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O jednym odczytaniu Song of Solomon

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Binczycka-Gacek E.

Czytanie Literatury. Łódzkie Studia Literaturoznawcze

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2023

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issue 12

171-185

EN

Subject to analysis in this article will be two related texts: the novel Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison, published in 1977, and Ewa Łuczak’s article devoted thereto, entitled Homecoming in „Song of Solomon”: Nostalgia and the Construction of Identity. I would like to partially focus on examining Łuczak’s text, for whom political and social contexts depicted in the novel are the point of departure. Łuczak analyses the Song of Solomon in view of the ‘discourse of home’ present in Morrison’s work, and through the category of nostalgia. In my article, I would like to draw attention to other possible interpretations of the Nobel Prize winner’s text, thus complementing the interpretation offered by Ewa Łuczak by introducing new contexts. I propose to replace the category of nostalgia by interpreting the Song of Solomon in the light of one of the most important myths of the African diaspora, around which the entire novel is structured – the myth of the Flying Africans. Łuczak notes this myth in just one sentence. Although this article contains some grounds for a polemic, I would like it to be, above all, an interesting starting point for a broader discussion of the cultural hegemony of Western readings of postcolonial literary texts.

PL

Przedmiotem analizy w niniejszym artykule będą dwa powiązane z sobą teksty: wydana w 1977 roku powieść Toni Morrison Song of Solomon i poświęcony jej artykuł Ewy Łuczak zatytułowany Powrót do domu w „Pieśni Salomonowej”: nostalgia a budowanie tożsamości. Część moich rozważań chciałabym poświęcić przyjrzeniu się tekstowi Łuczak, dla którego punktem wyjścia są obecne w powieści konteksty polityczne i społeczne. Song of Solomon zostaje w nim zanalizowana w kontekście „dyskursu domu” obecnego w twórczości Morrison, oraz poprzez kategorię nostalgii. W moim artykule chciałabym zwrócić uwagę na inne możliwe interpretacje tekstu noblistki, uzupełniając tym samym interpretację, którą proponuje Ewa Łuczak o nowe konteksty. Kategorię nostalgii proponuję zastąpić odczytaniem Song of Solomon w świetle jednego z najważniejszych mitów diaspory afrykańskiej, wokół którego ustrukturyzowana jest cała powieść – mitu Flying Africans, któremu w tekście Łuczak poświęcone zostało zaledwie jedno zdanie. Mimo iż niniejszy artykuł zawiera pewne elementy polemiczne, chciałabym, aby stanowił przede wszystkim interesujący punkt wyjścia do szerszej dyskusji na temat kulturowej hegemonii zachodnich odczytań tekstów z kręgu literatury postkolonialnej.

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Metafory pojęciowe związane z domeną „czary” w studiach nad afroamerykańskim folklorem oralnym wybrzeża Georgii lat trzydziestych XX wieku

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Binczycka-Gacek E.

Studia Etnologiczne i Antropologiczne

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2018

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vol. 18

165-176

PL

The author became interested in the body of the texts analyzed in this article during her research on variants and versions of the Flying Africans myth in 20th century culture and literature. In the US the main folkloric source of this narrative is an account of oral folklore collected in Georgia from African-Americans, published in 1940 as a part of Federal’s Writer’s Project. The book, entitled Drums and Shadows. Survival Studies Among the Georgia Coastal Negroes directed by Mary Granger, contains interviews with people many of whom had been born in slavery. African Americans interviewed in the project speak widely about talismans, spirits, lucky and unlucky omens and actions, as well as other aspects of their culture and folklore, including a significant amount of flight-related narratives. The dialect in the interviews is transcribed phonetically and difficult for a non-English native speaker, nevertheless the concept of ‘conjuring’ grabs the attention of the reader. This short study is an introduction to a broader analysis of the conceptual domain of ‘conjuring’ in the GWP interviews. The author uses the conceptual metaphor theory in order to establish how magic and witchcraft are conceptualized by the Georgia Writer’s Project speakers.

3

Queer Transformation and Intersectional Identities: Analysing Race and Sexuality in Randall Kenan’s A Visitation of Spirits

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Binczycka-Gacek E.

Przegląd Kulturoznawczy

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2024

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issue 1 (59) Pop queer / queer pop. Taktyki, subwersje, narracje

130-144

EN

This article offers an in-depth examination of Randall Kenan’s A Visitation of Spirits, contextualizing its narrative within the frameworks of Queer theory and African American cultural studies. Set against the backdrop of a rural North Carolina community, the novel focuses on the experiences of Horace Cross, a young African American grappling with his homosexuality amidst the constraints of a Christian Fundamentalist society. The analysis explores how the novel navigates themes of race, sexuality, and identity, particularly through Horace’s quest for self-transformation. This study underscores the novel’s intricate exploration of these themes, positing queer transformation as a pivotal element that provides insight into the complexities of identity and community within the African American context. Additionally, the article examines the novel’s integration of popular culture references, revealing their role in bridging the discussions of racial and sexual identity. The aim is to shed light on Kenan’s narrative as a significant contribution to the discourse on intersectionality in literature, highlighting its impact in the broader fields of Black and queer studies.

4

Latające statki i podwodne plemiona – afrofuturystyczne konteksty mitu Flying Africans

100%

Binczycka-Gacek E.

Przegląd Kulturoznawczy

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2021

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issue 3 (49) „Powrót futuryzmów”

511-524

EN

This article’s objective is to compare different afrofuturistic texts containing references to the Flying Africans myth. I am going to analyse Anthony Joseph’s text The African Origins of UFOs and Nalo Hopkinson’s novel The Salt Roads in the musical funk and ambient context. My main focus is the song Star Child from album The Mothership Connection by the American band Parliament-Funkadelic and an electro-ambient album by the American group Drexciya, entitled The Quest, built around a story about an underwater human race living in the bottom of the Atlantic, born of pregnant women thrown overboard by slave ships.

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2 Przegląd Kulturoznawczy

1 Czytanie Literatury. Łódzkie Studia Literaturoznawcze

1 Studia Etnologiczne i Antropologiczne

4 Binczycka-Gacek E.

1 2024

1 2023

1 2021

1 2018

O jednym odczytaniu Song of Solomon

Metafory pojęciowe związane z domeną „czary” w studiach nad afroamerykańskim folklorem oralnym wybrzeża Georgii lat trzydziestych XX wieku

Queer Transformation and Intersectional Identities: Analysing Race and Sexuality in Randall Kenan’s A Visitation of Spirits

Latające statki i podwodne plemiona – afrofuturystyczne konteksty mitu Flying Africans