english edition 2 2016 Literature and Society issue editor MACIEJ MARYL JERZY ZIOMEK A Common Defence of Literary History: The Reader’s and the Researcher’s Shelf MICHAŁ GŁOWIŃSKI Poetry and the Ritual: Poems for Bolesław Bierut’s 60th Birthday RYSZARD NYCZ Polish Literature in the Shadow of Censorship WENDY GRISWOLD “In a Lively Mind Many Things Happen at the Same Time.” A Discussion ANDRZEJ SKRENDO Reception Theory: The Object, Range and Goals of Research KATARZYNA BAZARNIK Sociological Contexts of Liberature teksty drugie · Institute of Literary Research Polish Academy of Science index 337412 · pl issn 0867-0633 EDITORIAL BOARD Agata Bielik-Robson (uk), Włodzimierz Bolecki, Maria Delaperrière (France), Ewa Domańska, Grzegorz Grochowski, Zdzisław Łapiński, Michał Paweł Markowski (usa), Maciej Maryl, Jakub Momro, Anna Nasiłowska (Deputy Editor-in-Chief), Leonard Neuger (Sweden), Ryszard Nycz (Editor-in-Chief), Bożena Shallcross (usa), Marta Zielińska, Tul’si Bhambry (English Translator and Language Consultant), Justyna Tabaszewska, Marta Bukowiecka (Managing Editor) ADVISORY BOARD Edward Balcerzan, Stanisław Barańczak (usa) , Małgorzata Czermińska, Paweł Dybel, Knut Andreas Grimstad (Norway), Jerzy Jarzębski, Bożena Karwowska (Canada), Krzysztof Kłosiński, Dorota Krawczyńska, Vladimir Krysinski (Canada), Luigi Marinelli (Italy), Arent van Nieukerken (the Netherlands), Ewa Rewers, German Ritz (Switzerland), Henryk Siewierski (Brasil), Janusz Sławiński , Ewa Thompson (usa), Joanna Tokarska-Bakir, Tamara Trojanowska (Canada), Alois Woldan (Austria), Anna Zeidler-Janiszewska ADDRESS Nowy Świat 72, room a40, 00-330 Warsaw, Poland phone +48 22 657 28 07, phone/fax +48 22 828 32 06 e-mail: [email protected] www.tekstydrugie.pl GRAPHIC DESIGN Marcin Hernas | tessera.org.pl EDITING AND Lynn Suh LANGUAGE CONSULTANT PROOFREADING Rafał Pawluk TYPESETTING Publishing House of the Institute of Literary Research, Polish Academy of Sciences This journal is funded by the Polish Minister of Science and Higher Education, through the “Programme for the Development of Humanities” for 2015 – 2017 english edition 2016 special issue Institute of Literary Research Polish Academy of Science www.tekstydrugie.pl theory of literature · critique · interpretation „Pro Cultura Litteraria” Association 2 table of contents Literature and Society foreword 5 MACIEJ MARYL Cultural Literacy: An Outline of Total Research into Literary Culture polish theories of literary communication 24 JERZY ZIOMEK A Common Defence of Literary History: The Reader’s and the Researcher’s Shelf 38 ANDRZEJ SKRENDO Reception Theory: The Object, Range and Goals of Research. A Commentary to the Title and Postscript 46 ELŻBIETA RYBICKA The Anthropological and Communicative Aspects of Epistolographic Discourse 64 LIDIA BURSKA Stefan Żółkiewski’s Last Book institutional contexts of polish literary history 68 ADAM KARPIŃSKI The Consequences of “The Age of Manuscripts.” The Reconstruction of an Era 84 RYSZARD NYCZ Polish Literature in the Shadow of Censorship. A Lecture 105 KRZYSZTOF DYBCIAK Systems of Literary Communication in Great Émigré Literatures 117 MICHAŁ GŁOWIŃSKI Poetry and the Ritual: Poems for Bolesław Bierut’s 60th Birthday sociology of culture 137 WENDY GRISWOLD, “In a Lively Mind Many Things Happen STANISŁAW KRAWCZYK at the Same Time:” Cultural Sociology and the Sociology of Literature (a Discussion) explorations of the book market 154 PAWEŁ ZAJAS An Ethnography of the Production of Translation: Literatures from the (Semi) Periphery on the German Publishing Market 174 DOMINIK ANTONIK The Author as a Brand 191 MARCIN RYCHLEWSKI Publishing Circulation Systems Versus the Book Market in Today’s Poland 208 ALICJA PALĘCKA, Who Needs the Book? Copyright MACIEJ JAKUBOWIAK in the Late Print Epoch new phenomena of literary culture 223 KATARZYNA BAZARNIK Sociological Contexts of Liberature 242 URSZULA PAWLICKA Digital Literature. Current State of Research in Poland 262 JAROSŁAW KOPEĆ, Digital and Print Hybrids IZABELA KORYŚ, DOMINIKA MICHALAK 280 PIOTR TOCZYSKI Academic (Non)Reading from the Perspective of “User Friendliness:” An Insight from the Fields of the Sociology of Literature and of Multimedia 295 OLGA DAWIDOWICZ- “Degenerate” Forum of -CHYMKOWSKA Małgorzata Musierowicz’s Fans as an Interactive Interpretative Machine: A Case Study Foreword Maciej Maryl Cultural Literacy: This work was supported by the research grant, The An Outline of Total Research Reader of the 21st Century. into Literary Culture New Problems in the Study of Literary Culture awarded by the Institute DOI: 10.18318/td.2016.en.2.1 of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences ublic opinion in Poland seems to be galvanized exclu- Maciej Maryl Psively by three types of statistical data: political polling – Associate Professor data, the number of arrested drunk drivers, and the results of at the Institute of Literary Research of nationwide readership surveys. It is possible that the demand the Polish Academy for these sorts of figures is driven by our desire to view our of Sciences (IBL country with incredulity and to confront how many of our fel- PAN). He is the low citizens fail to satisfy this or that cultural norm, which we Director of the ourselves consider highly significant. Digital Humanities Centre IBL PAN, and Every two years, the National Library’s Book and Readership a board member Institute publishes the results of its readership surveys and of the DARIAH-PL journalists across the country try hard to outdo each other in consortium. In 2013 lamenting their compatriots’ lack of schooling, and the agony he defended a PhD of culture as we know it. Curiously, similar jeremiads published thesis dedicated to literary life online. His on the other side of the Atlantic tend to identify and demon- research interests strate the more practical aspects of this growing illiteracy. In cover literary the first decade of the 21st century, the National Endowment communication, new for the Arts (NEA), an American federal agency supporting and media, multimedia funding culture and art in the United States, published a series writing, and the relationship between of three reports investigating the state of readership in the technology and country, their titles spelling out a rather interesting narrative: culture. WWW: maryl. Reading at Risk (2004), To Read or Not to Read (2007), and Read- org, contact: maciej. ing on the Rise (2009).1 The first report offers a diagnosis of the [email protected] 1 All quoted NEA reports can be accessed online at http://arts.gov/ publications, accessed June 15, 2015. 6 literature and society problem (i.e. a dramatic decline in readership numbers since the 1980s), the second explores the worsening of this problem (and rounded out the narrative with other readership and literacy studies), whereas the final report provides a much needed “catharsis”: a small but perceptible growth in readership numbers observed for the first time in twenty-five years, giving the report its apt yet pompous subtitle A New Chapter in American Literacy. The first report in the series emphasizes the devastating effects that poor literacy has for democracy, as those who cannot read are unable to consciously participate in the civic life of the nation and in the economy, specifically the publishing industry. The second installment (using a variety of contextual statistics, including the fact that illiteracy is prevalent in prison populations, whereas the majority of active voters are also readers),2 attempts to outline the negative influence illiteracy has on the lives of individuals. In the preface to the report, the chairman of the NEA framed the issue in the following words: How does one summarize this disturbing story? As Americans, especially younger Americans, read less, they read less well. Because they read less well, they have lower levels of academic achievement. (The shameful fact that nearly one-third of American teenagers drop out of school is deeply connected to declining literacy and reading comprehension.) With lower levels of reading and writing ability, people do less well in the job market. Poor reading skills correlate heavily with lack of employment, lower wages, and fewer opportunities for advancement.3 How can a phenomenon like declining readership rates still exist in the early 21st century? The most frequent and simplest answer (“Blame the Internet!”) is wrong, but more on that later. Our current state of affairs is a product of a tangled web of factors. In the National Library’s 2010 report, Izabela Koryś identified a number of them, including “changes to our daily time budget” (increasingly blurred lines between work and leisure and a significant drop in the amount of free time at our 2 Curiously, according to a 2014 report released by the National Library, readers are a minority among Polish voters, making up only 44-45% of the overall pool of voters. See Izabela Koryś, Dominika Michalak and Roman Chymkowski, Stan czytelnictwa w Polsce w 2014 [The State of Readership in Poland in 2014] (Warszawa: Biblioteka Narodowa, 2015), 50. The document is available online at http://bn.org.pl/download/document/1422018329.pdf, accessed June 15, 2015. 3 Dana Goia “Introduction,” in To Read or Not to Read: A Question of National Consequence (Wash- ington, DC: National Endowment for the Arts, 2007), 5; the document is available online at http://arts.gov/publications/read-or-not-read-question-national-consequence-0, accessed June 15, 2015. FOREWORD MACIEJ MARYL C U LT U R A L LITERACY …