Le journal à la recherche de la beauté transcendante : Schmemann, Dostoïevski, Bernanos

Author(s): Kalin Mikhailov / Language(s): French Issue: 1/2016

This article begins with a reading of a diary which is not explicitly “literary”; namely, the diary of the theologian Father Alexander Schmemann; it continues with A Writer’s Diary by Fyodor Dostoevsky and ends with the “diary of a country priest” from the novel of the same name by the French author Georges Bernanos. Under what conditions, to what extent and from what angle can we compare the journals of a renowned theologian, a well-known novelist like Dostoevsky and an anonymous novel character? The three texts turn out to be united by the search for an interface between everyday life and transcendent reality, as well as by the fact that in all three cases this interface is found through the revelation of “transcendent beauty” (as beauty simultaneously being and not being part of this world). The texts also have in common the fact that beauty was discovered in each case through an experience that marked the existence of the diarists and gave them strength to follow their life paths to the end.

WAS HEIßT, MUSIK ZU VERSTEHEN? THEORETISCHE EINSICHTEN UND PRAKTISCHE EMPFEHLUNGEN EINER LEBENSWELTORIENTIERTEN ÄSTHETISCHEN HERMENEUTIK

Author(s): KARL EHRENFORTH / Language(s): German Issue: 3/2014

The author argues that music should not be mediated as a scientifically reduced objectto amateurs and students, but as a message for the listener. Music is not a kind of strange“thing”, but a “virtually-you”, and looks for a dialogue with everybody who listens to it. Music claims: “I mean you! I’m talking about you! I want to talk to you”! Not only is music sound and structure, but a life lived as a reflection of sounds. It is the shape in which the dialogue with music finds its sustenance. The author examines one of the time-honored musical forms – the rondo – to demonstrate his view. From a historical perspective, the rondo is a round-song, which plays an important role in our daily lives. With its typical contrast between what is already known (chorus) and new elements (couplet), the rondo reflects our different experiences of time: time as a line (time of day) and time as a circle (circle of celebration). This article offers an insight into the theme of live of the author: hermeneutics as the science of understanding, here is the music.

SZKIC DO OBRAZU WYOBRAŹNI TWÓRCZEJ

Author(s): KAZIMIERZ JAŁOWCZYK / Language(s): Polish Issue: 3/2014

Imagination is one of the most important characteristics of human mind. The languageof imagination is created by ideas and mental images. The activity of imagination is ex-pressed by various notions such as fantasy, intuition, invention, narration, inspiration,stimulus, and dream. Imagination functions and develops autonomously in relation to theoutside world. It is not subordinate to strict discipline and altered states of consciousness. Itcreates its own rules, goes beyond time and forges a creative identity of the human being.

Oto, co czyni pismo. Księgi Świątyni Pamięci w Puławach i ich sprawcza moc

Author(s): Hanna Jurkowska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2015

Jurkowska discusses the nineteenth-century guest books signed by visitors to the Temple of the Sibyl in Puławy, Poland’s first museum. As an anthropologist of literacy practices, she re-contextualizes the entries and focuses the materiality and functionality of the volumes that contain the autographs. She also explores the visual strategies and performativity in the Puławy books, as well as the visitors’ writing tactics, which revolve around national memory and identity.

Karta etyki globalnej w słowach uniwersalnych

Author(s): Anna Wierzbicka / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2015

The “Declaration Toward a Global Ethic” adopted by the Parliament of the World’s Religions in 1993 and the “Earth Charter” (UNESCO, 2000) both hinge on the notion that in the era of increasing globalization the world needs a “charter of global ethics”. Wierzbicka develops this idea, engaging with the Dalai Lama’s suggestion that the “charter of global ethics” should be translated into all the languages of the world. Wierzbicka argues that this goal can be achieved if the norms of global ethics are formulated in a Minimal Language based on the universal “alphabet of human thought,” which emerges from several years of empirical study on many of the world’s languages. She presents two version of her “charter of global ethics” – a Polish version and an English one – suggesting they could act as a platform for global dialogue on ethical norms for all of humanity.

OBRAZ NOWEJ HUTY W NAJNOWSZEJ PROZIE FABULARNEJ: KOBIETY, ROMANTYZM I PRAGNIENIE NOWEGO POCZĄTKU

Author(s): Anna Wojciechowska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2015

The text undertakes an analysis of representation of Nowa Huta in contemporary ction, in attempt to discover whether a new ways of description have been invented (in the context of strong and in uential myths dating back do 1950’s). It focuses on three texts: Hanna Sokołowska’s thriller Kosa, Jewgienij T. Olejniczak’s fantasy novella Tajemna historia Nowej Huty and Adam Miklasz’s Ostatni mecz, a story of Nowa Huta football team and its fans. A couple of common problems in the discussed texts are observed and examined, such as: rep- resentation of feminity (attribution of creative force to women), romantic paradigm, relation between private and public and rewriting of Nowa Huta genesis.What seems to be a major problem is crisis of community, distrust of common values and shift towards indi- vidualism (in Miklasz’s book the case is more complicated).

Estetyka współczesnego miasta – problem visual i light pollution

Author(s): Maria Michniowska / Language(s): Polish Issue: XIII/2015

Pollution of the urban space, both visual and light, is a growing problem and appears in practically every city. It poses both an aesthetic and ecological threat. There is a lack of legal measures that would regulate the question of intervention in the urban space. Thus, the layout of advertising signs is extremely important because our cities are cluttered with various hoardings and billboards. We can observe it especially in city centers but also on the outskirts where advertising is even less ordered and more chaotic. The problem of visual and light pollution is becoming omnipresent, and the latter one is a matter of concern not only for environmentalists and astronomers but also for all the people who want their cities to be aesthetic and safe.

Multikulturalizm w Europie Zachodniej – historia i teraźniejszość

Author(s): Mieczysław Ryba / Language(s): Polish Issue: 24/2014

The author in his article points out that the idea of multiculturalism collapses before our eyes today, because at its source is postmodern ideology which is extremely averse to national Christian tradition being the basis for European identity. In the name of utopia, its believers effectively destroyed the centuries-old tradition. The author notes that this ideology came to Poland in a situation where many Western politicians announced its bankruptcy. The tragic consequences of suppression of Christianity from the public space has been written many times. It is also very tragic that national tradition was destructed in the name of long ago bygone utopia. The author claims that the fight with the thousand-year tradition of the great nation has to end in disaster. Equally confusing is, in his opinion, the fierce struggle with the idea of the nation-state as a supposedly xenophobic solution, generating various wars and conflicts.

Ideologie wielokulturowości a destrukcja polityki Zachodu

Author(s): Paweł Skrzydlewski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 24/2014

The author analyzes four key factors of the state built upon principles of the Latin civilization; these factors include morality (the uprightness of citizens), science, production and army. He accentuates that all the actions based on revolutionary methods and assumptions must be removed from the social life of Europe and Poland because of their harmfulness and dangerous practices. Politics, when realized according to the above-selected principles, allows recovering and strengthening the pillars of Western culture. These pillars include: A) Family based on the undissolvable and unsolicited marriage of a man and a woman, which fosters love between them and for all the others, which enables the actual equality of a man and a woman in their rights and duties, which founds private property and the opportunity of getting matured during the lifetime of parents. B) The administration of justice in all areas of human life through the public authority which while giving back what is due to each other contributes in establishing a genuine interpersonal peace along with its various fruits. C) The respect for human work which enables an essential development of any human goods, as well as the eradication of any form of slavery. D) The independence of religious life from political and temporal factors, which ultimately serves the priority of the human spirit over all the finite and the means for human life.

Alternatywne ruchy religijne jako element współczesnego multikulturalizmu

Author(s): Robert T. Ptaszek / Language(s): Polish Issue: 24/2014

The article consists of two parts. In the first, which has an introductory character, the author recalls the role which Christianity has played in Western culture yet recently and depicts the peculiarity of modern anti-religious Western culture. In the second part he shows how alternative (new) religious movements function in this culture. The author pays a particular attention on those elements of contemporary culture which enable to create and develop such movements. In his conclusion, the author points out that this multicultural alternative which is offeered by contemporary religious movements is essentially apparent. This is so, because referring to ideas which come from non-European cultures does not resolve important problems of the modern European. Instead of answers there are new, even tougher to explain, problems and questions.

Polska 1979-1989. Polski papież i amerykański prezydent

Author(s): Richard J. Fafara / Language(s): Polish Issue: 25/2015

This paper examines the shared religious and intellectual conviction, toughness, and an abhorrence of communism of Pope John Paul II and President Reagan that contributed to the demise of that system in Poland. I discuss similarities between these two men; their approaches to communism; their meetings beginning in 1982; the hypothesis of a “holy alliance,” and conclude that based on available evidence to date, a strong case can be made that the Pope and Reagan jointly did more than any others to bring about the fall of communism, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the end of the Cold War.

Emancypacyjna obietnica posthumanizmu

Author(s): Joanna Bednarek / Language(s): Polish Issue: 14/2014

Transhumanistyczna utopia w kulturze popularnej – przypadek Kraftwerk

Author(s): Andrzej Juszczyk / Language(s): Polish Issue: 21/2014

The article focuses on the analysis of work of pop group Kraftwerk in utopian context. Kraftwerk’ work is treated as a intermedial combination of music, texts, visual art and scenical performance. Its main content is a comprehensive vision of non-existed (yet) world of the man-machine. Kraftwerk’s work is compared to avant-garde musical experiments and to classical literary (and film) utopias because numerous formal and ideological similarities. The article is also an attempt of explanation of social and political background of Kraftwerk’s transhumanist vision.

Fenomenologia ucha

Author(s): Jakub Momro / Language(s): Polish Issue: 5/2015

This article offers an introduction to cultural aspects of listening and hearing, voice, as well as the modern and contemporary soundscape. As an alternative to the visual paradigm, Momro outlines a cognitive paradigm based on the voice and sound. He also foregrounds these aspects in theoretical writings that focus on the soundscape of human experience.

Malowniczość pejzażu dźwiękowego. O pewnym aspekcie estetycznego doświadczenia audiosfery

Author(s): Robert Losiak / Language(s): Polish Issue: 5/2015

In this article Losiak juxtaposes the reception of the soundscape with the aesthetic category of the picturesque. He outlines the concept of the soundscape, emphasizing its rootedness in the tradition of R. Murray Schafer’s acoustic ecology. He also relates the problem of the soundscape to the category of landscape and its interpretation in cultural studies. He points to the meaning of the aesthetic experience in relation to the soundscape, referring to the question of sensual perception as well as to aesthetic values. The neglected category of picturesqueness, Losiak concludes, is particularly useful in the aesthetic analysis of the soundscape, as it allows us to interpret our experience of a landscape within as well as outside of aesthetic contexts.

Bachtin raz jeszcze

Author(s): Zofia Mitosek / Language(s): Polish Issue: 5/2015

Danuta Ulicka, Słowa i ludzie [Words and People], Warsaw 2014

Ziarno głosu

Author(s): Roland Barthes / Language(s): Polish Issue: 5/2015

This essay deals with the relationship between language and the voice in contemporary theory and musical performance practice. Building on Julia Kristeva’s work, Barthes makes a distinction between the phenotext and the genotext. The first denotes the dominant scheme of performing and listening to music, while the second, postulated by Barthes, covers all those elements of both musical and broadly acoustic experiences – elements that are not subject to the laws of representation but to those of jouissance. In order to conceptualise this experience, the author introduces the notion of the ‘grain of the voice’: it allows us to describe the subjective experience of aural perception.

Politropia: retoryka Odyseusza

Author(s): Wojciech Ryczek / Language(s): Polish Issue: 5/2015

In the first verse of his epic poem about Odysseus’s return to Ithaca Homer describes his hero using the complex adjective polytropos. Ryczek discusses interpretations of this multivalent epithet, focusing on the most frequent characterizations of ‘the man of twists and turns’ (to borrow Robert Fagles’s English translation of the Greek anthropos polytropos). For Socrates, Plato and Antisthenes, Odysseus embodies practical wisdom; for Sturm, Sokołowski and Rybiński the wandering Odysseus represents a leader in search of wisdom, while Pucci and Peradotto stress that the hero describes the game of signification within the epic tradition. As a rhetorical competency that links invention (the search for effective arguments) with elocution (the use of many rhetorical figures in speech), polytropia constitutes a regulative idea that signals a masterful use of words when it comes to calling a thing by its name. As a figurative art, i.e. the ability to use a broad range of tropes and figures of speech, it remains an attempt to diversify linguistic forms in response to the diversity of the world and the multiplicity of human experiences.

Temporal, mystic and religious love: the poetry of the Taliban

Author(s): Mateusz Kłagisz / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2015

Mina, Mohabbat and ishq are three pashto words used to name two kinds of love. The first is more human while the second is divine or mystical. In this paper I have tried to analyse the poetry of the Taliban, paying special attention to the question of the aforementioned kinds of love: human, di‑vine and religous. I decided to do that because until now most of the re‑searchers working on the Talibanʼs songs have focussed more on their po‑litical, propaganda and religious message, with very little work dedicated to its ‘human’ character. This is why I have presented several poems se‑lected from the collection Poetry of the Taliban by Alex Strick van Lin‑schoten and Felix Kuehn (Gurgaon 2012) and enhanced my study with some comments.

On sexuality, carnality and desire: philosophical reflections on the film The Monk

Author(s): Natalia Anna Michna,Dominika Czakon,Paulina Tendera / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2015

The eighteenth‑century English writer matthew Gregory Lewis wrote one of the most dramatic Gothic novels, The Monk; over 200 years later, a film of the same name appeared, based on the novel and directed by dominik Moll. The film, a free adaptation of the book, presenting the story of the moral downfall of the monk Ambrosio, has inspired us to philosophical re‑flections on sexuality, carnality and physical desire. In the context of these issues we have attempted to analyse and interpret this cinematic work of art. The method we have adopted is based on a thorough discussion on the topics developed in the film and related issues. This method, while not pre‑tending to scientific objectivity, enables us to outline an interesting field of research as well as to identify a number of theoretical problems and ques‑tions which remain open.The formula we have adopted is to quote lines from the film The Monk which permit the analysis of selected issues related to sexuality, carnality and physical desire. Moreover, these quotes serve to order the text and en‑able the precise identification of interpretive trains of thought.