείο. Ό λίθος προέρχεται πιθανόν άπό τή Φρυγία των αυτοκρατορικών χρόνων, καί άπό περιβάλλον επηρεασμένο πολιτιστικά άπό τή Ρώμη. Ή δεύτερη επιγραφή μας παρουσιάζει μιά οικογένεια άπό τή Φρυγία μέ τό δνομα Sestullii, σπουδαία οικογένεια, γνωστή χάρη στίς μελέτες του Mitchell. Πρόκειται χωρίς αμφιβολία γιά απελεύθερους πού έχτισαν οσο ζούσαν έναν οικογενειακό (...) τάφο-ήρώον. (shrink)

W pracy przeanalizowano motyw melancholii jako elementu wpisanego w życie młodopolskich bohaterów literackich zmagających się z gruźlicą. Tematem dociekań jest zależność między chorobą i ograniczonością ciała a nadnaturalnie szybkim rozwojem duchowym. Niezmienność otoczenia, izolację oraz obserwację kondycji fizycznej człowieka, postrzegane przez pryzmat dyskursu maladycznego, uznano w pracy za źródło głębokiej melancholicznej autorefleksji oraz przemyśleń o zmieniającym się świecie, z którego chory jest wykluczony.

Praca stanowi przyczynek do badań nad życiem i twórczością Ignacego Dąbrowskiego – pisarza przełomu wieków XIX i XX. Jego rękopisy, zachowane przeważnie w znakomitym stanie, zgromadziła Aniela Skórska, siostrzenica literata. Dziś przechowywane są one w zbiorach Biblioteki Narodowej. Cyzelowane i wielokrotnie poprawiane utwory stanowią świadectwo złożonego procesu twórczego, jaki towarzyszył prozaikowi w pracy nad kolejnymi dziełami. Analiza zachowanych brulionów i manuskryptów pozwala na głębsze poznanie literackiej osobowości Dąbrowskiego – postaci skrytej i introwertycznej, a uporządkowanie materiałów rękopiśmiennych pomocne będzie w odtworzeniu (...) oraz weryfikacji faktów z jego życia. (shrink)

The article analyzes the world of transience, deterioration and death characteristic of Boghill, the place of action of Samuel Beckett’s short radio play-All That Fall. In a broadcast drama, existence is equivalent to being heard, the idea skilfully employed and commented upon by the playwright. The characters actually heard in the play are in most cases elderly or quite old and even the two young ones appear in the context of death. Numerous off-the-air individuals are dead, sterile or suffering from (...) different illnesses. The two main characters’ situation is not different-Mr Rooney is blind, and his wife, Maddy, complains of many ailments. She is a woman in her seventies, overweight and having different kinds of health problems and thus, several times in the course of the play she expresses a wish to die. At the same time, however, in encounters with men on her way to the station she speaks in a manner characterized by numerous sexual innuendos. Furthermore, she expresses a strong yearning for love and hopes her unloving husband would show her some warm feelings. Thus she becomes a convincing illustration of Georges Bataille’s argument: “Eroticism, it may be said, is assenting to life up to the point of death”. (shrink)

Many of Beckett characters suffer from different kinds of disabilities and impairments, this being one of the ways of punishing them for “the eternal sin of having been born.” The article discusses blindness in Waiting for Godot, Endgame and All That Fall. In the first of these plays blindness afflicts Pozzo during the interval between the two acts, that is during a single night. Combined with the loss of his watch it is indicative of his entering the subjective realm of (...) timelessness. The blindness of Hamm in Endgame and his inability to walk make him dependant on Clov who is unable to sit, which recalls Pozzo’s dependence on Lucky in the second act. Similarly, the blind Mr Rooney also must get help from other people to be able to move around. In the case of all three plays blindness must be perceived on a literal, as well as metaphorical level. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to compare four versions of the text of Waitingfor Godot: the French original, Beckett’s own translation into English and two Polish renderings done by Julian Rogoziński and Antoni Libera. The article starts with a short discussion concerning rules governing the translation process and then its evaluation. While working on the transposition of the French original into English, Beckett introduced numerous changes, this being due to his sensitivity to the very quality of each of the (...) languages and specific references characteristic of the two cultures. Antoni Libera, an expert in Beckett’s oeuvre, argues that Beckett’s translations should be more adequately described as second language versions and that the artist recommended further translations based on his two language versions. Libera himself followed this recommendation while translating Beckett’s works into Polish. Upon publication, he provided illuminating notes, shedding light on the differences in Beckett’s versions and providing critical insight into the texts. Julian Rogoziński, on the other hand, based his translation of Waiting for Godot only on the French original. This accounts for the fact that, at times, his rendering of the text lacks precision and may not even be quite understandable. Rogoziński’s version is less satisfactory than that of Libera due to the fact that it was written earlier and by an older man, which at times results in the use of old-fashioned, outdated Polish diction and structures. (shrink)

The expression “Pinteresque” describing the characteristic features of Harold Pinter’s artistic output, established its position as a literary critical denominator many years ago. The aim of this article is to analyze some of the specific aspects of the playwright’s use of language. On several occasions, the artist made comments pertaining to certain issues concerning communication. He rejected the idea of the alienation of language and promoted the concept of evasive communication, thus showing people’s unwillingness to communicate. He also spoke about (...) two kinds of silence, the first referring to a situation where there is actual silence, when “no word is spoken,” and the second, when “a torrent of language is being employed” in order to cover the character’s “nakedness.” Accordingly, Pinter’s plays may, depending on their perspective, be treated as dramas of language or of silence. This led Peter Hall, Pinter’s favourite theatre director and also a close friend, to notice that in the playwright’s oeuvre there is a clear distinction beween three dots, a pause and a silence. This article discusses in detail the uneven distribution of pauses and silences in Harold Pinter’s 1977 play, Betrayal. It becomes evident that the use of different kinds of silence clearly indicates the emotional state of the characters at any given moment. (shrink)

The following will analyze a surprising symmetry between the Leninist mode of reasoning and Solidarity's behavior with the help of Lévi-Strauss' notion of bricolage and Besançon's concept of “surreality.” A basic dualism pervades both communist ideology, i.e., the Leninist interpretation of Marxism, and everyday consciousness in “really existing socialist” societies. This dualism will be counterposed to a two-level thought, in which the world of ideas and the world of things are qualitatively different. This approach obviously clashes with the conventional wisdom (...) on the subject, both in Eastern Europe and in the West. Thus, it is claimed that, e.g., liberal or neo-conservative themes appear both in Poland and in the West. (shrink)

Two streams of political thought will be presented: metaphysics of State and metaphysics of Power . An impact of globalization concealing both traditions will be analyzed, with the present evolution of European Union as an example. Structural violence will be shown in a post-communist context.

Present day anti-refugee and anti-immigrant rhetoric both in European countries and in the USA makes reference both to shared tropes and to culture-specific rhetoric devices. The paper analyzes four instances of Polish rabid anti-refugee rhetoric that is eminently country specific: they invoke Holocaust scenario as the means of dealing with the refugee question, should they appear on Polish soil, and specifically suggest exterminating them in former Nazi death camps. The analysis is carried out within the Conceptual Integration Theory, amended by (...) the Author with the notion of parasitic blends: these are said to occur when audiences recruit into the blend some elements of the two input spaces that were not intended to be recruited and come up with an emergent meaning that differ from the intended one. It is claimed that such possibility is actually built into CIT and explains why some of the criticism of CIT claims blends’ non-predictability and generally ex-post character of most analyses found in relevant literature. (shrink)

This volume presents discussions on a wide range of topics focused on eco-phenomenology and the interdisciplinary investigation of contemporary environmental thought. Starting out with a Tymieniecka Memorial chapter, the book continues with papers on the foundations, theories, readings and philosophical sources of eco-phenomenology. In addition, it examines issues of phenomenological anthropology, ecological perspectives of the human relationship to nature, and phenomenology of the living body and the virtual body. Furthermore, the volume engages in a dialogue with contemporary behavioral sciences on (...) topics such as eco-alienation, sustainability, and the human relationship to the earth in the context of the cosmos. (shrink)

This volume investigates the intersection of phenomenology and posthumanism by rethinking the human and nonhuman specifically with regard to boredom, isolation, loneliness, and solitude. By closely examining these concepts from phenomenological, philosophical, and literary perspectives, this diverse collection of essays offers insights into the human and nonhuman in the absence of the Other and within the postapocalyptic. Topics of interest include modalities of presence and absence with regard to body, time, beast, and things; the phenomenology of corporeity; ontopoiesis and the (...) sublime; alienation, absurdity, and phenomenology of existence; memory, posthistoricity, posthuman nihilism, and posthumanity; speculative cosmology, cosmic holism, and consciousness; ecophenomenology; and the philosophy of the aesthetic. These essays parse and probe distinct aspects of the posthuman condition and what it means to exist in a posthuman world, thereby furthering the vast, rich scope of phenomenological research and study. This text appeals to students and researchers working in these topics and fields. (shrink)

This edited volume explores the intersections of the human, nonhuman, transhuman, and posthuman from a phenomenological perspective. Representing perspectives from several disciplines, these investigations take a closer look at the relationship between the phenomenology of life, creative ontopoiesis, and otherness; technology and the human; art and the question of humanity; nonhumans, animals, and intentionality; and transhumanism. Ontological positioning of the human is reconsidered with regard to the nonhuman, transhuman, and posthuman within the cosmos. Further examination of the artificial and object (...) in the lifeworld is also explored. This volume also pays tribute to Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka and her methodical contributions to phenomenology. This text appeals to students and researchers of phenomenology worldwide. (shrink)