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Captive Minds Issn 1991–2773 20 /20 1 № Studies Summer Summer Revi ew – guest-edited guest-edited Spring , 3 1 by Małgorzata Poks RIAS Vol. RIAS Vol. of International American Normativities and Protests CAPTIVE MINDS ISSN 1991–2773 Vol. 13, Spring–Summer № 1/2020 CAPTIVE MINDS: NORMATIVITIES AND PROTESTS RIAS Review of International American Studies Revue d’Études Américaines Internationales RIAS Vol. 13, Spring—Summer № 1/2020 ISSN 1991—2773 CAPTIVE MINDS Normativities and Protests guest-edited by Małgorzata Poks EDITORS Editor-in-Chief: Giorgio Mariani Managing Editor: Paweł Jędrzejko Associate Editors: John E. Dean and György ‘George’ Tóth Book Review Editor: Manlio Della Marca Senior Copyeditors: Meghan McKinney Jones, Emily Metzner, Mark Olival-Bartley ISSN 1991—2773 TYPOGRAPHIC DESIGN: Hanna Traczyk / M-Studio s. c. PUBLICATION REALIZED BY: S UNIVERSITYOF SILESIA PRESS IN KATOWICE University of Silesia Press in Katowice ul. Bankowa 12b 40—007 Katowice Poland EDITORIAL BOARD Marta Ancarani, Rogers Asempasah, Antonio Barrenechea, Claudia Ioana Doroholschi, Martin Halliwell, Patrick Imbert, Manju Jaidka, Djelal Kadir, Eui Young Kim, Rui Kohiyana, Kryštof Kozák, Elizabeth A. Kuebler-Wolf, Márcio Prado, Regina Schober, Lea Williams, Yanyu Zeng. ABOUT RIAS Review of International American Studies (RIAS) is the double-blind peer- reviewed, electronic / print-on-demand journal of the International American Studies Association, a worldwide, independent, non-governmental asso- ciation of American Studies. RIAS serves as agora for the global network of international scholars, teachers, and students of America as a hemispheric and global phenomenon. RIAS is published by IASA twice a year (Fall—Winter and Spring—Summer). RIAS is available in the Open Access Gold formula and is REVUE D’ÉTUDES AMÉRICAINES INTERNATIONALE financed from the Association’s annual dues as specified in the “Membership” section of the Association’s website. All topical manuscripts should be directed to the RIAS Editors online via submissions website: www.rias-journal.org. Gen- eral correspondence and matters concerning the functioning of RIAS should be addressed to RIAS Editor-in-Chief. CONTACT INFORMATION and HARD COPY ORDERS Prof. Giorgio Mariani Dipartimento di Studi Europei, Americani e Interculturali Università “Sapienza” di Roma Via della Circonvallazione Tiburtina, 4 Edificio Ex-Poste, stanza n. 337, III piano 00185 Roma, Italy Tel. +390688378085, e-mail: [email protected] WEBSITE: www.rias-journal.org COVER ART: Barbed Wire Fist by Grandeduc© Grandeduc/123RF.com DOI: https://doi.org/10.31261/rias.2020.13.1 RIAS—REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL AMERICAN STUDIES / Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) CAPTIVE MINDS Normativities and Protests guest-edited by Małgorzata Poks Paweł Jędrzejko RIAS Managing Editor 5 TRAGEDY/IRONY ED/NOTE A Reflection on Engaged Poetry and Time Małgorzata Poks Guest Editor INTRO 19 CAPTIVE MINDS Norms, Normativities and the Forms of Tragic Protest in Literature and Cultural Practice (Introduction) Giorgio Mariani 27 E MERSON’S SUPERHERO John Matteson FEATURES 53 MAILER, DOCTOROW, ROTH A Cross-Generational Reading of the American Berserk Manuel Broncano Rodríguez 75 A LITERARY HISTORY OF MENTAL CAPTIVITY IN THE UNITED STATES Blood Meridian, Wise Blood, and Contemporary Political Discourse Monika Kocot 99 A CELEBRATION OF THE WILD On Earth Democracy and the Ethics of Civil Disobedience in Gary Snyder’s Writing Małgorzata Poks 123 “WHERE BUTCHERS SING LIKE ANGELS” Of Captive Bodies and Colonized Minds (With a Little Help from Louise Erdrich) Sonia Caputa 145 RESISTANCE AND PROTEST IN PERCIVAL EVERETT’S ERASURE 3 Indigenous John Eric Starnes Social Movements 159 in the Americas BLACK FLAG UNDER A GREY SKY Forms of Protest in Current Neo-Confederate Prose FEATURES 2019 and Song / 1 Michał Kisiel № 183 VIOLENCE HATES GAMES? Revolting (Against) Violence in Michael Haneke’s Funny Games U.S. Murat Göç-Bilgin 197 POSTHUMANITY spring–summer , AND THE PRISON-HOUSE OF GENDER 12 IN DOUGLAS COUPLAND’S MICROSERFS ol. v Monika Kołtun 215 rias THE TRAGEDY OF A WHISTLEBLOWER Adamczewski’s Tragic Protest and the Case of Chelsea Manning Federica Perazzini 235 VARIA PARADIGMS OF OTHERNESS The American Savage in British Eighteenth-Century Popular and Scholarly Literature Antonio Barrenechea 259 DRACULA AS INTER-AMERICAN FILM ICON Universal Pictures and Cinematográfica ABSA Sara Khalili Jahromi 279 EMERSON IN IRAN: THE AMERICAN APPROPRIATION OF PERSIAN POETRY by Roger Sedarat (A Book Review) BOOK REVIEWS Gabriela Vargas-Cetina 285 DOS NARIZONES NO SE PUEDEN BESAR TRAYECTORIAS, USOS Y PRÁCTICAS DE LA TRADICIÓN ORISHA EN YUCATÁN by Nahayelli Beatriz Juárez Huet (A Book Review) 291 IASA STATEMENT OF SUPPORT for the struggle against racialized violence in the United States END/NOTES 295 ABSTRACTS AND NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS 307 RIAS EDITORIAL POLICY / STYLESHEET 4 Review of International American Studies ED/NOTE RIAS Vol. 13, Spring—Summer № 1 /2020 ISSN 1991—2773 DOI: https://doi.org/10.31261/rias.9622 TRAGEDY/IRONY A Reflection on Engaged Poetry and Time nlike a few decades ago, today—safe in our privilege—we, Paweł Jędrzejko RIAS Managing Editor Uthe people of the western culture, are allowed to protest. University of Silesia Irrespective of the brutality of the riot police and despite evident in Katowice instances of the abuse of justice, the consequences of participa- Poland tion in peaceful demonstrations are incomparably less serious https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3251-2540 than it was the case in the early 1950s, 60s or even 80s. And yet it would be impossible not to notice the profundity of the abyss between the palpable reality of desperate acts of self-immolation and the safety of Facebook-based philippics, between the indi- vidual tragedies of dying hunger strikers and the “intimate revolts”1 of those who—having much too much to lose—speak out against the “collapse of essential values” in the serene sanctuaries of their homes. The tragedy of the irony of the self-fashioned righteousness seems to match the irony of the real tragedies: the (post)modern hamartia seems to be well illustrated by the difference between two musical interpretations of Ernest Bryll’s disconcerting confes- sional poem “Niosę jeszcze swe wiersze” [“I Still Carry My Poems”], first arranged and performed in the 1980s by a Polish bard, Tomek Opoka, and then reinterpreted and reinvented in 2009 by the a cap- pella group Banana Boat, whose version was included in an album created by Piotr Bakal in memory of the blind singer. The present reflections, therefore, address the phenomenon of the ironic protest, in which self-made heroes thrive, and tragic protesters become invisible, their humanity transformed into an icon. Let me illustrate this with a brief analysis of the poem, whose simultaneous simplicity and sublimity make it one of the most 1. I took the liberty of borrowing this term from Julia Kristeva, who developed the concept in her 2003 book Intimate Revolt. The Powers and Limits of Psychoanalysis, published by the Columbia University Press. 5 dramatic expressions of an existential dilemma that any ordinary honest person experiences when facing a choice between what is right and what is safe. However, before we explore the text, let us first make use of the technology available today to scan each of the two quick response codes below2 and to listen to both versions of the song, concentrating solely on what the music itself communicates: Irrespective of whether one understands Polish or not, the dif- ference between the two performances is striking. While Tomek Opoka’s harsh voice against the background of the unsophisticated sound of his guitar communicates existential drama, the close a cappella harmonies of the Banana Boat, conversely, are delusively soothing; they emanate tranquility. Opoka’s performance, alluding to the style developed by such master singer-songwriters as Vladi- mir Vysotsky, Bulat Okudzhava or Jacek Kaczmarski (all of whom would often be compared to Lluís Llach, Bob Dylan, Georges Brassens, or Jacques Brel), suggests that the poem should be read and interpreted with the protest song tradition in mind. The ver- Captive Minds Normativities sion proposed by Tomasz Czarny and Paweł Konieczny, however, and Protests renders Ernest Bryll’s lyric stylistically independent of the legacy of the great bards, thereby suggesting a reading context free 2020 / from the connotations of engagée poetry. 1 № Thus, the two musical arrangements may be claimed to call into existence two different philosophical statements. The first of these may be argued to correspond with the sentiments broadly shared 2. If you are reading the print version of this article, please use the QR scanner application in your cellphone to listen to each of the musical in- spring–summer , terpretations of the poem, or—if you are reading the pdf version of this 13 text—click on the QR codes or hyperlinks below: Tomasz Opoka’s version ol. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0X79t8bxajA and Banana Boat’s v version https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEnhfTabt2o (both links rias are active). 6 review of international american studies american international review of by the generation of listeners who have experienced the “long 1968.” The second one lends itself to being read as an expression of the essence of the “intimate revolt,” embodying a reflection on the nature of one’s own moral inertia in the world where one may actively participate in a variety of forms of protest without any serious consequences,
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