28–29 October 2013 The Krakow Voivodeship Public Library Kraków, Poland 1 Rajska street (room 315)

2 Program 4 Keynote speakers 8 Conference participants 23 Chairpersons 24 Map

 1 DAY 1: 28 October 2013 DAY 2: 29 October 2013

9.00 – 10.00 Registration GARIMA KALITA AND ELŻBIETA OKROY, 9.30 – 10.00 Coffee 13.45 – 16.45 Session 2: 16.45 – 17.00 Coffee break & coffee UDDIPANA KALITA, EWA OKROY, Literature and the Reading and The Pro- Toward a New Society – 10.00 – 12.45 Session 1: Constitution of Society 17.00 – 19.45 Session 3: 10.00 – 10.15 Opening cess of Subversion Beyond Language Writing and/against (chaired by KRZYSZTOF New Media – New and welcome Identity (chaired by WOLAŃSKI) Society? (chaired by Discussion 17.00 – 17.15 Coffee break MICHAŁ SOWIŃSKI) ANNA NACHER) 10.15 – 13.00 Session 1: Keynote lecture: Literature – Politics – Soci- 13.00 – 14.00 Lunch break 17.15 – 20.00 Session 3: Keynote lecture: PRZEMYSŁAW Keynote lecture: ety (chaired by JAN SOWA) Writers – Institutions – JENNIFER ASHTON, CZAPLIŃSKI, NICK MONTFORT, 14.00 – 17.00 Session 2: Market (chaired by Labor and the Lyric: Games in litera- Electronic Literature Keynote lecture: Against Sociologists ALICJA PALĘCKA) The Politics of Self- ture. The rules and and Other Forms WALTER BENN MICHAELS, (chaired by MARIA ‑Expression in Contem- rates of contem- of Popular Crea- The Beauty of a Social KOBIELSKA) Keynote lecture: porary American Poetry porary literary tive Computing Problem: Beyond Poststruc- GRZEGORZ JANKOWICZ, life in Poland turalism, Postmodernism Keynote lecture: Dubravka Ugrešić’s Discussion MACIEJ MARYL, and Even Postcommunism MICHAŁ PAWEŁ Socio-politcal View Discussion Sociology of Literature MARKOWSKI, upon Literature KAROLINA KRASUSKA, Goes Online: Concepts, Discussion Who Needs Sociology of Always Localize! Maria 14.45 – 15.00 Coffee break Problems, Methods Literature? Politics and Discussion Komornicka/Piotr HULYA BULUT, Literature reexamined Odmieniec Włast and KAMIL RUSIŁOWICZ, LIDIA GĄSOWSKA, ÖZGE SOYLU BOZDAĞ, MAGDALENA NOWICKA, Polish Femiminist/ Writing Poland as the Beyond fan fiction. The Transformation of Discussion Writers, Public Intellectu- Queer Criticism Other of Marxist Geo- Writing as a desire Sufism and Conservatism als and Entrepreneurs of graphical Materialism in the Turkish Literature: 15.00 – 15.15 Coffee break the Self: Economy of the JĘDRZEJ BURSZTA, Discussion Love and Dervish Gate Literary Public Sphere Against the Galactic PAWEŁ KACZMARSKI, PAWEŁ SZYPOWSKI, Suburbia. American The Common Reader EMILIA ALEXANDER KURE, Why Literature Cannot MONIKA POPOW, Radical Feminism and Goes Shopping BRANNY-JANKOWSKA, The Use of Revolutionary Believe in Society Too Much The Emancipation of Cre- Science Fiction American and Polish Aesthetics in Ngugi wa atives. Literature in Time Discussion Cybertext Writ- Thiong’o and Micere Gathae PAWEŁ WOLSKI, of Cognitive Capitalism Discussion ers on the Society Mugo’s The Trial of Dedan Who Needs Holocaust OKSANA LYKHOZHON, and its Media Kimathi and Bate Besong’s Studies? Writing Structur- Discussion MARTA KORONKIEWICZ, The Concept of Requiem for the Last Kaise ally, Reading Corporeally Does This Poem Europe in Literature. JAGODA CIERNIAK, MACIEJ JAKUBOWIAK, Work for You? Writing Europe – Piotr Siwecki: Avant- Discussion Discussion New Polish Litera- Making the Union? ‑garde Activity as a Form ture Under the Law PIOTR SOBOLCZYK, of Resistance against VIKTORIA GRIVINA, TOMASZ KITLIŃSKI, The Anxiety of STANLEY BILL, the Publishing Market “A Nice Virus”: Predicting Society’s Hospitality to the GÖKHAN MÜLAYIM, (Social) Influence Uses of Theory: Counterculture Fiction via Other? Sociologies of Litera- Processes of Marketization “Postcolonialism” 19.45 – 20.00 The Moment Modern World Taboos ture in Poland and Beyond of Kurdish Books in Turkey 12.45 – 13.45 Lunch break and the Polish Right of Conclusion

2 Program 3 Program normative collective identity that Polish culture mass-media. Thus the very reception of a literary Keynote speakers has developed in the 80s. This game went on text becomes a participation in a society that till half of the first decade of the twenty-first communicates differently, and that plays a dif- century, that is, until it challenged the legitimacy ferent game of existing. of normative identity, moving from now on in a continuous discursive struggle to determine PRZEMYSŁAW CZAPLIŃSKI is a literary Jennifer Ashton its expression, while the second offers the fan- the validity of all identity. critic and professor of contemporary literature Labor and the Lyric: tasy of self-expression in the absence of a self. Under the conditions of anomie, when no at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan. He The Politics of Self- In short, we find ourselves with a poetics that one can gain a monopoly on defining the col- is a jury member of many important literary ‑Expression in Contem­ mirrors the fantasy of unregulated markets – lective identity, and means of communication awards, and one of the most important Polish porary American Poetry in which what it means to express something is become the game tool. This movement was researchers in the field of literary sociology. to mean nothing at all. Meaning nothing at all, launched in 1976, at the time of the creation of He is the author of Ślady przełomu. O prozie Although it would be something of an exaggera- meanwhile, is now what passes for a politics. the so-called independent circuit, strengthened polskiej 1976–1996 (1997), Efekt bierności. tion to claim that lyric is liberalism’s poetic form, and transformed into a dynamic pattern in the Literatura w czasie normalnym (2004), Polska it’s no exaggeration at all to say that attacking JENNIFER ASHTON is a professor of mid-80s – with the formation of a third circuit. do wymiany. Późna nowoczesność i nasze and defending lyric has been poetry’s neolib- American literature at the University of Illinois In this circuit (represented mainly by fanzines wielkie narracje (2009), and Resztki nowocze- eral form, particularly in the U.S. In our period, at Chicago. Her main fields of interest are and small publications) for the first time on sności (2011). lyric as a privileged form of self-expression 20th- and 21st-century American poetry and a large scale has been used domestic production has become virtually synonymous with poetry literary theory. She has published articles on means to produce the means of communica- itself. And reinventing poetry has been, since modern and contemporary American poetry, tion – one-time newspapers, magazines, paper- Grzgorz Jankowicz the 1970s, the project of either repudiating or with a particular interest in the history of backs books, pirate radio stations. At the turn Dubravka Ugrešić’s resurrecting the lyric, such that its repudiation the lyric and the theoretical, aesthetic, and of the twentieth and twenty-first century , this Socio-politcal View has meant the refusal of self-expression, and political commitments that have sometimes process is carried out both in the mass variant upon Literature its resurrection, when it hasn’t been simply attached to it. These concerns were in part (newspapers, publishing houses), environmen- a matter of embracing self-expression, has often the subject matter of her first book, From Mod- tal variant (fandoms, fan fiction movement) In her essay “Karaoke Culture” Dubravka meant its refusal as well. Another way to say this ernism to Postmodernism: American Poetry and and individual one ( so called self-publishing), Ugrešić examines various modes of cultural would be to say that the poetic practice that has Theory in the Twentieth Century (2006). enriched further with the creation of autono- participation that resemble the karaoke perfor- coincided with the fortunes (and misfortunes) of mous agents of consecration (awards). These mance. In Japanese ‘karaoke’ means “hollow liberalism has largely revolved around the for- facts confirm that means of communication orchestra” and this meaning works as a foun- tunes (and misfortunes) of the self. Or to put this Przemysław Czapliński become the condition of communicative auton- dation for Ugrešić’s critical insights. The new only slightly differently: the history of the lyric Games in literature. omy – it is not a user who has the autonomy, but technologies and media allow any individual to since the 1970s is the history of the advent and The rules and rates a person who determines the terms of use. remain anonymous and to transcend some of adventures of human capital in poetry. of contemporary The combination of the two games leads the cultural and social barriers while performing “Labor and the Lyric” takes as its subject literary life in Poland up to launch the third game – play of society. a song or some other forms of art. These modes two very recent installations in this history of Participants in the game have the tools of of participation are liberating only to a certain what we might call “post-human capital”: the I recognize – not the first, nor only in the wake (relative and propagated) autonomy through extent since the ‘karaoke’ performer functions post-“post-racial” imaginary that has anchored of Bourdieu – that literature is a game. It differs independence to determine its own identity within given framework and codes (genres, identity-driven poetry in the U.S. since Barack from other games, because it can absorb the and with the ability to manufacture the media. media, technical tools). According to Ugrešić Obama’s first presidential election in 2008, and social phenomena of communication, trans- The new game, which is revealed to them, is there is a substantial difference between dem- the “post-human” imaginary that has anchored forming them into its own game rules. Over that the collective identity proposed by a liter- ocratic idea that everyone can act freely if they poetic responses to climatological and finan- the last quarter-century Polish literature played ary work and the game of media proposed by want to and democratic practice according to cial crisis in the U.S. during the same period. most of all – which is not to say: only – in three a literary work situate the reader beyond the which everyone wants to act because there is These two apparently unrelated strands in games: a game of identity, game of the media, existing social games – within new ones. It is something on offer. In my presentation I will recent poetic discourse represent two versions game of society. a game of post-society rather than of society; focus on the social and political consequences of an identical logic. In the first poetry main- First of these games was to add to social a game of survival rather than game of planning of karaoke mechanisms for the contemporary tains the fantasy of the self in the absence of communication heroes who have questioned the the future; a game of sub-media rather than of cultural (especially literary) systems.

4 Keynote speakers 5 Keynote speakers GRZEGORZ JANKOWICZ is a critic, phi- He is the author of Efekt inskrypcji. Jacques Der- poetry generators, and other projects that bring project of electronic literature will be carried on lologist, essayist, editor and translator. He rida i literatura (1997), Nietzsche. Filozofia inter- together computational techniques with literary in future decades not by means of the division works with the Centre for Advanced Studies in pretacji (1997), Identity and Interpretation (2003), engagement – concern for poetics, fiction, narra- of labor that typifies corporate society, and by the Humanities at the Jagiellonian University Polska literatura nowoczesna. Leśmian, Schulz, tive, voice, concept, and the like. By considering those who fit into existing job descriptions and (Poland). Jankowicz has translated into Polish Witkacy (2008). specific examples of electronic literature, I show categories, but by individuals by who can both the work of such authors as R. Firbank, G. Perec, how this practice has been a bottom-up phe- write and program, people who can bring these R. Rorty and S. Žižek. A co-host of TV shows nomenon driven by the effort and ingenuity of capabilities together to develop radically new broadcast by TV Kultura, including Czytelnia Walter Benn Michaels individuals, including many writer/programmers, insights and approaches. oraz Poezjem. He has taught, among other The Beauty of a Social Problem: and small, informal groups of collaborators. In its things, Polish literature at Indiana University in Beyond Poststructuralism, impulse, electronic literature is in direct contrast NICK MONTFORT is a professor at the Mas- Bloomington (USA). Jankowicz collaborates Postmodernism and Even to the mass-market concept of e-books as prom- sachusetts Institute of Technology, the creator, with the Korporacja Ha! Art Foundation as Dep- Postcommunism ulgated by conglomerate publishers, Internet critic, and theorist of digital media particularly uty President and Editor of two publishing series: retailers, and consumer electronics companies, focused on the intersection of computing and Linia krytyczna and Proza obca. Editor of Tygo- This paper is about the political economy of the a concept which has arisen out of industrial and writing practice; author and programmer of dnik Powszechny’s cultural section. work of art – and especially of the idea of form – commercial concerns rather than literary ones. interactive fiction, poetry generators, and in neoliberal societies. Its goal is to show the In the realm of literature and in digital media, other digital literary systems. Author of Twisty degree to which supposedly egalitarian theoret- electronic literature is not unique in emerging Little Passages: An Approach to Interactive Michał Paweł Markowski ical and social movements have in fact contrib- from small-scale, distributed efforts. To situate Fiction (2009), Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Who needs sociology uted to the creation of an increasingly unequal it among related popular practices, I describe Computer System 2005, co-editor of New Media of literature? Politics and society, and the ways in which the work of art several other types of “creative computing,” Reader (2005). He blogs about digital media and Literature reexamined has become (but need not remain) a technology including game development by individual other topics, writes poems in unusual forms, for justifying those inequalities. designer/programmers and the productions of and frequently collaborates with writer/pro- In this presentation the relation between pol- the demoscene. I conclude by arguing that the grammers and others on online literary projects. itics and literature is reexamined and acquires WALTER BENN MICHAELS is a professor of new meanings. Beginning with a critique of the American literature at the University of Illinois at term “sociology of literature” as a misleading, Chicago. He is a literary theorist and the author the author – drawing examples from Flaubert, of Against Theory (1982, with Steven Knapp), Kafka, Orwell, and Gombrowicz – embarks Our America: Nativism, Modernism and Pluralism on redefining “the political” as applied to lit- (1995) and The Shape of the Signifier: 1967 to the erature. The main thesis is that politics, since End of History (2004). Michaels’s work has gen- Aristotle, has been performed as the gesture erated a set of arguments and questions around of separating of truth from fiction, art from life, issues central to literary studies: culture and and the public from the private. This attempt race, national and personal identities, the dif- at keeping those two realms at bay is political ference between memory and history, disagree- through and through. From this point of view ment and difference, and meaning and intention what was assigned as withdrawing from politics in interpretation. unexpectedly seems to confirm it and what tried to remain untouched by politics turns into its essential enactment. Nick Montfort Electronic Literature and MICHAŁ PAWEŁ MARKOWSKI is a pro- Other Forms of Popular fessor of Polish literature at the University of Creative Computing Illinois at Chicago and the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. He explores the fields of 20th-cen- The practice now known as electronic liter- tury literature, philosophy and literary theory, ature includes the creation of digital poetry, specializing in French poststructuralist thought. hypertext fiction, interactive fiction, story and

6 Keynote speakers 7 Keynote speakers smart people while mega-capital creates a more is imposed by society and its media. They also do Conference participants perfect Imperium. The key motif returning in it from the inside, using the same vehicles and Hegirascope is a bodiless hegira, being a sort of mechanisms as society does. Their play with the schizofrenia experienced by the protagonists materiality of the sign is also a way of bringing unable to distinguish between the real and the the interactive, the repetitive and the sensual to strange sort of dream they are immersed in. its extreme. Stanley Bill journalistic writers (including Rafał Ziemkiewicz This state of mind is a metaphor of the Internet My talk would compare selected American Uses of Theory: and Paweł Lisicki), and literary scholars (includ- experience. At the same time, Moulthrop’s work and Polish new media writers’ view on the prob- Postcolonialism ing Ewa Thompson). In all these cases, I shall is strongly ironic in presenting the user with lems of the technology and communication in the and the Polish Right treat the use of postcolonial theory – drawn a kaleidoscope of loosely tied lexias which makes modern society and the role of art in this context. wholesale from foreign sources – as a conscious the user trace the similarities, the differences and The theoretical background would be mainly new The theme of this conference assumes a com- strategy employed in direct and polemical the tensions. Thus Moulthrop criticizes the quality media theory (especially the McLuhanite idea of plete lack of interest in social and economic issues response to social and political realities in con- of hypertext that was so much praised by Joyce overheating the medium). among mainstream literary theorists in Eastern temporary Poland. the shift towards the fragmented, the networked, Europe, while hoping to confront the most the unstable and the unfinished. However, the EMILIA BRANNY-JANKOWSKA is a free- insightful inquiries into literary production in the STANLEY BILL – PhD at Northwestern Uni- hypertext such as Hegirascope may again become lance researcher in the field of electronic litera- East with the most inspiring social and literary versity (USA), Comparative Literary Studies. He an agent of change, if it “overheats” the medium ture and cybertext. She is an author of a number theory from the West. In this paper, I propose to has published papers on the writings of Czesław (in the sense given to this term by Marshall McLu- of publications in the field of cybertext theory and discuss an unexpected area within Polish literary, Miłosz and Bruno Schulz. He also translates han), thus provoking it to change into its reversal, new media literature, as well as natural language cultural and political life where a similar confron- Polish fiction and non-fiction. yet unknown. processing. She gained her PhD in literary studies tation has already taken place specifically, in the Similar strategies are used by some con- in 2010 at the Jagiellonian University, where she appropriation of postcolonial theory by various temporary Polish new media writers who strongly presented a thesis under the title: Cybertext. scholars, journalists and literary writers associ- Emilia Branny-Jankowska contest the order of the contemporary society. Methodology and interpretation. Much of it was ated with the Polish conservative Right. American and Polish The new media are explored and used by the prepared in Norway, where she worked for a year In recent years, writers hostile to the pres- Cybertext Writers on Polish authors alongside with the traditional as a Marie Curie EST researcher. Since 2005 ent Polish government or, more generally, to the Society and its Media ones. The sociological and cultural change that is she is also an IT Engineer, having finished the the political order of the post-1989 Third Polish in the center of their art is the change in commu- M.Sc. studies at the University of Technology on Republic have used the rhetoric of postcoloni- The classics of American hypertext focus very nication, brought about by modern capitalism of Kraków. She prepared a curriculum and taught alism as a critical weapon. This means taking much on the new media and warn against the the media age. The communication in question a course on Internet art at cultural studies at the very term postcolonialism together with changes they bring to the modern society. Joyce’s privileges repetition over reasoning, enhances the Jagiellonian University in 2010/2011. Currently its associated concepts and applying it directly afternoon is built upon an opposition between detail and exposes the sensual. Logic becomes she works as an IT consultant, hoping to find to the Polish context. In short, Polish political nature and technology, where technology is the a mere technique remaining on the surface of the a university affiliation as a researcher one day. and cultural elites are allegedly still subject to essence of evil. The protagonist is a poet who had communication, but in fact being subject to the a subordinate mentality inherited from years of become a salesman in an IT company, which led play of instincts and desires captured in sugges- subjugation under Soviet and imperial rule. This to the destruction of his marriage and, indirectly, tive images. New media are perceived as a vehicle Hulya Bulut, Özge Soylu Bozdağ line of argument certainly makes some sense, to the death of his wife and son in an accident he but not the centre of this change. Sławomir Shuty The Transformation of and yet the postcolonial move on the Polish Right caused. However, Joyce’s hypertext is at the same contests the modern society in a similar way as Sufism and Conservatism remains highly surprising. After all, postcolonial time an apology of new technology whenever it is Moulthrop – by the ironic overuse of its commu- in Turkish Literature: theory in the West owes a great deal to Marxist, used as a tool to create poetry which contests the nication patterns in his novels and short stories. Love and Dervish gate post-modern and feminist theories none of which rational, the male and the technocratic ways of His works focus on the behavior patterns of the are especially dear to Polish conservatives. So mastering the world. individuals who are ridiculous as much as they The “Mevlevilik” (Mawlawi) order was founded in why and how do conservative writers and theo- Stuart Moulthrop, the author of Hegira- are immersed in the new culture. 1273 by Mevlana Celaleddini Rûmi’s (1207–1273) rists utilize postcolonial theory in Poland? scope, is also critical about hypertext and its Perfokarta poetry seems very different from followers after his death. The Mevlevi became In my analysis, I would propose to examine political and sociological implications. In one of Shuty’s work but it has one thing in common a well-established Sufi order in the Ottoman literary writers (including the poets Jarosław his talks he warns that [a]t its worst, the Web is with all the above-mentioned works. They try to Empire by Sultan Veled. The Mawlawi believe Marek Rymkiewicz and Wojciech Wencel), a complex amusement holding the attention of contest and escape the regime of meaning as it in performing their dhikr in the form of a dance

8 Conference participants 9 Conference participants and musical ceremony known as the Sama, books in order to attract more attention in the encourages readers to imagine alternative real- Culture Studies. She is an editor-in-chief of which involves the whirling from which the order literary sphere. ities and therefore question present-day culture PROwincja magazine. Her interests include dif- acquired its nickname. The Sema represents and society. Russ’s The Female Man, as well as ferent aspects of contestation in art, new media a mystical journey of man’s spiritual ascent HULYA BULUT – BA in the Department of other sci-fi novels written in the period between and counter-culture. through mind and love to the Perfect. Art History at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University the late 1960s and 1970s equipped with a strong Rûmi’s poetry has influenced Persian liter- and MA in the Department of Turkish Literature leftist sentiment, critically links the cultural with ature as well as Urdu, Punjabi, Turkish and other at Bilkent University (Turkey). She is currently the political, giving voice to those marginalized Lidia Gąsowska Iranian, Turkic and Indic languages written in lecturing Turkish for Native Speakers at Boğaziçi by mainstream society, while providing a futur- Beyond fan fiction. Perso-Arabic script, such as Pashto, Ottoman University (Turkey) and is also a PhD student in istic framework within which it can assess the Writing as a desire Turkish, Chagatai and Sindhi. the Sociology Department at Mimar Sinan Fine ideological basis of the American radical femi- Rûmi believed passionately in the use of Arts University. nism of the seventies. Fan fiction feeds on what is popular. Fan-stories music, poetry and dance as a path for reaching live as long as the book or film attractiveness of God. For Rumi, music helped devotees to focus ÖZGE SOYLU BOZDAĞ – postgraduate JĘDRZEJ BURSZTA – MA in cultural studies at the plot of Harry Potter or the vampires from The their whole being on the divine and to do this so student of the Media Department at Marmara University of Warsaw (Poland), Institute of Polish Twilight. Nevertheless, fan fiction posted on the intensely that the soul was both destroyed and University and MA in the Department of Turkish Culture and MA in American studies at Univer- Internet never dies entirely, sometimes taking resurrected. Literature at Bilkent University (Turkey). She is sity of Warsaw, American Studies Center. Areas economic place in the long tail. Once in a while Today, Mevlevilik can be found in many currently working as an instructor in the Depart- of interest: anthropology of literature, cultural the authors of fan fiction bring back the memory Turkish communities throughout the world, but ment of Turkish Language at Sabancı University. studies, ethnography, science fiction studies, of the heroes of popular films,TV series and the most active and famous places for their activ- American studies. books. Writing and reading become an illusive ity are still Konya and Istanbul. In Turkish litera- ritual of writing and reading oneself through ture you can see traces of Mevlevilik in books by Jędrzej Burszta amateur fictional stories. Desires, dreams, aspira- conservative writers (Peyami Safa, Necip Fazıl Against the Galactic Suburbia: Jagoda Cierniak tions and the view of the world (mostly of a young Kısakürek, Safiye Erol, etc.). Through the ideas American Radical Feminism Piotr Siwecki: Avant-garde girl) become a canvas of fan fiction stories and tell expressed in these writers’ books (novels, collec- and Science Fiction Activity as a Form of Resistance a lot about their authors. tions of short stories), conservatism is transferred against the Publishing Market The fansite movement on the Internet to readers. After the general election in 2002, In 1975, feminist writer Joanna Russ published triggers specific solidarity between writers and AKP made up the government in Turkey, and The Female Man, a postmodern science fiction This paper is an attempt at classifying Piotr readers which is contradictory to its dehuman- after a while conservatism came to the center. In novel celebrated within feminist circles as one Siwecki’s artistic projects as a kind of resistance izing image. The fansite practice of writing and other words, conservatism is no longer a marginal of the most influential literary works exploring strategy against the world of late capitalism. His reading emphasizes everything that unites rather force. We can also see a shift towards a con- women’s oppression. The Female Man is embed- works, in this context, aim at rejection of the than what divides, of course, in a distributed servative point of view in literature. Mevlevilik ded in the radical feminist movement of the inside/outside systematic opposition. In my paper and temporary way. This is not a story divided in is a popular theme in many novels that have 1960s and 1970s, and uses the science fiction I will describe the author’s activity as an inde- consultation with other rational individuals, but become bestsellers. genre to portray the lives of several female pendent researcher and self-publisher, and will a myth, in which we participate (reproducing the At this point it is interesting to examine the characters from the past and future, who can be analyze the critical and subversive potential of his stereotype of Mary Sue with desirable personality writers who are focused on Mevlevilik in their viewed as exemplifications of issues discussed literary works and publishing activity. Taking into traits and physical appearance, a farewell to great novels. In our paper we wish to study the novels and criticized by radical feminist activists. In consideration the manifesto of Mark Amerika, an narratives). It turns out that in reality the charac- of Elif Safak and Ahmet Ümit, who are the most addition to her science fiction work, Joanna attempt will be made to prove that Siwecki’s lit- ters (heroes), the saints as well as the symbolic popular writers in Turkey (both Elif Safak’s Love Russ was also active in academic feminism, erature can be regarded as a form of intervention figures, are not created by original authors, but by and Ahmet Ümit’s Dervish Gate were published publishing volumes of essays on women’s role in conducted within the framework of the society of their fans. Without practicing the fan movement, in 2009). We will examine how Mevlevilik is pre- literature (e.g. How to Suppress Women’s Writing, spectacle. The meaning of contestation in Piotr these are, indeed, ideal types, but also empty sented in their books and discuss the themes To Write Like a Woman: Essays in Feminism and Siwecki’s works will be defined through analyzing forms, arrays, which come to life when they are of Mevlevilik and conservatism with the help of Science Fiction). This paper will explore the sig- the acts of postproduction and hypertext narra- recognized, if we recognize ourselves in them and Pierre Bourdieu’s notions. In this way, we will give nificant relation of the science fiction genre as tion of his works. allow them / ourselves to join the community. meaning to the transformation of conservatism in a framework for revolutionary thought, a sub- Analyzing the fansite movement and the fan fic- Turkish literature by examining the phenomenon versive literary practice famously defined by JAGODA CIERNIAK – postgraduate student tion practiced on the Internet from a sociologist’s of writers placing conservative themes in their Darko Suvin as cognitive estrangement, which at Jagiellonian University (Poland), Contemporary and anthropologist’s point of view one may notice

10 Conference participants 11 Conference participants Janus face of the fans (in accordance with the whether in full awareness or not, have over- I would like to supplement Bourdieu’s con- in Kraków, works on a thesis on relations between formula Today I love you, tomorrow I hate you), stepped conventionalities of the norm, or, as we cept of nomos by referring to a different, more authors’ rights and modern literature. His main a trick, the will to live expressed by the multiplic- might say, have transgressed boundaries and particular understanding of the law, namely interests include: law and literature studies, criti- ity of rituals, situation, gestures and experiences. in this way allowed a common vocabulary to to the part of the modern legislature which is cal theory and literary anthropology. Everyday life is based on relative and intersecting expand with it. directly concerned with cultural production, func- freedoms. The social life flourishes as a black I have recently participated in a ‘Youth in tioning in continental Europe as author’s rights, market, giving itself to a more or less complicated Action’ program where I carried out an exper- and in the Anglo-Saxon legal tradition as copy- Paweł Kaczmarski exchange of gifts, as it is stated by Maffesoli and iment aimed to determine which topics are right. It is widely accepted by Law and Literature The Common Reader Jenkins, and the fansite movement is in the gray most painful to speak about among contem- scholars that the ideological base for the modern Goes Shopping zone without paying royalties to the authors of porary young people from different cultural author’s rights is the Romantic concept of an the original work. backgrounds. I attempted to make a prognosis author as an individual, original genius. This idea, In my paper I would like to analyze how the of what kind of literature might be considered adapted to modern modes of (not only cultural) re-emergence of the figure of “common reader” LIDIA GĄSOWSKA – MA in Administrative law transgressive or might be banned by the time production, also structures contemporary legis- in today’s sociological and anthropological dis- and Polish Philology at Uniwersytet Warmińsko- these youths became a definitive force in their lature in this field. In consequence, an author’s course serves as a means to suppress and erase -Mazurski (Poland) and PhD in Popular Literature due environments. A test was taken by partici- rights silently privilege literary (and generally any possibility of a political, subversive reading and Literary Theory at UWM, works as a teacher. pants from 4 countries comprising both old and artistic or aesthetic) practices which follow, even of contemporary literature. The common reader, Her publications include: Rozpoznawalne i popu- young democracies: Spain, Georgia, Hungary unconsciously, the Romantic concept of an author first developed as a separate quasi-theoretical larne. Rozpoznać schemat i odtworzyć historię – and Ukraine. Interestingly, it brought varying and and of a work as an original (that is: not having construct in the 19th century (by writers and na przykładzie wybranych (o)powieści fantasy and at times perplexing results. In my report I will any antecedents) entirety which belongs to its essayists, including, of course, Virginia Woolf), Moda na fan fiction, czyli jak fan tworzy fikcję i jak present these results and also compare selected author. On the other hand, it suppresses – using in today’s literary criticism as well as in the main- jej używa. Areas of interest: media arts, media forbidden topics with works of well-known coun- mainly a legal concept of plagiarism – other liter- stream journalism has become something of in cultural context, literature in the digital age, terculture icons William S. Burroughs and Chuck ary practices differentiating from the Romantic a key concept, steering the discussion about liter- narrative theory. Palahniuk. paradigm. ature towards the categories of lifestyle and away In my paper I would like to explore how this from the questions of social change. While being VIKTORIA GRIVINA – postgraduate stu- suppression functions in contemporary Polish praised by many as an egalitarian agent inside Viktoria Grivina dent of the Department of Foreign Literature literature. Among the questions I would like to the elitist Academy, its main function is to invali- A Nice Virus: Predicting at Kharkiv University (Ukraine). Topic of dis- pose are: which particular literary practices are date most of the fundamental political questions Counterculture Fiction sertation: William S. Burroughs in context of privileged by the author’s rights, and which are one could ask with regard to the contemporary via Modern Word Taboos contemporary transgressive fiction. discarded as non-legitimate or even illegal; how novel and poetry: questions of class, structural the modern legislature structures the literary field inequalities, social justice. As more and more When asked if books still have any impact on in Poland; what are the relations between the critics and journalists claim to know what the contemporary society, as a literary scholar, I say Maciej Jakubowiak literary field on the one hand, and the legal and common reader might or might not be interested ‘yes’. I explain my answer simply: if books had no New Polish Literature economic fields on the other. in, the focus on their market-driven taste replaces impact, nobody would think to ban them, and Under the Law These kinds of questions are mainly raised the question of their needs; the latter from now as a consequence, there would be no banned or within today’s discussions of digital media and on belongs to the private space of an individual. forbidden books in the world. However, even as In his Rules of Art, Pierre Bourdieu writes about changing modes of cultural production stimulated We the literary critics, theorists, the University in recently as 2012 Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita was the law (nomos) that rules the literary field. by the Internet. I would, however, like to apply general no longer desire to know who our fel- excluded from all public libraries in the seemingly This law is at the same time immanent and this kind of critical perspective to the literary low-readers are; we just want to know what they liberal state of South Korea. It is also true that in transcendent, as it structures the literary field field which, at first sight, may seem distant from like. One of the results of this is the redefinition of different times and cultural spaces taboos on the (creating hierarchies, divisions and distinctions), these problems, but – as I will argue – is deeply the term realism in different works of fiction. written word have varied dramatically. What was but also regulates accession into the field. connected with today’s controversies regarding I would like to reflect on how our mere considered obscene, for example, in Victorian Moreover, the law – understood as a rule and author’s rights. sympathy towards the common readers is, in fact, Britain (words such as ‘trousers’, ‘leg’ or ‘belly’) as an authority – is situated as a central motive an act of power; and, as a limited solution to the is neutral nowadays. of Bourdieu’s analysis of the literary field, even MACIEJ JAKUBOWIAK – PhD candidate current situation, I will recall some of the ideas Omissions and taboos have been suc- though his perspective may seem mainly eco- at the Chair of Anthropology of Literature and developed by members of the Situationist Inter- cessfully employed by literature and art which, nomically oriented. Cultural Studies at the Jagiellonian University national and their spiritual followers.

12 Conference participants 13 Conference participants PAWEŁ KACZMARSKI – student at the The reading of literature and society, Kristeva’s sémanalyse and in particular her East MARTA KORONKIEWICZ – PhD student at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań (Poland), together or separately, is in fact a complicated European meditation ‘Bulgarie, ma souffrance’. the University of Wroclaw (Poland), Institute of Institute of Polish Studies. Co-editor of the lit- and complex process involving power dynamics Polish Studies. Co-editor of the literary review erary review section in “Rita Baum” magazine, in politics, culture and economics. The author- TOMASZ KITLINSKI – MPhil at Université section in “Rita Baum” magazine. Fields of collaborating editor for “Praktyka Teoretyczna”, reader nexus in a subterranean manner dissolves, Paris 7, supervised by Julia Kristeva, and PhD at research: contemporary Polish poetry, postwar a Polish journal of philosophy and sociology. yet at times overlaps the dialectic between the Maria Curie-Sklodowska University in Lublin. He avant-garde poetry, literary anthropology, liter- Fields of research: contemporary Polish poetry, individual and the collective. How society con- was a Fulbright scholar at the New School for ary criticism, everyday life studies. modern political theory, literary criticism, every- fronts the challenges posed would largely be Social Research in New York. Books: The Stranger day life studies. determined by collating literary matrices with Is in Ourselves. To Love according to Julia Kris- meaningful dialogic relationships of societal con- teva, (with P. Leszkowicz) Love and Democracy. Karolina Krasuska cerns. Within these parameters, the hyperactive Reflections on the Queer Question in Poland, (with Always Localize! Garima Kalita, role played by the media and market in literary A. Reid) Parallel Lines and (with C. Hurford) Love. Maria Komornicka/ Uddipana Kalita output needs to be analyzed objectively. Hate. Contributions to collected volumes. Activist Piotr Odmieniec Włast Reading and the Process for minority, labour and refugee rights. and Polish Femiminist/ of Subversion Queer Criticism Tomasz Kitliński The process of reading involves a conscious strat- Society’s Hospitality Marta Koronkiewicz In post-1990 Polish feminist and queer criticism egy of attention, exploration and analysis, how- to the Other: Sociologies Does This Poem the modernist writer Maria Komornicka/Piotr ever mundane and simple. The reader is, in fact, of Literature in Poland Work for You? Odmieniec Włast has functioned as a paradigm an architect of modules that are personal, social, and Beyond for gender or sexual “transgression” (Ritz). His cultural and political. But this does not in any The starting point of my paper is the social func- transition has been interpreted as reflecting way presuppose a conscious orchestration on the Referring to the title of Michał Paweł Markowski’s tion of poetry, as understood by Adrienne Rich anything from “spiritual transsexualism” designed part of the reader, as the narrative power hides lecture ‘Who Needs Sociology of Literature?’, my in her late essays. According to Rich, the single to fight patriarchy (Janion) through “phantas- underneath metaphors and the hyperbolic pas- objective is to explore contemporary sociologies most important function or capacity delivered matic lesbian[ism]” (Filipiak) to “addiction to her sion of the author. The simple joy of aesthetics is of literature d’après Pierre Bourdieu, faced with by poetry today is that of a constant reminder, desire,” leading to this “transgender act” (Cupr- often turned into meaningful endeavors if authors the East European experience of otherness and continuously reminding us of the things that we jak). Komornicka/Włast has definitely helped such as Brecht or Dickens either proffer sharp writing-reading. Are literary studies, and gen- might want (as individuals as well as a society), the development of feminist/queer criticism in social analysis and pointed commentary or weave erally the (post)humanities, hospitable to the our forgotten or buried desires, our paradoxical Poland, but has this criticism – which has quite stories of social realism. Accepting these authors problems of society? Is literary criticism socially as it may seem forgotten future. In her manifesto often simply been an application of Western as points of departure, writing neo-narratives engaged? Are sociologies of literature hospita- Poetry and Commitment, Rich – referring to her theory to the Polish context – really helped in of contemporary history would deflect the ego- ble to the Other? I examine the oeuvre of Maria favorite literary works repeats one question: does understanding Komornicka/Włast’s texts in their centricity of individuals in the frogpondium. It is Janion (b. 1926) who began her career within this poem work? What is its work or labour? In specific temporal and spatial location? Using beyond doubt that to transform or ‘write’ is by no Stefan Żółkiewski’s project of the sociology of other words, Rich asks about the ways in which recent approaches from transnational studies and means easy. To say the least, it requires dogged literature. Professor Janion is a forerunner of Jew- poetry intervenes in one’s life how, with all its for- intersectional analysis, this paper looks at what is determination and unflinching commitment. Still, ish, feminist and queer literary criticism in Eastern mal aspects and aesthetic mechanisms, it enables at stake when gender studies concepts “travel.” a fundamental question remains, which in the Europe. A pioneer, she has opened up new vistas us to imagine an everyday life different from the It shows how such “locational readings” can help wake of the advent and passing off of postmod- in literary theory and history, and, generally, has one we already have. In my paper I would like to understand Komornicka/Włast’s texts and, as ernism is gaining ground, namely, whether the pushed Poland’s humanities into more inclusive compare Rich’s point of view to that of Franco a result, be productive for Polish (gender) theory. radical structural difference as defined by Frederic and subversive territories. Janion has discovered, Bifo Berardi in his last book Uprising. Poetry and Jameson between the historicities of the con- reclaimed and celebrated alterity in society; she Finance; there, the Italian philosopher sees poetry KAROLINA KRASUSKA – Assistant Professor sumer society of today and the earlier moments has also served as a public intellectual for the as something potentially able to defeat the at American Studies Center at the University of of capitalism is a recurring phenomenon. If this cause of women and minorities. In my interpre- there-is-no-alternative ideology of today’s eco- Warsaw (Poland), she received her Ph.D. in cul- break or shift is a reasonable historical growth, tation, Janion has authored an OTHER (psycho) nomics. Using Polish poetry of the last ten years tural studies from the European University Viad- does it anticipate an anti-postmodernist or even sociology or philosophy of literature, exploring or so as an example, I would like to reflect on rina (Germany). The author of Gender and Nation: post-postmodernist stance? How is the cultural Niesamowita Słowiańszczyzna, the uncanny East- what is the actual work of a poem the work that Trans/locations and the Polish translator of Judith logic of capitalism validated? ern Europe. My methodology derives from Julia enables the possible to be seen as such. Butler’s Gender Trouble. Her interests include:

14 Conference participants 15 Conference participants transnational modernism, cultural studies theory, terrible reality that characterises their societies, The Internet will be treated as both research of literature in Kurdish have gained negligible gender and queer studies. and to show how drama can be used as an instru- subject and research material, which means that publicity largely due to the consequences of the ment of revolution/radical change in Africa. on the one hand I discuss how new communica- long history of attempts at linguistic assimilation tion technologies have reshaped the literary life (such as: the devalued image of Kurdish, lack of Alexander Kure ALEXANDER KURE – Associate Professor of and, on the other, I present a methodology of an educational system in Kurdish and lack of an The Use of Revolutionary Comparative Literature, Head, Department of online research which takes the advantage of the established standard for the dialects) and also Aesthetics in Ngugi wa English and Drama and Director, General Studies electronic form of the data. The areas of interest due to the governmentality (beyond the legal Thiong’o and Micere Program in Kaduna State University, Kaduna-Ni- of the online sociology of literature will be dis- freedoms) of the market. Although this particu- Gathae Mugo’s The Trial geria. Member of the Linguistics Association of cussed on the example of my own research into lar case of literary production provides us with of Dedan Kimathi and Nigeria (LAN), Nigerian English Studies Associ- writers’ websites, literary institutions and reading a peculiar example of the question of autonomy Bate Besong’s Requiem ation (NESA), and English Language Teachers communities on the web. of the field (the Kurdish literary field has been for the Last Kaiser Association of Nigeria (ELTAN). His major equivocally autonomous, rather than autono- research interest is: Comparative Literature as MACIEJ MARYL – Assistant Professor at the mous), how these cultural goods are produced, Modern African (postcolonial) playwrights have it interrogates gender, peace/conflict resolution Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Acad- distributed and consumed calls for particular continuously displayed an overt political social and environmental issues. emy of Sciences. Member of “Teksty Drugie” scrutiny. Therefore, what I would like to examine commitment that is best described at most as Editorial Board. His research interests cover liter- in this paper is the processes of marketization, revolutionary and at least as radical in their clear ary communication, multimedia writing, digital especially production and circulation, of Kurdish and growing tendency away from the conven- Maciej Maryl editorship, digital humanities. Current research: books under the shadow of these instituted tional notions enshrined in the bulk of African Sociology of Literature Blog as a new form of multimedia writing. obstacles. The main argument of this paper is writings as viewed by Eurocentric literary critics. Goes Online: Concepts, that the marketization of Kurdish books has Such revolutionary tendencies, exposed in both Problems, Methods been made possible through political/ethical and matter and manner, are noticeable not only in Gökhan Mülayim symbolic modulations of actors and networks their opposition to imperialism and concern for This paper focuses on the influence electronic Processes of Marketization rather than the classic economics of a cultural the lower class in society but also their emphasis technologies of communication have on both the of Kurdish Books in Turkey field of production. on the fact that socialism (which is very similar to institution of literature (understood as a cultural pre-colonial Africa’s traditional practice of com- practice of writing, distributing, reading and eval- The aim of this paper is to examine the processes GÖKHAN MÜLAYIM – BA in Political Science munal existence) is the very best option for rais- uating literary texts) and the ways we study it. of marketization of Kurdish books in Turkey, with and International Relations at Boğaziçi University ing such postcolonial societies out of the situation I begin with analyzing how technologies of a focus on the production and distribution/cir- (Turkey). He is currently working on an ethno- they have found themselves in. In terms of man- production and distribution have reshaped the culation of these cultural commodities. Kurdish, graphic research on the emergence Kurdish ner, in a bid to deconstruct established dramatic institution of literature over centuries. The stress as a “minor language”, has been situated at the book market in Turkey. His academic interests: paradigms, playwrights completely violate the is put on the digital turn viewed in the perspective intersection of the subjection/assimilation and nationalism, ethnicity, identity, literary produc- Aristotelian tenets of playwriting in their plots, of previous transformations (invention of writing, resistance/politicization dimensions of the Kurd- tion, anthropology of capitalism and markets and characterisation, structure and use of language, print and the advent of mass printing industry). ish Question in Turkey. From the inception of post-structuralist philosophy. to embark on a series of stylistic experiments Then I trace the influence of those transforma- the republic to the present, Kurds in Turkey have that disorder our expectation of coherence (Ruth- tions on the way the institution literature was been continuously subjected to the state’s poli- ven 7). In addition, their aesthetic vision creates conceptualized by scholars. The main discussion cies of assimilation of Kurdish identity in general Magdalena Nowicka an alternative tradition which presents drama as will cover the conceptions from the era of mass and Kurdish language in particular. As the sym- Writers, Public Intellectuals a social force and an ideological weapon for man’s printing. I focus on such authors as Raymond bol of Kurdish identity, the language was banned and Entrepreneurs of the Self: struggle for emancipation. Therefore, this paper Williams, Robert Escarpit, Stefan Żółkiewski and excluded from the public sphere in 1924. Economy of the Literary shows, from a critical Marxist perspective, how and Janusz Lalewicz, pointing out to some links That is why, for decades, procuring works of lit- Public Sphere the selected playwrights, Ngugi wa Thiong’o / between the Polish and Western sociology of erature in and through Kurdish was difficult and Micere Gathae Mugo, from Kenya, and Bate literature as well as claiming the importance of limited to underground political and intellectual This paper discusses the changing public roles Besong, from Cameroun, in their plays The Trial their writings for contemporary scholarship. circles in Turkey. Only after the ban on the public of writers in times of neoliberalism, mediacracy of Dedan Kimathi (1976) and Requiem for the Last The main and final part of the paper is dedi- use of Kurdish was partially lifted in 1991, liter- and proliferation of moral dilemmas in modern Kaiser (1991) respectively, manipulate dramatic cated to the literary life online. In the light of pre- ary production in this language has proliferated societies. Despite the constantly diagnosed crisis techniques in order to explore and expose the vious discussions I define the subject of analysis. within the public sphere. Nonetheless, works of the writer’s ethos as a public intellectual and

16 Conference participants 17 Conference participants an ethical authority, literature can still stimulate confronted with J. Rancière’s concept of distri- EWA OKROY – PhD candidate at the University Aggressive East, which wants to tear my country public debate on social matters, focusing the bution of the sensible. Relations will be explored of Gdansk (Poland), Department of Philosophy away from the civilized Europe (very often this conflict on the figure of a controversial author. between politics and aesthetics in the social of Education and Cultural Studies, researcher East is Russia or the Soviet Union). Being considered members of a symbolic elite order and its transgression. and socio-cultural animator. She has experience But what about those parts of Europe which (Bourdieu, van Dijk), writers are expected to Minor literature is defined through: the in academic teaching, working with local com- have never been doubted to be Europe, which remain external actors in the media-economy deterritorialization of language, the political munities and excluded groups. Areas of interest: have always been considered as the civilized system of fame and celebrity production. Simul- element and the collective value. Deterritorial- socio-cultural diversity, creation and circulation West? What about American writers who wrote taneously, writers are becoming the subjects ization is described as the impossibility of not of knowledge, cultural policy, education and about Europe in the 19th century as it was their of self-promotion practices, which reduce their writing. It is related to issues of finding a voice equality. Collaborated with Łaźnia Centre for lost motherland? What about the opposition status to an object of consumption. within a language that is both unfamiliar and Contemporary Art, Baltic Institute for Regional between America and Europe, as Jean Baudrillard This ambiguity can be reflected in the common. On the one hand, the concept of European Concern BISER, European Solidarity called the first one «The ideal Europe»? categories of Michel Foucault’s late works. From becoming-minor converges with processes of Centre, Political Critique. Member of the Society So the objective of this research is to find a Foucauldian and postfoucauldian perspective, subjectivisation referring to becoming-other. of Anti-discrimination Education. out how writers write Europe and how it corre- writers should be regarded as hybrid subjects On the other hand, minor literature becomes lates with the political changes. produced by anonymous relations of power as a way of mediating a group within a major lan- the elements of media and culture dispositive. guage and a major society. Lykhozhon Oksana OKSANA LYKHOZHON – postgraduate In consequence, a writer can be seen as an According to J. Rancière, literature is The Concept of Europe in student of the Department of Foreign Literature entrepreneur of the self an individual directed founded on the distribution of the sensible. Literature. Writing Europe at the Kharkiv University (Ukraine). Teacher of by the rationality of microeconomics and the His work describes the emancipation process of Making the Union? Ukrainian and English literature at the College of responsibility of self-adjustment to the main- labour in the 19th century. It points out litera- Pharmacy. Topic of dissertation: The concept of stream of culture. Moreover, the famous notion ture as historically determined, connected with We always keep saying that literature reflects all Europe in literature. of the Habermasian literary public sphere is politics of aesthetics. Thus, literature becomes the social and political changes even before they being reduced to or rather displaced by an inter- politics the field of producing and effecting by take place. So we can easily say that there were play between the subjectification of a writer as everyday experience a distinct organization of a lot of writers, philosophers and other people Monika Popow a political and economic figure and his resistance the sensible depends on a distinct aesthetics. of art who began to speak about Europe before The Emancipation as a medium of practical reason. The paper ends with an examination of the Union: Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Nietzsche, of Creativity: Literature Deleuze’s and Rancière’s approaches in the Alexandre Kojeve and others. in a Time of Cognitive MAGDALENA NOWICKA – Assistant Profes- context of research of Polish literature after But what had happened in writers’ minds Capitalism sor in the Institute of Sociology of the University the political transformation of 1989. It focuses when we’ve got the union? of Lodz (Poland). Her recent publications are: on a few examples of the relation between the So the subject matter of this research is In my paper I will focus on one of the leading con- Ist Dispositiv nur ein Modebegriff? Zur Poetik des literary act and the social order. the creative activity of George Stainer, Malcolm cepts of critical theory – the concept of emanci- dispositif turns? and Żyd, czarownica i stara szafa. Bradbury, Lars Ayer, William T. Vollmann, Milan pation. The question I am going to ask is whether O konstruowaniu żydowskości autorów piszących ELŻBIETA OKROY – PhD candidate at the Kundera, Czesław Miłosz, Manuela Gretkowska, today’s literature and literary market provide o trudnej przeszłości. Academic interests: social University of Gdansk (Poland), Department of Andrzej Stasiuk, Marek Krajewski and Yuriy a possibility for individual (both reader and writer) communication, post-Foucauldian discourse Philosophy of Education and Cultural Studies, Andrukhovych. The object matter of this research and collective (society, social classes) emancipa- analysis, collective memory, post-colonial stud- researcher and socio-cultural animator. She has is the concept of Europe in their literary activity. tion. There is no doubt that nowadays literature ies, the legacy of Edward W. Said and its redefini- experience in academic teaching, working with The first thing to be mentioned is that is strongly impacted by economy, which shapes tions in Eastern Europe. local communities and excluded groups. Areas the realization of the concept of Europe really our views of intellectual work and our notion of of interest: the socio-cultural diversity, the depends on the country the writer comes from. labour in general. It is believed that immaterial creation and circulation of knowledge, cultural There are at least 5 groups of different realiza- work is a contemporary form of production. Crea- Elżbieta Okroy, Ewa Okroy policy, education and equality. Collaborated tions of the concept of Europe. For example, tivity is a central concept of cognitive capitalism. Toward a New Society – with Łaźnia Centre for Contemporary Art, Baltic in Central and Eastern European literatures’ Therefore, writers and artists, as members of Beyond Language Institute for Regional European Concern BISER, this concept often realizes in opposition of the the creative class, are becoming contemporary European Solidarity Centre, Krytyka Polityczna. images My country which is not perfect, but it manufacturers, producing, above all, knowledge. In this presentation, the notion of minor litera- Member of the Society of Anti-discrimination has the great history (nostalgia), Western Europe, The role of art and literature is increasing with the ture described by G. Deleuze and F. Guattari is Education. which doesn’t want to accept my country and growing volumes of sales and rising prices, while

18 Conference participants 19 Conference participants writers are often subjected to precarious working the ability to create encounters. As a conse- depictions of houses in contemporary American PIOTR SOBOLCZYK – Assistant Professor at conditions. Due to this fact, the potential of liter- quence, a new postmodern subject has been situ- literature. The author of U progu eksplozji: kryzys the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish ature as social criticism may be weakened. ated within the chronotope of a post-Fordist city, tożsamości w prozie pokolenia lat siedemdziesią- Academy of Sciences, guest lecturer at Jagiel- However, literature is also changing under in a post-national world of flexible accumulation. tych and co-editor of Americascapes: Americans lonian University (Poland). Author of 5 literary the influence of alternative forms of self-expres- What is more, the social geography of the world in/and their Diverse Sceneries. books and two academic ones: Tadeusza Miciń- sion. The canon is being questioned and the con- has been remapped, and the new map leaves out skiego podróż do Hiszpanii and Dyskursywizowa- cept of high literature is being displaced by more spaces that do not fit the new economic order. nie Białoszewskiego t.I. He is currently working democratic forms. Its social significance is also Within these uncharted territories live those who, Piotr Sobolczyk on a book on Polish gay literature in queer theory subjected to the influence of mass culture. for various reasons, were unable to adapt. There- The anxiety of perspective. Taking into consideration the context pre- fore, while it seems possible to rethink national (social) influence sented above, I am going to analyse the role of literatures of countries that at least partially literature in the processes of social and individual completed the transition from Fordist economy This paper ostensibly refers to Harold Bloom’s Paweł Szypowski emancipation. I will be asking what it means to to flexible accumulation (a good example may categories of the anxiety of influence. I treat Why Literature Can Not be a writer in cognitive capitalism. Does liter- be Paul Giles’s The Global Remapping of American Bloom’s theory as an immanentist one, i.e. text/ Believe in Society Too Much ature have emancipatory potential, and under Literature), such remapping turns out at least aesthetics/personality-oriented, which is spe- what conditions is this emancipation possible? problematic when it comes to countries that cific to the time in which the theory was devel- In my paper I would like to position myself Who is emancipated by whom? What kind of have no metropolises, yet the literatures of which oped. However, at least since the 1980s there somewhat counter to the idea of the conference, social class do writers make up? Is it possible struggle with the similar contemporary problems has occurred a visible change towards a sociol- namely in the region of Derridean thought. I aim to create alliances with other social actors (e.g. of identity, space, or history as those faced by ogization of the whole field of human sciences to introduce a polemic with the conference’s activists)? I will attempt to answer these and Western societies. (as observed by Alain Finkielkraut). Bloom’s hopes and beliefs, which I find, on the one hand, other questions considering the role of contem- The purpose of my paper is to address proposition might well serve the purpose of justified, while on the other too far-reaching. As porary literature in the emancipatory processes. the issue of a post-communist space as repre- describing high modernism, but nowadays the I do not see a radical difference between such sented in the literature of Polish writers born in fears and anxieties among writers and their thinkers as Spivak, Butler and Derrida, I hope not MONIKA POPOW – received her Ph.D. in phi- the 1970s. By juxtaposing major contemporary readers are different. I want to appropriate and to become too heretical. losophy of education at the Faculty of Education theories of the social construction of space with resignificate Bloom’s categories and intermin- I contend that in binding together liter- at the University of Gdańsk and M.A. in history of the model of a post-communist chronotope gle them with the concepts of social psychol- ature and the social-political sphere we may literature in Instituteof Eastern Slavonic Studies distilled from the contemporary Polish literature, ogy. My main point is that in the current field misunderstand, firstly, the character of litera- of the same university. She works as academic, my paper will aim at showing that writing (and, of literary production the writer who desires ture itself, and secondly, the significance of the publicist and curator and cooperates with aca- consequently, theorizing) a postmodern subject success the conditions of that desire I describe above-mentioned sphere. Then there is a risk demic and art institutions. Her scientificc inter- is an activity dependent on postmodern theories according to Bourdieu oscillates between the of giving the social perspective the discursive ests include postcolonial theory, posthumanism of space best applicable to advanced Western old myth of a writer as an independent and primacy. Every human subject is (or ought to be) and postmarxism. societies. However, in the contemporary world of autonomous genius, and the new conditions organized (by itself, according to his/her freedom the mass media, it is almost impossible to think that require of him social commitments, writ- but also by literature) by socially vital concepts, a pre-postmodern subject, a subject that does not ing on burning social issues, participation etc. trends and events according to one of the meta- Kamil Rusiłowicz take responsibility for his or her narrative biogra- I am mostly interested in the rhetorical aspect physical implications of the primacy. Since being Writing Poland as the Other phy. Which means that in Polish literature it often of reading literary work as contributing partly this subject equals active participation in social of Marxist Geographical happens that the postmodern subject is being to the autonomy myth and the strategies of changes and being well informed in current social Materialism inserted into a pre-postmodern space. Therefore, introducing social issues, especially queer sexu- issues, giving such primacy means to constitute my paper will aim at showing that contemporary alities, which is my area of expertise. For exam- domination over a subject’s engagement, knowl- When thinkers such as David Harvey, Fredric Polish literature is in fact a laboratory where ple, Senność by Wojciech Kuczok could be read edge, presence and future. Defining social cases Jameson, or Edward Soja conduct their research issues mostly neglected by Marxist geographical as a defense of the writer’s status and at the as being of prime interest, it consequently con- on the contemporary social construction of space, materialism are being actively discussed. same time an engaged pro-gay novel, in which strains and closes the domain of the social, for on they seem to follow the flow of capital, inevitably the writer, in a slalom of rhetorical figures and the same level there is nothing other and outside heading toward the metropolis. Similarly, Hardt KAMIL RUSIŁOWICZ – junior lecturer at John political correctness, creates a positive image of of which or with relation to which a new sense and Negri replace the industrial town with the Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, currently a gay person, gathering himself cultural capital could be born. The need for privileging social metropolis, the major feature of which becomes researching neobaroque space manifested in the as an important writer of our changing times. questions over others resembles the situation

20 Conference participants 21 Conference participants in which some realists prefer questions on hard a closer inspection it is hard to perceive this pro- scientific topics such as the status of neutrina, for cess merely as an interdisciplinary fluctuation of Chairpersons a certain answer should prove for them the exist- ideas. The process consists of something else. ence of fact and reality. That something else is an inner contradiction On the other hand, taking into account the inscribed in the genre of the (Holocaust) testi- Derridean concept of writing and literature as the mony, namely: being in and out of it, conveying very possibility of freedom of speech it’s impossi- the objective truth and confirming it by virtue of MARIA KOBIELSKA – Ph.D. candidate (Poland), where she works on a thesis on the ble to make any sphere prime. Literature exceeds a witness who was there. (expected 2014) in literature studies at the Fac- alienation of creative work. and dismantles any kind of tantalization. It makes As such, Holocaust studies may serve as ulty of Polish Studies of the Jagiellonian Univer- every social intervention (sic!) by definition a litmus test for the global changes in human sity in Cracow, preparing a dissertation on polish JAN SOWA – materialist-dialectical social a failure in the sense that we do not have a full studies as a whole, which tend to turn away from cultural memory after 1989. She holds an MA in theorist. He holds a PhD in sociology and orientation of what we are doing, what causes the notions of sign, structure etc. towards cate- Polish philology, philosophy and cultural studies. a habilitation in cultural studies. Co-founder our deeds or to whom we address our intentions, gories such as gender, economics of everyday life, She was awarded twice the START stipend of Fundacja Korporacja Ha!art and Spół- or even who we are. Moreover, since the act of non- normative narratives etc., but at the same for young researchers by the Foundation for dzielnia Goldex Poldex. He published writing always testifies for a singularity, writing time seem to have trouble finding a way around Polish Science. The author of numerous articles around 100 articles in Poland and abroad demands a kind of gelassenheit, stepping back the old literary and human studies language. This and one book: Nastrajanie pamięci. Artykulacja and authored three books (most recently: from the known social-political sphere of senses. is also observable in Polish literary studies, where doświadczenia w poezji Jerzego Ficowskiego (Tun- Fantomowe ciało króla. Peryferyjne zmagania Where to? Into a private and special sensibility. phenomena such as the work of Michał Głowiń- ing Memory. The Articulation of Experience in Jerzy z nowoczesną formą). Assistant Professor at I would like to demonstrate this in greater detail ski prove that Holocaust studies area discipline Ficowski’s Poetry). Her professional interests the Chair of Anthropology of Literature and with examples from the prose of Polish writers allowing for a surprising shift: as an author of concern memory in literature and culture, poli- Cultural Studies of the Jagiellonian Univer- Marcin Świetlicki and Dorota Masłowska. a classic theoretical text “Cztery typy fikcji literac- tics of memory, contemporary polish culture and sity, associated with Free University Warsaw. kiej” this prominent researcher represents quite visual culture studies. PAWEŁ SZYPOWSKI – postgraduate stu- a different stance than the one observable in his MICHAŁ SOWIŃSKI – Ph.D. candidate dent of philosophy at the University of Warsaw Holocaust studies’ volume “Stosowności forma”. ANNA NACHER – Assistant Professor at the at the Department of Polish Literature at (Poland). He is currently writing his master thesis In the paper, I will prove that Holocaust Institute for Audiovisual Arts of the Jagiellonian Jagiellonian University (Poland). He prepares on the concept(s) of trace in the philosophy of studies, even in their most conservative form, University (Poland). The author of two books a thesis on the connection between literature Levnas and Derrida. represent the striving of contemporary human (Telepłeć. Gender w telewizji doby globalizacji and and economy (under supervision of Professor studies to include issues such as the body of the Rubieże kultury popularnej. Popkultura w świecie Andrzej Zawadzki). Editor in the Korporacja author, the corporeal narrative context, the auto- przepływów). She has published a number of arti- Ha! Art Publishing House. Paweł Wolski biographical, personal, political, social context cles in the series of academic collections (includ- Who Needs Holocaust Studies? etc. in their theory. ing two collections on liberature and e-literature) KRZYSZTOF WOLAŃSKI – philosopher Writing Structurally, as well as in various Polish academic magazines. and sociologist. He got his Ph.D. in philos- Reading Corporeally PAWEŁ WOLSKI – Assistant Professor at the Her current interests include digital humanities, ophy for the dissertation Sędzia Schreber: University of Szczecin (Poland) and director of transmedia storytelling, geomedia, sound art Bóg, nerwy i psychoanaliza (published as Holocaust studies area branch of knowledge Polish Language and Culture School at the same and media archaeology a book in 2013). His main fields of interest very often believed to be a conservative one; University. MA in Comparative Literature at the are psychoanalysis and critical theory. He however, at the same time, they seems to follow University of Genoa (Italy) and PhD in Human ALICJA PALĘCKA – Ph.D. candidate at Insti- teaches modern literature in a high school and include the newest, sometimes revolution- Studies at the University of Szczecin. His main tute of Sociology at the Jagiellonian University in Warsaw. ary trends in philosophy and literary studies. academic interests are: literary theory and Holo- Examples include animal studies (D. LaCapra), caust studies. His recent interests include sports women studies (J. Ringelheim, B. Karwowska), as a bodily experience represented in Holocaust postcolonial studies (M. Hirsh) etc., but on literature.

22 Conference participants 23 Chairpersons International Conference The conference founded by Writing Literature, Reading Society. the National Science Center research grant Power, Politics and Economy number 2011/01/D/HS2/05129 in Contemporary Literary Production The programming board: Grzegorz Jankowicz, Organized by Fundacja Korporacja Ha!art Piotr Marecki, Mariusz Pisarski, Jan Sowa (Chair) as a part of the “Post-1989 Polish literature The organizing committee: Ewelina Sasin, in light of Pierre Bourdieu’s theory” Michał Sowiński

al. Słowackiego

Karmelicka

Basztowa

Podwale Lubicz Rajska

al. Mickiewicza

Straszewskiego

al. Krasińskiego

Westerplatte

Dietla

Organizator Partner Matronat medialny

praktykaeoretyczna t }

24 Map