Sprawozdanie [ Sprawozdanie]

Author(s): Barbara Giza / Language(s): Polish Issue: 01/2015

Konferencja została zorganizowana przez Instytut Kulturoznawstwa SWPS,Katedrę Dziennikarstwa i Komunikacji Społecznej SWPS, Katedrę OchronyWłasności Intelektualnej SWPS oraz redakcję bloga Kino Świata (kinoswiata.blogspot.com). Rozpoczęła ją debata ekspercka zatytułowana Kondycja polskiejkrytyki "lmowej. Między papierem a klawiaturą, której moderatorem byłWiesław Godzic. W panelu wzięli udział: Zdzisław Pietrasik („Polityka”),Michał Walkiewicz (www.Nlmweb.pl), Ola Salwa („Kino”) oraz DominikSobolewski i Tomasz Samołyk (areyouwatchingclosely.pl). Na początku debatyGodzic odrzucił, w jakiś sposób uzasadnione, przekonanie, że Nlm jakogłówne narzędzie audiowizualności umiera i stwierdził, że widzi dwie możliwedrogi współczesnej krytyki Nlmowej.

“Things are changing under the skin of England” : Representation of immigrant encounters in Hanif Kureishi’s ‘Borderline’

Author(s): Yağmur Demir / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2017

This paper analyses Hanif Kureishi’s lesser known play Borderline (1981). In this work, written under the influence of 1980 Southall Riots, Kureishi addresses the problems of immigrants living in England and depicts how the idea of Englishness is challenged by the immigrants who are engaged in racist politics, suffer from identity crisis, and strive to gain a sense of belonging. Both first-generation and second-generation immigrants who are unable to feel the sense of belonging in the host land (England) are depicted as occupying in-between spaces. A portrait of an immigrant Pakistani family, each member of which goes through different stages of adjusting themselves to the society they have joined is presented along with other immigrant characters in the play. To fight with the injustice and racial abuse, a group of second-generation immigrants establish an organisation called Asian Youth Movement. Although it is implied that England and English people are not ready yet to embrace other cultures, immigrants, especially second-generation immigrants, endeavour to make England “habitable.” In the play, Pakistani immigrants are portrayed as subject to certain changes during the integration process, which in the long-term will have permanent effects on English national identity, culture and society. This paper aims to display how immigrants (despite being considered a threat) try to overcome the difficulties they face in the host land, and in the meantime inevitably make a change in the English culture.

Апориите на "простия" конструктивизъм: в търсене на един по-рефлексивен конструктивизъм

Author(s): Cyril Lemieux / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2018

Naturalisme et constructivisme dans la critique sociale radicale

Author(s): Boyan Znepolski / Language(s): French Issue: 45-46/2018

Portraying Historical Landmarks and Events in the Digital Game Series Assassin’s Creed

Author(s): Jana Radošinská / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2018

Most young people living in the world of today do not express much interest in history and historical landmarks. It is therefore quite surprising that specific digital games portraying various historical periods or their alternative, partly fictitious versions might at least raise their players’ awareness of real historical facts and sites. Some of these games have been able to achieve global popularity. The author uses the digital game series Assassin’s Creed (2007 – present day) as an example of a digital gaming environment which features historical fiction merged with real historical events and figures. The aim of the study is to better understand the ways Assassin’s Creed portrays historical landmarks all over the world and bring them closer to the players. The basic assumption is that at least some of the players, here seen as potential “gamers-tourists”, may be interested in finding out more about the depicted historical sites and their true counterparts. Given the aforementioned assumption, our ambition is to discuss the digital game series Assassin’s Creed and its tendency to offer visually attractive virtual re-creations of real historical sites, reflecting on the series’ presumed ability to depict historical landmarks, figures and events in mostly fictitious, but still interesting and eye-catching ways.

Affective Studies in Poland: Probing the Field

Author(s): Ryszard Nycz / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2017

Introduction to the issue of Teksty Drugie devoted to affective studies in literature, art and culture. The author points to three major characteristics of this approach. First, its manifest-like form (i.e. pursuing a narrow – affective – research project in order to expose the cognitive profit of such an undertaking on the expenses of a partial and biased image. Secondly, it subscribes to a certain methodological “turn”, as descriptive categories turn into analytical procedures transforming traditional shape of the whole discipline in question. Thirdly, it is an inherent element of the generic understanding of culture as a creative activity, which brings to life phenomena which would remain obscure without its external and caring intervention.

Affective Censorship

Author(s): Grzegorz Niziolek / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2017

This article outlines the notion of censorship in affect as a principle structuring the realm of visibility of homosexuals in Polish theatre. Niziołek explores the relationship between society’s homophobia and ways of establishing the national community. This project attempts to deconstruct Poland’s dominant paradigm of national theatre by tracing counter-public queer performance in public theatre shows.

Poetry and the Ritual: Poems for Bolesław Bierut’s 60th Birthday

Author(s): Michał Głowiński / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2016

The Author as a Brand

Author(s): Dominik Antonik / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2016

The article deals with contemporary autofiction on the example of Michał Witkowski’s works, which allows to describe the change in literature’s functioning on the field of culture and social communication. Witkowski’s work, marketing practices and public activity are presented here as elements of transmedia space of self-creation, which can be navigated. The author claims that literature is reified and plays an important role in an intense media landscape where, according to Lash and Lury, it becomes a material element of reality. This leads to a conclusion that each meeting with thus understood literature is an experience of the intensity of an author as a virtual identity, quality or brand which come into existence through the writer’ s actual activities.

Publishing Circulation Systems versus the Book Market in Today’s Poland

Author(s): Marcin Rychlewski / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2016

A proposed description of today’s publishing movement in Poland, drawn using primarily the distribution key. A ‘main’ popular/commercial circulation is discerned along with three lesser-reach profiled circulations’. Following Przemysław Czapliński, the former is called a ‘book-trail’ [Polish, książkostrada] and identified with the dominant chains such as EMPiK.’Profiled circulations’ (i.e. scientific, religious and literary) are compared to local roads from any of which you can enter the publishing ‘highway’ as well. The closer the distribution centre, the larger the heterogeneity and dispersion of what is inside there – and, the other way round: the closer the peripheries, the stronger the uniformity and specialisation of offer. It is also proposed that former ‘vertical’ metaphors with which socio-literary phenomena have been described, be replaced by ‘horizontal’ ones. The ‘high-artistic’ and ‘popular’ circulations do not form an expressive opposition today; neither does the system of ‘main circulation’ vs. ‘profiled circulations’. Moreover, in the author’s s opinion, the notion of ‘literary circulations’ has become problematic in itself – and ought to be replaced by ‘publishing circulations’. Only in the latter’ s content should participation of literature in the book market as a whole be investigated.

Sociological Contexts of Liberature

Author(s): Katarzyna Bazarnik / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2016

This article analyses the situation of liberature in the field of literary production. It presents a historical outline of the phenomenon, starting with Zenon Fajfer’s proposal of a new literary genre. Bazarnik then contextualizes liberature with the sociological turn in bibliography, which demonstrated that “strong” authors striving to maintain their autonomy in the literary field paid attention to the semantically charged, intentionally shaped bibliographic code of their books. Finally, drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s mechanisms of consecration as well as modern sociolinguistic and rhetorical theories of genre, she describes liberature as a new form of literary communication that can be conceptualised in terms of genre understood as the horizon of expectations.

Academic (Non)Reading from the Perspective of “User Friendliness:” an Insight from the Fields of the Sociology of Literature and of Multimedia

Author(s): Piotr Toczyski / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2016

This article discusses data that is usually difficult to find but sometimes becomes publicly accessible, facilitating reflection on the current transformation of the humanities within Polish academia. The data was collected during classes at metropolitan universities in 2013, when over 700 students of law and other humanities individually responded to auditorium questionnaires. To account for the results of the study, the researchers suggest the categories of “non-reading” and of “ease of access”. Studies of (non)reading in Poland from 2012 form the backdrop for this investigation.

“Degenerate” Forum of Małgorzata Musierowicz’s Fans as an Interactive Interpretative Machine: a Case Study

Author(s): Olga Dawidowicz-Chymkowska / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2016

The aim of the article is to show the rules governing literary interpretation within the Internet forum. The author concentrates in particular on these conditions which enable the co-existence in the discussion at least two different types of discourses on literature, one of which is based on confessing the subjective reading experience and the other on the effort to negotiate a common interpretation within a scope of acceptable readings. The interaction on the forum has been shown as a trigger for some effective interpretative mechanisms leafing to ways of framing discussed texts in an interesting way. The author has also highlighted the risk of interpretative abuses characteristic of the forum discussions and described it as anethical problem.

Културна комуникация и национална консолидация

Author(s): Myumyun Tahirov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 6/2018

The thesis of this article is that cultural communication is a decisive factor in the formation and consolidation of a nation. Society and communication occur simultaneously; both phenomena can not exist without each other.Each cultural communication system implies the emergence of new nations as it makes it possible to identify the individual with the group/community based on common past, territory, symbols, language and political and legal institutions. The lack of such a system and the existence of the so-called “ethnic syndrome” hinders the cultural development of entire societies, as individuals and communities do not receive the information they need for themselves and for their activity. This prevents communication, and, consequently, national consolidation.Finally, an own definition of the concept of “nation” is proposed.

From Common Meal via Acéphale to Unsacrificeable

Author(s): Bernard Harbaš / Language(s): English Issue: 15/2018

In this article, the author introduces several approaches to the concept of sacrifice. It begins with the classic sociological approach of Émile Durkheim who in sacrifice remarks forming, strengthening and maintaining of a community. In his anthropological conception, Georges Bataille demonstrates that the production and accumulation of wealth are wrong moral principles and suggests a new moral practice of giving oneself without asking anything in return, which represents the only way to realize a society of equals. Such a society, in which there would be no leader or a singular sovereignty, he calls Acéphale. For Jean-Luc Nancy, sacrifice is impossible. Starting from a standpoint that the Being is nothing and that there is nothing except this worldly plurality, Nancy considers sacrifice impossible since there is no higher principle for which the sacrifice would be performed. Beside the standpoints of the above-mentioned theoreticians, this article also offers a theory of discipline and sacrifice for achieving a socially expected perfect appearance. In all the mentioned theories, non-classic dimension of sacrifice is demonstrated. In them sacrifice is performed as activity for achieving social unity, greater equality, socially expected appearance and it is also presented as something impossible.

Artistic Myth and its Interpretations of Cultural Heritage of the Eastern European Countries in the Popular Animated Films of the Post-Soviet Period

Author(s): Olena Polishchuk / Language(s): English Issue: 10/2018

The article touches upon the issue of the need to study the myth in artistic practices as special phenomenon in the modern social life of Europe countries. The novelty of the study is as follows. We assert that among the newest myths, which significantly affect the value orientations and life standards of modern society, a special place is occupied exactly by the myth of ancient state in newest artistic practices. Such newest myth gives a new interpretation of cultural heritage. We analyses the animation blockbusters all created the newest artistic myth about Rus. We have focus on analyzing the artistic myth as special product of contemporary artistic practices and phenomenon of East-Central Europe culture which was formed as result of post-totalitarian practices and cultural policy of the state. The analysis of its features, as the social and cultural phenomenon, is carried out in our study taking into account problem of post-totalitarian practices in East Europe countries. As result, this myth transposed an idea of “cradle of fraternal nations” in East-Central Europe, and it created the other artistic myth about the Lord of Kiev Vladimir as a naive, capricious and ridiculous ruler of an ancient country.

Consumption and Production as Forms of Resistance

Author(s): Bernard Harbaš / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2018

Concept of the political appeared for the first time in Carl Schmitt’s theory, implying the autonomy of political decision making specific in relation to other spheres of human actions such as economy and art. With the postmodern political theory, concept of the political starts to be used in combination with the notion of politics, as a sort of counterbalance to political power of established government and its efforts to fully master the society. One of the pioneers of postmodernism, Michel Foucault, believed that the resistance to totalitarian efforts of every politics is performed through caring of self (souci de soi), that is, through our individual action manifested as a sort of micropower and representing a counterbalance to official politics. That way, individual action represents the action which limits government’s efforts to fully equate politics and social life. Thus, certain sorts of consumption, as one of the fundamental economic activities, can be interpreted as a sort of political activism. Consumption, as a resistance to official politics and economy, can in contemporary context be noticed in projects like slow-food nutrition, buying of second-hand products, rejecting to ware cloths made of fur, rejecting to purchase from socially irresponsible corporations. Political activism can be noticed in production as well, which can be seen in the examples of Marx’s analyses of this activity. For Marx, only in communist epoch, production becomes an important activity because only then it is transformed from slavery work into a means through which individual capacities and senses are developed. In the communist epoch, with the abolition of private property, production becomes free and creative activity. In contemporary context, “free and creative production” can be perceived in the organic food production, use of already used materials when making cloths and furniture, hand-made production of cosmetic products, in so called home-made production. As it can be seen, consumption and production don’t necessarily have to represent products of global capitalism and ways through which the control over the working class is performed. On the contrary, these economic practices can represent both a form of political actions and to, as a “postmodern” concept of the political, function as a means in struggle against domination of capitalism and politics’ efforts to identify itself with the society.

Tjetri dhe mrekullia e hutisë: Kamy e Pashku

Author(s): Avdi Visoka / Language(s): Albanian Issue: 35/2017

This paper will examine the concept of the Other in Literature by introducing many cultural, philosophical, religious, ethical, and aesthetic issues. In fact, the Other can be considered in the function of cultural, ethical, ethnic, and social belonging. The perception of the Other is also inseparable from self-construction and personal identity preoccupations, as well as from the construction of relationships with the other:This is a sui generis articulation and self-articulation within illusion, fiction, and reality.The Concept of the Other has a very particular resonance in the novels of Camus (The stranger) and Pashku (Oh). The concept of absurd as a perception of the Other, as an articulation of the self and as a generator of mutual relations makes these authors very special in literature. The examination of convergences and differences in the novels of these authors will shed light thorough this paper by interrogating the lieuxcommuns between Albanian and French literary space, with a special regard to the relationships of us versus them.

Virgjëresha shqiptare, "Tjetri ekzotik" në rrëfimin e Alice Munro-së

Author(s): Edlira Macaj Tonuzi / Language(s): Albanian Issue: 35/2017

The concept of "the other" initially studied in philosophy as a self-reliance (Hegel), as an inter-subjectivity foundation (Husserl), as an inevitable manifestation (J. P. Sartre), as a mythical, historical, sociological approach, where "the other" is the female (S. De Beauvoir); as an opposite part of the self (Lacan), as the other after the other (Derrida) etc., but also studied in the literature, psychology, sociology and culture, has marked its development in several directions. "The other" is considered as the different, the unacceptable, the differentiator, the stranger, etc. depended from the study's point of view, thus generating the meaning that it takes in every case. This paper will examine how the "other", known since at the beginning as an Albanian typical social part (The sworn virgin), becomes a motif of inspiration, cultural lending and transformation in the Alice Munro’s story, gaining so new functions literary motivated. This "other" borrowed from far away, appears as the exotic "other". Taken from a distant reality for her (Munro’s) readers, especially vitalized with its exotically function, this "other" will be discussed in our point of view from a philosophical, moral, sociological and cultural perspective referred to the relevant theories (Derrida, Todorov, Baumann, Jenkins, etc.)The concrete subject of study is: an introduction to the typical sworn virgin as an Albanian social phenomenon. Defining it as "the other" and displaying its integration in the Munro’s text while facing the other culture. The Albanian sworn virgin as the Munro's "Exotic Other".The cultural refraction of this social "other" made by its unique code and recognized in its psychology of the place where it works, comes throughout the fantasy and narrative structures from an author without real contact with the culture from she borrowed the model. Reactivation in the exotically context, of the seduction from the unknown, vocative, etc., becomes a version of connection of time and mankind. It serves to the modern human being to accept and respect the other and it comes to us as a free choice where the literary fantasy disengages the connection from the genesis, and the whole scheme is understood by enriching the meanings that ‘the other’ takes as: the only one-other in relationships with others through differences or similarities.

Interaksioni në hapësirat publike virtuale (cyberspace) si mbështetje e realizimit të hapësirave shoqërore transnacionale

Author(s): Lumnije Kadriu / Language(s): Albanian Issue: 35/2017

According to Faist, transnational social fields ‘refer to sustained ties of persons, networks and organizations across the borders across multiple nation-states, ranging from low to highly institutionalized forms...’.Internet has become a part of everyday life for most of people all around the world and therefore its impact has become a topic of interest for scholars of different fields. Some of the fields are focused in the study of this phenomenon and its impact from above, i.e. its ideological and economic power, while some are focused in its social and cultural impact observing from below, thus as practiced by wider social strata. In this paper from ethnological perspective, from below, will be analyzed the importance the cyberspace and media have among diasporans in preserving relations and ties with homeland, making it this way a relevant transnational space in which familial and cultural ties are cultivated. How is reflected their everyday life in these spaces? In what ways are confirmed their multiple cultural and social ties? The analysis will be based on the data collected from a number of conversations with Kosovo Albanian migrants, as well as through participant observation in some public virtual spaces such as YouTube and Facebook.