Sara Goldfarb and her son Harry, two central characters in Hubert Selby Jr.’s Requiem for a Dream, are both addicts. The objects of their desire, a television set and a bag of drugs, are of particular significance because they cannot be enjoyed without a transmitter – an antenna and a syringe. The article presents these objects as incomplete and the desire attached to them as misplaced. What the characters are really looking for is something beyond, “a pound of pure” happiness. The world in Requiem for a Dream is purely physical, so only what is done to the body can be felt and understood by the characters. In the end, Sara and Harry both become incomplete like the objects they are pursuing.
The beginning of the 19th century brought an absolute domination of women on the ballet stage (although they had to face the challenge of mastering the language of dance created by men and originally intended for them on the professional stage). The process of feminisation, also in this ‘symbolic’ aspect, which theatrical dance was undergoing from the nineteenth century directed the research by dance theorists towards the so-called problem of the male dancer (Burt, 2007). However, the complexities of the code of masculinity can be viewed at all the stages of the development of the forms of choreography, i.e. from the dance intermedia of the Renaissance to the autonomous, in terms of content, action ballets of the Enlightenment (referring, inter alia, to the images of the androgynous figures of the burlesque ballets of the time of Louis XIII, or the phenomenon of cross-casting of the court ballet of the Sun King era).
The paper provides a critical reading of a television series Mad Men, focusing on the way it challenges popular ideas about creative work. In contrast to the Druckerian version of management theory that conceives creativity as a purely mental ability, occurring solely in the abstract sphere of ideas, I propose to understand creativity as a kind of “immaterial labor.” This category refers to the act of producing intangible commodities – like ideas, images and codes – that are both embodied and that constitute the material itself. In this context, I argue that the representations of embodiment in Mad Men provide a way to reassess the prevailing management ideologies and reconsider creative labor as an inherently social and cooperative endeavor.
PL
Mad Men to wielokrotnie nagradzany serial telewizyjny, którego akcja rozgrywa się w latach sześćdziesiątych, ukazując codzienne życie pracowników fikcyjnej agencji reklamowej Sterling Cooper, ulokowanej na nowojorskiej Madison Avenue. Środowisko to przechodziło wówczas radykalną transformację, która położyła fundamenty pod kapitalistyczną mitologię kreatywności. Oryginalność Mad Men polega jednak na tym, że serial unika powielania większości klisz składających się na obraz pracy kreatywnej, zamiast tego ukazując ją jako nieodzownie uwikłaną w cielesne doświadczenie – doznania, afekty i formy więzi społecznej, oraz instytucjonalne struktury władzy – podziały, hierarchie i formy wyzysku. Perspektywa ta umożliwia wyprowadzenie krytycznej analizy pracy kreatywnej, wskazując, że rzekomo minione formy eksploatacji są we współczesnym kapitalizmie wciąż obecne, ale zarazem podatne na zmiany.
The paper looks at two book-length poems by Alice Oswald’s: Dart (2002) and Memorial (2011) as translation projects, with an aim to understand both the nature of Oswald’s poetic practice and her concept of what is the meaning and goal of translation in creative work. I claim that translation, in the special sense the poet gives to this term, is at the very core of her work. In my analysis I concentrate on the physical aspect of Oswald’s poetic practice, the role of the body, movement in space, muscular effort, rhythm and memorization of poetry in her projects. I also look at the ways of crossing the divide between the human and non-human, linking language to the voice of the natural world and returning to oral poetry in her work.
The main goal of the paper is to describe modern Croatian female literature. More specifically, the paper deals with several novels which were inspired by the traumatic events that occured in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s: Kao da me nema by Slavenka Drakulić, Pred crvenim zidom by Irena Vrkljan, Crnac by Tatjana Gromača and Uho, grlo, nož by Vedrana Rudan. The common denominator in these literary works is that they are all written from a female perspective and they combine fictional elements with autobiographical records and events which can be referred back to the reality of the 1990s war. In order to be able to explore this literature, of great significance are such elements as the body, memory and identity which are intertwined in different combinations. Moreover, the style aspects are of crucial importance, being not only secondary elements but also the subject of female writing which faces the experienced trauma.
The aim of my article is to examine tattoo acquisition in the context of an emerging individualized society in contemporary Poland. The theoretical framework of my project will be the widespread sociological conception of individualization process according to which structural and cultural changes – specific to late modernity – are dissembedding individuals from traditional frames of reference, giving them unprecedented scope of freedom, but simultaneously making them responsible for shaping their own identity. Referring to empirical data gathered during my research, I will try to show the role played by tattoo acquisition in the broader process of identity formation. I will distinguish two main moments of identity work: the moment of expression, where tattoo acquisition serves as a tool enabling individuals to articulate and express their own identity, and the performative moment, where tattoo acquisitions enables them to shape and negotiate their identity. In this article I will focus on two different aspects of identity work oriented towards self-creation: on creative transformation and aestetization of one’s own body and on negotiation of personal freedom and agency mediated by tattooing.
A Discourse on Miracles and Resurrectio et quae sequuntur are the first Polish translations of John Locke’s two minor treatises on religious matters. In presenting his understanding of miracles and the resurrection, Locke tries to reconcile the content of Scripture with the principles of reason, including those of his philosophy. The limitation of knowledge to what was certain opened a field for religious speculations, but also in these reason played the role of a guarantor of their non-contradiction. The issues of miracles and the resurrection allow for a better interpretation of the problems that Locke discusses in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, such as the relation of empirical cognition to speculative philosophy, personal identity, and corporeality.
PL
Rozprawa o cudach oraz Resurrectio et quae sequuntur to dokonane przez Adam Grzelińskiego pierwsze polskie przekłady dwóch drobnych rozpraw Johna Locke’a poświęconych zagadnieniom religijnym. Przedstawiając swe rozumienie cudów oraz zmartwychwstania, Locke stara się pogodzić treść Pisma świętego z wymogami rozumu, w tym z zasadami własnej filozofii. Ograniczenie wiedzy do tego, co pewne otwierało pole dla spekulacji religijnych, jednak i w ich przypadku rozum pełnił rolę gwaranta ich niesprzeczności. Zagadnienia cudów oraz zmartwychwstania pozwalają na pełniejsza interpretację omawianych w Rozważaniach dotyczących rozumu ludzkiego zagadnień takich jak stosunek poznania empirycznego i spekulatywnej filozofii, tożsamość osobowa, cielesność.
The article presents a general characterisation of Maurice MerleauPonty’s thought, particularly pointing to an ambivalence in his views. According to the author, this ambivalence is created on purpose and leads the philosopher to initiate a French version of philosophy of difference. It turns out that though Merleau-Ponty declares appreciation towards Husserl’s phenomenology and Sartre’s existentialism, he is closer to classical German philosophy: Hegel and Heidegger.