Atopy: the Herd and Individuality Cover Image

Atopia - stadność i jednostkowość
Atopy: the Herd and Individuality

Author(s): Adam Dziadek
Subject(s): Literary Texts
Published by: Instytut Badań Literackich Polskiej Akademii Nauk
Keywords: Atopy; Alienation; Postmodernism; Mass Culture.

Summary/Abstract: The article’s starting point is semantic analysis of ‘atopy’, the word rarely in use today, which, as combined with the notion of ‘herd-ity’ and ‘individuality’, is tasked with describing the subject’s situation in a post-modern age, and in the first place, the experience of post-modernity. In our contemporary world, atopy is combined with alienation; it is a non-place, close to the Derridian différance, as it is situated between the poles of unambiguous trenchant positions. It barely stands definite uncontested opinions leading to commonplace opinions (doxa). In the ethical sense, the experience of atopy implies an ostentatious protest against the restricting influences of omnipresent mass culture (interpersonal relations, university, politics, etc.).

  • Issue Year: 2008
  • Issue No: 1-2
  • Page Range: 237-243
  • Page Count: 7
  • Language: Polish