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Artificial paradises

Intoxications with culture - intoxications in culture. The Slavic case

Author(s): Izabela Lis-Wielgosz, Elżbieta Wesołowska, Suzana Coha, Paula van Wissem, Anna Gawarecka, Karel Střelec, Agata Firlej, Ilona Gwóźdź-Szewczenko, Rafał Majerek, Radosław Łazarz, Krzysztof Kosiński, Anna Kowszewicz, Milica Jakóbiec-Semkowowa, Mirosław Jankowiak, Suzana Marjanić, Aleksandra Hudymač, Marinko Zekić, Michał Nikodem, Krystyna Pieniążek-Marković, Michał Kucharski, Svatava Urbanová, Mieczysław Balowski, Ewa Szperlik, Magdalena Baer, Roman Sliwka
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Applied Linguistics, Studies of Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Adama Mickiewicza
Keywords: intoxications; culture; literature; art; emotions; impressions; stimulants; imagination; euphoria; ecstasy; communication
Summary/Abstract: The scientific monograph Artificial paradises: intoxications with culture – intoxications in culture is a polyphonic project on understanding the titular phenomenon, identifying its forms, manifestations and consequences that are both a subject of description of culture, and its integral component, a source of ecstatic, euphoric or at least hedonistic reactions and behaviors. One of the functions of culture and art is to evoke emotions, often extreme (and not always positive) ones that result in experiences comparable to narcotic or alcoholic intoxication. Contemporary theories of literary and artistic communication (based on an emphatic or somatic mode of reception) allow for a return to these reception conceptions seemingly abandoned a long time ago, bringing culture back to what is in popular opinion its unwaveringly primary task of delivering sensory impressions and emotional affections. It is in this sense that the initial metaphor of “artificial paradises” was interpreted by the authors of the various chapters in the monograph. The metaphor was applied to all literary and artistic tools that shape reality represented in a way that enables one to create an imagined world which suits the spiritual and emotional needs of a human being more than that one which is known for empirical experience. The monograph is therefore a multi-authored overview of different variants of understanding cultural intoxications, recognizing and indicating their presence or transmission in the culture of the Slavs.

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