Wybrane zagadnienia dotyczące pozycji prawnej duchownego w orzecznictwie Europejskiego Trybunału Praw Człowieka

Author(s): Michał Hucał / Language(s): Polish Issue: 21/2018

The research goal is to reconstruct selected aspects of the legal position of the religious minister on the basis of the case law of the European Court of Human Rights. The analysis includes 33 judgments and decisions on the admissibility of complaints made by the bodies of the European Convention on Human Rights in 1976-2017. Based on them, it can be concluded that the ECtHR case law in this area is grounded in many years of practice.The religious minister as such has no guarantees other than those of any other person professing religious beliefs, but he benefits from the indirect strengthening of this protection by virtue of the guarantees of corporate freedom of conscience and religion. It is the autonomy of a religious organization that differentiates his position in both positive and negative respects. The autonomy of a religious organization is, in the light of ECtHR jurisprudence, an important component of pluralism in democratic societies, and it also includes determining the requirements for the religious minister. For this reason, the religious minister obtains strong protection against the interference of state power in matters relating to his appointment and removal from the office. The cost of obtaining this protection is a significant limitation of his personal freedom of conscience and religion, and indirectly also other rights while in the office of a priest, in relation to a religious organization. However, it should be remembered that the assessment of matters related to the performance of the office of a priest depends on the formal relations between a religious organization and the state. In the case of state churches, it is possible, for example, to submit certain church matters to state jurisprudence, and a religious organization can perform its self-limitation by shaping relations with the religious minister on the basis of a regular employment contract. As a rule, however, the ECtHR clearly indicated that matters concerning the religious minister lie outside the jurisdiction of the state and its organs. Nevertheless, the controversy surrounding the ruling in Károly Nagy v. Hungary indicates that the religious minister’s status may undergo some changes in the future.

Church-State Relations in the Democratic Republic of Georgia (1918-1921)

Author(s): Dimitry Gegenava / Language(s): English Issue: 21/2018

Democratic Republic of Georgia (1918-1921) was one of the unique states in the first quarter of XX century. Despite the historical relations between the Church and the State in Georgia, the social-democratic government changed its official policy and chose French secularism, which was very unusual for the country. This was incorporated in the Constitution of 1921. This article is about the Georgian church-state relations during 1918-1921, the positive and negative aspects of the chosen form of secularism and the challenges that the newly independent State faced in the sphere of religious freedom until the Soviet occupation.

The state, sectarian violence, and freedom of association in a secular context: the case of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria

Author(s): Abiodun Akeem Oladiti / Language(s): English Issue: 21/2018

This paper examines the interrelationship between the State, freedom of association and sectarian violence among faith communities in Nigeria. It specifically discusses the role of the State in maintaining peace, and the government’s official response to sectarian violence among religious associations. In modern African states, sectarian violence has been prevalent and deadly among religious group movements. It is deployed as the most preferred means of attracting recognition, affirming feasibility and proclaiming existence among other religious associations in the State. This trend is associated with the Islamic Movement of Nigeria. It is against this background that this paper historicises sectarian violence, the myth and reality of religious freedom, the interrelationship between religious freedom, the State and secularism in Nigeria while discussing the constitutional provisions of religious freedom and religious associations in Nigeria. The paper concludes that religious freedom and freedom of association are integral features of the Nigerian Constitution and, therefore, all religious associations are permitted to live in peaceful coexistence.

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.

Binaural and Ambisonic Sound as the Future Standard of Digital Games

Author(s): Tomáš Farkaš / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2018

The author of this study suggests an idea that the auditive element of digital games is soon going to be one of the most important factors influencing their overall success, popularity, and originality. He analyses the phenomenon of binaural and ambisonic sound, its evolution and uses in the context of modern audio-visual work, primarily focusing on games. The auditive component and its increasingly important role are analyzed in connection with the graphic design of games, virtual reality, as well as the popularity of specific games. This paper also focuses on audio-games, the use of binaural sound (which was first used ona large scale in Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice) and various hybrid digital games, which are balancing between classic games and audio-games. Argumentation is based on an assumption that binaural sound is the way to ambisonic sound, which (within the context of the immersive and interactive character of digital games) predestines the new standard and shows an entirely new way of creating and using digital games at the same time. All of this is reflected in the context of the graphic design of digital games and their future.

The Game is Out There

Author(s): Lukasz Pawel Wojciechowski / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2018

Glitch represents an unexpected event, an occurrence during which the system swings away from planned operation or behavior. The term doesn’t reflect only the syntactic, logical or semantic error in the code but also an error caused by an external factor.

Sexy Fascism Exemplifying the Relationship between Sex and Power

Author(s): Jakub Rawski / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2017

This article discusses the sexiness of fascism as a phenomenon exemplifying the relationshipbetween sex and power. Rawski’s approach to fascism, inspired by Susan Sontag’s well-known essay Fascinating Fascism, spans not only the fields of literary and cultural studies, but also psychology, history and anthropology. By analysing selected cultural texts (novels and films) alongside historical sources that feature the image of the “beautiful Nazi,” Rawski confirms Michel Foucault’s theses about beauty and the relationship between power and sexuality. In the context of the Nazi criminals who were – and still are – perceived as unequivocally erotic objects, beauty appears as a sublimated tool of power over another person.

A Piece of Fedora Cake: The Male-Centric Imagination of Jerzy Andrzejewski and the Scholarly Reconnaissance

Author(s): Wojciech Śmieja / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2017

In this article Śmieja suggests that Jerzy Andrzejewski’s male-centred imagination is rooted in the writer’s homoerotic desire. By imagining relationships between men that take place outside of the Oedipal model, Andrzejewski’s works threaten both the social order and the coherence of the subject himself. In order to stabilize his male-centred vision on a textual level, Śmieja argues, Andrzejewski draws on the model developed by Witold Gombrowicz, while on a biographical level it is Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński who fulfils this stabilizing function.

The Little Pole and the Phantasy of Impotence

Author(s): Adam Lipszyc / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2017

Lipszyc analyses Polish collective memory from a psychoanalytical perspective. Building on the work of Melanie Klein and its application to international relations as proposed by Hanna Segal, he tries to show that the Polish collective subject and the memory that defines it exist in a particular form of the paranoid-schizoid position. The defining characteristic of this position is a fantasy of one’s own impotence, which allows the subject to disregard his or her own agency and to eschew responsibility for his or her own actions. Lipszyc enhances his analysis by drawing on Walter Benjamin’s notions on myth and the demonic.

Excessive Masculinity: Boxer Narratives in Holocaust Literature

Author(s): Paweł Wolski / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2017

This article examines boxer narratives in Polish and international Holocaust literature in order to reveal the function of masculinity within the ontology of sports. Wolski uses the example of Roger Repplinger’s Leg dich, Zigeuner, a double biography of the German footballer Otto (“Tull”) Harder, member of the Waffen-SS, Wachmann and later com¬mander at the German concentration camps, and German Sinto boxer Johann “Rukeli” Trollmann, who faced discrimination on ethnic grounds and was later killed in one of the camps. The biographies of these two individuals show a marked difference in the way in which masculinity functioned within Nazi ideology. In the case of Harder, masculinity is an immanent category, while Trollmann’s masculinity appears as contingent. The boxer’s strategy of avoiding direct confrontation in the ring was perceived as “unmanly,” leading to his exclusion from the community of men.

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.

Peep Show: The Lamentations of Justyna Bargielska

Author(s): Adam Lipszyc / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2017

The author analyses poems of Justyna Bargielska from her first three volumes of poetry as well as her prose debut. Discussing then theories of Melanie Klein and Hanna Segal, the work of Nicole Loraux on the place of the feminine mourning voice in the ancient Athens. political system, as well as Galit Hasan-Rokem.s book on the Midrashim to the Book of Lamentations, the author builds a conceptual framework which might be helpful in understanding the feminine forms of expressions of mourning. Against this background he tries to describe the ironic dirges found in Bargielska’s work, paying special attention to the dominant figure of ‘container’ which among other things seems to refer to the very poem itself, conceived as the space which is to contain loss.

What a Shame! Memoirs of a Time of Queer Immaturity: Prologue

Author(s): Błażej Warkocki / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2017

This article focuses on the short story ‘Lawyer Kraykowski’s Dancer’ from Witold Gombrowicz’s debut collection ‘Memoirs from a Time of Immaturity’ (later published under the title Bakakaj or Bacacay in the English translation). Warkocki reads this collection as a ‘memoir of negative affects,’ with the opening story being a story about shame. Drawing on Silvan Tomkins and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Warkocki suggests that shame is an affect that interpellates the identity of the outcast and the misfit. Thus the short story represents a particular instance of queer performativity.

Sentimental Education

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

Author of this text is trying to examine several examples of interaction between literature, other fields of discourse and social imagination. This review is focused mainly on French classicism and rationalism, nineteenth Century fiction and Darwinism, modern literature and so-called antihumanism and finally - some contemporary tendencies.

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.

“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.