Walking through (Hi)stories: City and Temporality in Vandana Singh’s “Delhi”

Author(s): Agnieszka Podruczna / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

The article constitutes an attempt at an in-depth analysis of the way in which Vandana Singh, in her short story “Delhi,” engages in a discussion concerning the relationship between the urban space, hegemonic colonial narrative, and the subjectivity of the historical account, reframing it in terms of speculative fiction. This practice, framed as a counter-discursive attempt at rewriting the history of the Other, allows the author to comment upon the ways in which that history has been created and shaped. Adopting the postcolonial discourse as well as theory of science fiction as the primary methodological background, the article aims to explore the themes of collective memory and postcolonial reclaiming practices, framed in terms of a spatial-temporal journey through the urban space of Delhi, with the view of substantiating the thesis that the act of walking through the city in both the spatial and the temporal sense constitutes a counter-discursive attempt at reclaiming the colonial narrative and challenging the status quo.

Amidst the Wonders of the City: Countenances of Moscow in Barbara Włodarczyk’s “Wide Tracks”

Author(s): Monika Kowalczyk-Piaseczna / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

The article analyses the various countenances of Moscow which have been presented by Barbara Włodarczyk in the cycle of television reportages “Wide Tracks”. The text focuses on illustrating the specific features of a film report that allow its author to present the wondrous picture of the Russian capital emerging from the particular fragments of the discussed reportages. Moreover, as a result of juxtaposition of the reports from that part of the city, which overwhelms one with its richness and splendour, with the accounts from these corners of Moscow in which the continuous struggle for survival takes place, the article examines the internal contradictions which may be observed within the depicted urban space. The analysed cycle also exposes the series of political conflicts which undermine the immaculate image of Moscow as a wondrous city, presented by some of the characters of the discussed film pictures, and simultaneously, it allows one to discover some new, less known countenances of the metropolis.

Anorexia and the City: Special Significance of the Urban Environment in Eating Disorder Memoirs

Author(s): Nina Augustynowicz / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

The article examines a book of memoirs belonging to a larger group of textual representations of individual struggle with anorexia in order to shed light on the city as a crucial character in the account of the disease. “Kid Rex: The Inspiring True Account of a Life Salvaged from Anorexia, Despair and Dark Days in New York City” (2008) by Laura Moisin is one of many recent publications touching upon the subject of eating disorders penned by and depicting the life of young upper middle class big city women. First notable books of this kind appeared around 1980, while since the beginning of this century we have been observing a steady increase in this respect, resulting in the proliferation of these personal narratives in popular culture. In accordance with the research suggesting that the incidence of eating disorders is higher in urban areas, publications of this kind all seem to refer to such environments; however, the aforementioned book could be considered special here as it portrays the deep-reaching relations between witnessing the events of September 11 attacks and the development of the disease. Even though it remains unclear which elements of cityscapes are responsible for the higher incidence of the anorexia, the acute experiences offered by NYC around the time of the attack highlight the probable causes. Employing the interdisciplinary perspectives offered by psychogeography, food studies and sociology of medicine, the article analyses how the influence of the city on female victims of anorexia is presented in the memoir to show that urban spaces may function both as a symptom of and as a factor contributing to the disease.

Queerowanie Frankensteina. Motywy inności i nienormatywności w serialu Dom grozy

Author(s): Barbara Braid / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

In the chapter “Queering Frankenstein: the motifs of otherness and non-normativity in »Penny Dreadful«”, Barbara Braid offers an interpretation of Frankenstein’s creatures presented in the series from the perspective of queer theory. The queer is understood here as a wide range of non-normativity and difference, including subjectivities and actions which subvert stabilities and norms. The author identifies the links between queer theory and the gothic, which allow to see the characters which are monstrous, undead, abject—or simply Other—as representations of difference. In this light, the presented analysis shows the three creatures made by Frankenstein and Victor Frankenstein himself as characters related to each other in non-normative ways, creating a queer quasi-family. This discussion is also contextualized by references to Mary Shelley’s original novel and some of its classic film adaptations and their comparison with Penny Dreadful. Frankenstein’s creature is, due to its nature as the undead made of fragments of corpses, an abject thing, an embodiment of Otherness. In the series, Victor creates three beings, which are in a constant tension with each other. The firstborn John Clare murders the second creature, Proteus, out of hatred for their “father” Victor; the third being is Lily, another embodiment of the Bride of Frankenstein, destined to be with the creature, but desired by Victor. She becomes a dangerous fiend, femme castratrice, who desires a new world order and subordination of human beings. These two surviving Others—John and Lily—represent two different attitudes to their otherness. John Clare yearns normality and tries to achieve it by establishing a family with a human woman; Lily, a demonic man-eater, terrifies him. On the other hand, Lily strikes a relationship with Dorian Gray, equally non-normative, in order to achieve a queer monstrous supremacy over the world. However, both Frankenstein’s creatures fail and become alone. Therefore, the chapter is concluded with suppositions that question whether the motifs of otherness play an unequivocally subversive role in Penny Dreadful.

Версии на литературен перипатетизъм в романа на модернизма

Author(s): Cleo Protohristova / Language(s): Bulgarian Publication Year: 0

It is generally acknowledged that the fundamental anthropological modus of walking once transformed from a necessary and indispensable human activity into a matter of individual choice, emerged as ideology and was simultaneously appropriated into the realm of „the fictive and the imaginary“ (in W. Iser’s terminology), which brought about the conceptualization of the literary peripatetic. Meanwhile, attributed to that same modern ideology was an ancient legacy traced back to Aristotle’s school of philosophy. The paper is concerned with the re-actualization of the peripapetic in Modernism – that is to say, with the conceptual, cultural, and textual aspects ofwalking, represented in modernist novels, evaluated in the perspective of the alternating historical, ideological, aesthetic, philosophical, and poetical contexts, that construct the complex narrative rationalizing the interconnectedness between walking and thinking, and walking and writing.

Българската класика чете италианската

Author(s): Boyka Ilieva / Language(s): Bulgarian Publication Year: 0

The focus of the current study is the perception of the Italian literary classics by influential figures in Bulgarian literature like Iv. Vazov, K. Velichkov, P. Yavorov, P. P. Slaveykov and K. Hristov. It is traced in several aspects – preferences for specific authors, translation activity and literary criticism. In various sources, the Bulgarian classical authors displayed an affinity for Dante, F. Petrarca, T. Tasso, U. Foscolo, G. Leopardi and the “national poet of Italy” G. Carducci. Their works were distributed in Bulgaria through the translations of Vazov, Velichkov and Hristov. In some cases, the foreign classical authors had an inspiring effect on the original works of established Bulgarian writers. Thus, for example, Vazov immortalized in verse Dante, Tasso and Leopardi. Velichkov eulogized Dante and Petrarca, and Slaveykov – Michelangelo. Velichkov wrote a critical sketch of Dante, Hristov – of Foscolo, and Yavorov translated a feature story about Carducci.

Bilje, raslinje, ne–umlje: Lutonjica Toporko i devet župančića u optici ekofeminističkog novorođenja

Author(s): Lada Čale Feldman / Language(s): Croatian Publication Year: 0

In an epoch in which life on earth is threatened by drastic outcomes of our neglect of the nature, it is worth reminding ourselves to what extent fairy tales as a genre can be considered a full–blown »ecologic niche of the culture« (cfr. Marjanic 2006). The same holds for the opus of Ivana Brlic–Mazuranic, although that aspect of her opus got somewhat scarce treatment. Her tale »Lutonjica Toporko and nine county ruler’s sons« was rarely interpreted, its ecological »message« mentioned only in passing remarks. This article draws attention to its unexplored archetypal bases, both in psychoanalytic and folkloristic perspective, and discusses its worth for eco–feminist ideas on civilizational re–birth that are nowadays promoted in the philosophical work of French philosopher Luce Irigaray.

Estetski i ideološki aspekti lika vile u pripovijetkama Elina Pelina

Author(s): Marijana Bijelić,Paula Ćaćić / Language(s): Croatian Publication Year: 0

Fairies are ambivalent (malignant–benevolent) mythological female creatures connected to nature. Their ambivalent character is connected to men’s ambivalent relationship toward nature, which is closely linked to female archetype. The paper deals with the ideological and aesthetical aspect of fairy–characters in two Pelin’s novels with the same title — Fairy — and their role in his conceptualization of the clash between culture and nature, and also the clash between rural and urban, which is closely connected to it.

Filozofia nauki Léona Brunschvicga

Author(s): Gaston Bachelard / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

Jung a francuska szkoła wyobrażenia: Gaston Bachelard i Gilbert Durand

Author(s): Jean-Jacques Wunenburger / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

Gilberta Duranda czytanie Bachelarda. Antropologiczne struktury wyobraźni

Author(s): Ilona Błocian / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

Bachelard i melancholia. Cień Schopenhauera w filozofii Gastona Bachelarda

Author(s): Jean Libis / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

Bachelard i pojęcie metafizyki konkretnej

Author(s): Maryvonne Perrot / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

O wierze pewnego racjonalisty. Bachelard i jego „ateizm”

Author(s): Anton Vydra / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

Periferni polemički diskursi povodom Mandićeve knjige „Romani krize” – kritički paratekst ili „politikantska uzbuna“?

Author(s): Miranda Levanat-Peričić / Language(s): Croatian Publication Year: 0

Publication of a book of literary reviews Romani krize (The Novels of Crisis) by Igor Mandić in Belgrade in 1996, as well as the book promotion in Serbia, have been the subject of sharp attacks on its author in the Croatian media. In this “case,” which Mandić himself called “the chase of the collegial choir of elite commentators” for an “insignificant book of literary reviews,” several peripheral levels that are attempted to impose as dominant or to compete for a more favorable discursive position can be distinguished. First of all, the complex of peripheral is in the very status of literary criticism, the marginal letter, inferior to the prestigious discourses of belletristic and literary theory. However, as Mandić underlined in the foreword to The Novels of Crisis, this “by status wholly devalued writing, no matter how small, could always be used as a ‘symptom’ to raise some sort of ward-heeler’s alarm.” Regardless of the ironic modus of this attitude, the “ward-heeler alarm” that followed completely departed from the subject of this Mandić’s collection, or a decade of Serbian and Croatian literary productions, from the 80’s to the 90’s. Finally, precisely this literary period, which Mandić defined as a decade after the death of J. B. Tito and M. Krleža until the break-up of the SFRY, as the last decade of literary and cultural life in a common state, after its disintegration remained on the historical periphery of newly established national canons. However, the most important peripheral level of the whole of this “case” is concerned with the approach to the body of texts that this book deals with, i.e. a comparative study of Serbian and Croatian literature. At the time it was published in 1996, from peripheral cultural positions the comparative approach to the Croatian and Serbian literature was perceived as a radical political provocation that comes from the common past, in the wake of its renewal. In this work special attention is given to Mandić’s choice of Serbian and Croatian literary titles, hence to the very content of the Novels of Crisis. However, since the cultural context of this book goes beyond the literary criticism of the decade to which it relates, its significance is looked into from the aspect of polemical discourses this book produced, even at the periphery of the Croatian nineties.

Čitanje u karantinu

Author(s): Jill Lepore / Language(s): Bosnian

Kada je kuga stigla u London 1665. godine njegovi stanovnici izgubili su prisebnost. Savjetovali su se s astrolozima, šarlatanima, konsultovali Bibliju. Tražili su po svojim tijelima znakove bolesti: otekline, plikove, tamne mrlje. Preklinjali su za proročanstva, plaćali da im predviđaju budućnost, molili se bogu, zapomagali. Zatvarali su oči, pokrivali uši, ridali na ulicama, čitali uznemirujuće pamflete. Vlada je, želeći da suzbije paniku, pokušala „da spriječi štampanje takvih knjiga jer su prestravljivale narod“, zabilježio je Danijel Defou „Dnevniku kužne godine“, priči koju je napisao u isto vrijeme kada i „Potrebne mjere zaštite protiv kuge“, 1722. godine u kojoj su ljudi strahovali da bi bolest na nekom trgovačkom brodu mogla ponovo preći preko Lamanša, nakon što je proputovala od Bliskog istoka do Marseja. Defo se nadao da će njegove knjige biti korisne „i nama i potomcima, iako bismo mi trebali biti pošteđeni ove gorke čaše“. No ta je gorka čaša bila već izvađena iz vitrine.

Neprijatelji i ljudi

Author(s): Basri Çapriqi / Language(s): Serbian Publication Year: 0

In the first part, this article embraces the idea of a common Balkan identity that has roots in Antiquity and of linguistic and cultural Balkan unity following from the Ancient Greek culture. It then follows the demise of this Balkan identity during the rise of nationalism in the nineteenth century, and advocates that it is the time to leave the conflict in the past and to pacify and reunite the Balkans in the European Union. The second part of the article discusses negative influence of writers on promoting the conflicts in the Balkans, to emphasize several authors and literary works that by its pacifism and humanism stand out from the main current: The Immigrants – the Songs of Ali Binak by Radovan Zogović, Ali Podrimja’s Happy Ending, Predrag Lucić’s Ići Mići Ahmići and The Elite Worse Than the Crowd by Mirko Kovač.

ALTERNATIVNI PROSTORI/ALTERNATIVNA VREMENA. “TVRĐAVE” MEŠE SELIMOVIĆA, ISMAILA KADAREA I ORHANA PAMUKA

Author(s): Davor Beganović / Language(s): Croatian Publication Year: 0

U promijenjenim uvjetima u kojima se znanost o književnosti našla s početka 21. stoljeća teorijsko je izučavanje prostora zauzelo jednu od centralnih uloga. Tzv. “turns”, kojima je Doris Bachmann-Medick posvetila čitavu studiju (Bachmann-Medick 2006), pomjerili su težište ispitivanja s filološkoga ka raznolikim područjima koja književnost kao ljudsku djelatnost pokušavaju ukotviti u diverzificiranim manifestacijama svijeta života što ih je nemogućno obuhvatiti klasičnim postupcima hermeneutičke ili strukturalne analize. U nizu obrata koje pod njihovim engleskim nazivljem nabraja Bachmann-Medickova jedan je od središnjih spatial turn, dakle prostorni. Proskrbiranje njegova izučavanja u znanosti o književnosti potječe prvenstveno iz teškoga naslijeđa koje ta prvenstveno geopolitička kategorija vuče još iz perioda nacional-socijalizma, ali i kolonijalne ekspanzije europskih velesila. Obrat se sastoji upravo u nužnosti ukazivanja na nove moduse iščitavanja topografije same kulture i njezinih višestrukih upisanosti u tkivo književnih tekstova. Bachmann-Medick sažima različitost dvaju koncepcija prostora na sljedeći način: “[U] novome konceptualiziranju prostor upravo ne podrazumijeva teritorijalnost, sadržitelja tradicija ili čak domovinu [...] Prostor znači socijalnu produkciju prostora koja se zbiva kao višeslojni i često proturječni društveni proces, specifično lociranje kulturalnih praksa, dinamiku socijalnih odnosa koje ukazuju na promjenjivost prostora.” (Bachmann-Medick 2006: 288-9) Pomak od fiksiranog pojma prostora u kojemu ga se nužno dovodi u vezu s prvobitnim nacionalnim teritorijalnim širenjem a potom i sa učvršćivanjem i markiranjem novonastalih granica ka široko shvaćenom procesu kulturalnoga zaposjedanja topografskih vrijednosti zrcali se u književnome prikazivanju tih procesa, ali i u istovremenome sudjelovanju književnosti (i kultura) u njemu.

Le seuil entre le rêve et le réel dans le théâtre baroque. « L'illusion comique » et « La vie est un songe ».

Author(s): Sorina-Crina Ghiață / Language(s): French Publication Year: 0

Paradoxes and strong contrasts have always been one of the most common ideas of the Baroque movement. However, what seems unusual is the permanent oscillation between life and death, but also the mixture between the illusory and the real. Thereby, eloquent examples could be represented by two of the authors devoted to the literature of the time. As for the two texts belonging to Pierre Corneille and Pedro Calderón de la Barca, the motif of illusion and the theme of dream are, of course, aspects that bring these pieces together. We will see how their playwrights reflect the threshold between the life and dreams of their characters, in “L’Illusion comique and”: “La vida es sueño”.

Književnohistoriografski hod slavonskom šumom

Author(s): Anica Bilić / Language(s): Croatian Publication Year: 0

The corpus of literary texts interpreted, poetically and according to genre heterogeneous, came into being between 1762 and 1911: Sveta Rožalija, Antun Kanižlić (1759/1780); Satir iliti divji čovik, Matija Antun Relković (1762); Jesenski plodovi, Matija Petar Katančić (1791); Kolo gorah, Oto Šiaković (1851/1862); Slavonska šuma Josip Kozarac (1888); Jankovo ljetovanje, Franjo Ciraki (1905); Rasap, Josip Kosor (1906); Đuka Begović, Ivan Kozarac (1911) and refers to specific geographically defined woodland areas in Slavonia. Lowland wooded areas are analysed as literary landscapes into which the writers inscribed various subjective and socially conditioned meanings, values, emotions, empirical knowledge as well as worldviews. The designation of woods as a dominant natural surface cover was observed within the experience of nature, culture and the society and its degree of reference to non-literary reality covers natural, cultivated and literary space. The aim of this paper is to define and interpret forests as literary landscapes diachronically and to determine them as complex entities expressing their complexity in multiformity and stratification. By using advances in cultural and literary geography, particularly qualitative analyses, in the above corpus the woodland is described, interpreted, systemized and in conclusion it is shown that the depictions of woodland were historical and depended on literary-evolutionary tendencies.