The essays included in this thematic volume of the Anthropology of History Yearbook attempt to look at the puzzle of the representation of the past from the perspective of various humanistic disciplines. Our reflection inevitably circles between the paradigms of thinking about representations in terms of the “same”, “other” or “analogous”. In the first case, present-day representations of the past are credited with the ability to make the past visible to some extent; in the second case, our representations are given the status of a self-presentation or an expression of the will of the culture which produced them; in the third case, they are a mediation between us and the past, a mediation which in some sense resembles the past.
The article is an attempt at a close reading of the poem 17 czerwca (“17 June”) by Czesław Miłosz. The author starts with a versological analysis, supposed to indicate in what way the poet achieved the tonal effects in the text. The interpretation that has been conducted makes visible a semantic unsolvability, which-according to the author-is born in the poem and, once discerned, cannot be easily neutralized.
Legitimizing of political system makes up object of many scientific discussions and produces controversies. Matters relating to legitimizing are mainly considered in formulations in comparison with the national state what leads to conclusions about the deficit democracy in political system of the European Union. The present article proposes the glance on legitimizing through the prism of the constructivist approach with use of three attributes: identity, representation and recognition. The author characterizes their proprieties and possibility which can be used over the above mentioned problem. He underlines multi identities nature of the European society, the possibility of the expression of the recognition for the political system. This phenomenon can be expressed through the channels of civil participation in society functioning and can be verified in the investigations over legitimizes the models of the citizens representation in the system. Checking their applicability in practice of the European Union’s political system according to the author can contribute to undermine or even overthrow of thesis relating to the legitimacy deficit of the European Union’s political system.
Although there are not many children in Shakespeare’s plays, his treatment of them is quite unique, both for his own time and today. Shakespeare’s children are authentic selves who frequently possess extraordinary intellect and vision. Shakespeare’s introduction of child characters as victims highlights his implicit condemnation of violence as embodied in people in power.
The author of the article seeks an answer to the question what is the legal status of a person who represents a foreign entrepreneur in the branch. He points out that economic activity of entrepreneurs crosses national borders because of the globalization. There are three ways to run a business in a foreign country. It is possible to move a business from one country to another, organize a branch of the company or do business in a foreign country without any structure. The issues related to running a business on Polish territory by Polish and foreign entrepreneurs are governed by the act of freedom of economic activity. The foreign entrepreneurs to pursue their activities on the Polish territory may, on the basis of reciprocity, if ratified international agreements provide otherwise, create a branch established on the Polish territory. The branch of a foreign entrepreneur has no legal personality. It is not an entrepreneur itself. The branch of a foreign entrepreneur has an independent organizational structure, but it has no autonomy. Activities pursued under the branch are dependent on the extent of the foreign entrepreneur. It is an obligation to establish a person who will represent the foreign entrepreneur in the branch, but Polish legislator did not specify who can be such a representative and what is its legal status. In the literature of the subject, there are three points of view on this matter. The most common is that the person representing the branch is a proxy within the meaning of the Polish Civil Code. Another tells that the person who represents the foreign entrepreneur is a special proxy. According to the third view, the person referred in article 87 of act of freedom of economic activity is not the proxy. He is obliged only to inform and liquidate the branch. The author accepts the view, that person who represents the foreign entrepreneur in the branch is a proxy, but does not agree that he is a representative specified in the Polish Civil Code or that the Polish legislator established in the act of freedom of economic activity a new type of the proxy, previously unknown in the Polish legal system. Author points out that accordingly to the article 23 of the Polish act of international private law, priority is given to the law chosen by the principal. Because of that person who represents foreign entrepreneur in branch can be a representative specified in the Polish Civil Code, but only when a conflict rule will show the Polish law as a proper law. It is impossible to agree with the fact that the article 87 of the act of freedom of economic activity establishes new type of a proxy, because this rule only forces the use of a specific civil construction. It does not create a new institution. The author considers that the permanent representative of the foreign entrepreneur is a special kind of a proxy, but acting on the basis of the existing legislation, which is shown by the conflict rule, used properly with modifications made by the regulation of the act of freedom of economic activity and the act of national judicial register.
This article looks at the ways in which political representation is used as a symbolic resource of legitimacy by those acting as intermediaries between the private and the public sectors- professional lobbyists. Drawing on the theoretical framework of Michael Saward, the article puts forward an analysis of whether, how and in relation to whom, lobbyists claim to be representatives so as to acquire a recognized position in the policy-making process. Representative claim-making by lobbyists matters, we argue, because it is an indicator of the status afforded by the public to private actors in politics. In the Czech and Polish cases, even though the invisible character of lobbying practices seems to limit the range of roles lobbyists can adopt in front of the general public, lobbyists mobilize representation as a resource both directly and indirectly when having to justify their involvement in public decision-making
In this paper, I argue that even if the Hard Problem of Content, as identified by Hutto and Myin, is important, it was already solved in naturalized semantics, and satisfactory solutions to the problem do not rely merely on the notion of information as covariance. I point out that Hutto and Myin have double standards for linguistic and mental representation, which leads to a peculiar inconsistency. Were they to apply the same standards to basic and linguistic minds, they would either have to embrace representationalism or turn to semantic nihilism, which is, as I argue, an unstable and unattractive position. Hence, I conclude, their book does not offer an alternative to representationalism. At the same time, it reminds us that representational talk in cognitive science cannot be taken for granted and that information is different from mental representation. Although this claim is not new, Hutto and Myin defend it forcefully and elegantly.
I propose here an image of knowledge based on the concept of symbol: according to it, the relation of representation that constituting cognition is a symbolization. It is pos-tulated that both the representing conceptual model, i.e. a pre-linguistic entity acquired in cognition, and the true sentence it generates are of symbolic and not of mirroring (copying) character. The symbolic nature of cognition carries dialectical tension. We have at our disposal conceptual models and true sentences which symbolically represent reality. However, it is not possible to lift the symbolic disguise over knowledge, be-cause precisely this disguise is its essence. Reality appears only as symbolically, non-imitatively encoded. The proposed here symbolic realism rejects the traditional adopted dichotomy between, on one side, realism and the absence of the subject’s factors in the cognitive result, and, on the other, idealism and the subject as a factor which is viewed as inevitably leading to the idealistic nature of knowledge.
The institution of representation is of enormous theoretical and practical significance for contemporary legal sphere: it facilitates and accelerates legally binding activities, enabling participation of persons who, for various reasons, cannot validly undertake legal acts themselves. In the continental Europe, the construction of representation originates from the Roman law, which inspired the German law (Stellvertretung), which in turn considerably influenced contemporary legal systems in various countries, including the Polish law. Comparison of the construction of representation in the Polish law with the objectives, tasks and functions of representation in the German law will demonstrate characteristic features of the Polish legal regulation and influence of the German law thereupon. In addition, it will demonstrate that the German construction of representation is based on Zurechnung mechanism, while the Polish construction refers to legal fiction.
While the hysterical ailments of women in Shakespeare’s works have often been read from psychoanalytical standpoints, early modern medicine may provide new insights into the ‘frozen’, seemingly dead bodies of some of his heroines, such as Desdemona, Thaisa, and Hermione. In the wake of recent critical work (Peterson, Slights, Pettigrew), this paper will shed fresh light on the ‘excess’ of female physiology and on Shakespeare’s creative redeployment of some medical concepts and narratives.
Relying on post-war biographies of Henryk Sienkiewicz, the article provides an insight into how his life as a writer was modelled through recurring similarities and differences of representation. Both factual and methodological portrayals seem uniform. In 1954 the biographical calendar presented by Julian Krzyżanowski became a point of reference for all following profiles of Sienkiewicz. Moreover, the biographers seem to utilize personal documents in a similar manner – they are to validate their stories. The resulting life writing appears to hold peculiar control over the protagonist’s life, suggesting that special-temporal distance allows us to see more than Sienkiewicz did himself.
The article analyzes spatial represenatation of New York as presented in Janusz Głowacki’s works after his decision to emigrate in 1981. The literary assimilation of space is realized through three narrative strategies, i.e. stereotyping, walking, and naming/writing mode. The author of the article proposes geopoetic, anthropological, and sociological reading of his various texts (autobiography, essays, short stories, and dramas).
In this paper I discuss the possibilities of interpreting the archival materials of the Polski atlas etnograficzny by means of modern theories of memory. Referring to the theory of representation, memory locations or microhistory, new contexts of the functioning of phenomena or behaviours that are studied may be found in the records that were collected. The value of the source materials is not only in their substantive content but also in the scale of research with which they were collected. The atlas data, despite all their limitations, provide ample opportunities for the interpretation of such representations of the past, being a true reservoir of them. In many cases they require an individual approach, the knowledge of the specific context and a presentation of the interpretations in the form of a specific microhistory. Some, however, are experienced by a larger group of people, thus legitimizinginferences of a more general nature.
The article looks into the changing on-screen treatment of Polish immigrant characters living on ‘the Paris pavement’. The corpus of film productions under discussion includes Roman Polański’s The Tenant (1976), Peter Kassovitz’s Mariage blanc (1986), Costa Gavras’s La petite apocalypse (1993), Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Trois couleurs: Blanc (1994), Paweł Pawlikowski’s The Woman in the Fifth (2011) and Małgorzata Szumowska’s Elles (2011). As a comparative analysis of the films involved indicates, both the immigrant characters and the urban space associated with them are subject to gradual changes (although some remarkable spatial motifs, such as the balcony and the roof, make their appearance both in the older and the newer productions). If the earlier films tend to focus on the – often geopolitically connoted – marginalization and degradation of male (anti)heroes in the city’s historical center (or its immediate vicinity), then the more recent films shift focus to the urban periphery, where the Polish characters become part of what Dina Iordanova has called the ‘metropolitan multicultural margins’, along with other, economically underprivileged newcomers from various parts of the (postcolonial and post-Communist) world.
The purpose of this paper is to briefly present some of the forms the world axis takes in Japanese and Romanian cultures through the ages, namely, to show how a mythological concept – the axis mundi – has outlived its mythological existence and has survived up to modern days. We do not intend to concentrate on similarities or differences, but simply present some of the many culture-specific representations of this universal mythological concept: world axis representations in modern Japanese festivals (of which we have chosen three, to represent “pillar torches”: “the Sakaki sacred tree”, “the sacred mountain”, and “the sacred pillar”) and some world axis representations in Romanian culture, such as the fir tree, symbols related to dendrolatry, wooden crosses placed at crossroads, the ritual of climbing mountains, etc.
Shareholders of Polish companies dispose of various rights – property as well as corporate. Majority of corporate rights can be exercised by a representative. Representation, in this regard includes two categories: proxy and statutory rep-resentation. Regulations concerning representation vary, depending on kind of company in which they are used (limited liability companies, joint – stock com-panies or public companies, whose regulation is influenced by European law). In current study representation to exercise corporate rights of shareholders will be examined on the meta-law level. Provisions of international private law shall be observed to determine that which country’s legal regime shall be applied to interpret the institution of representation in cross-border situations. Additionally, it is necessary to distinguish the scopes of laws applicable for different issues connected with representation. The dissertation is aimed to address all abovementioned questions with the reference to European and Polish law.
This paper is an attempt to answer the question, what is exactly represented by our thoughts or language expressions. At the beginning, the article presents the main philosophical problems regarding the understanding of the nature of the subject of reference of such representations as names or descriptions. Is the name directly referred to the real object or rather to the content of thought? What about cases when the name cannot be referred to the real object? What is the relation between the intentional subject connected with every name (or description) and the external object to which only some names can be referred to, and which one is prior to the constitution of representation? The idea to understand the subject of mental or language representations as a complex structure which has a relational nature is the solution proposed in this paper. This structure is constituted by cognition and ties internal elements of a given representation such as the content with the elements which are external with regard to this given representation. This structure reflects such elements as the content of representation, the way in which this content is given, the correlate of the content and its mode of existence as well as additional systemic information coordinated with given representation. Some consequences of this proposal are discussed at the end of the article. It is explained how the differentiation of the elements of this structure can lead to different types of reference. The basis to understand the issue in question is the relation between internal and external object of reference. It can be interpreted (as is suggested in the paper) as a connection between internal elements of the described structure.
The article analyzes the ways of producing cultural representations of disability in theatre, film, literature and society. It draws attention to their dialectical structure, which problematizes - as in the case of the figure of the disabled avenger from Malina Prześluga’s drama "Debil" – a positive going beyond the oppositions of good and evil, agency and passivity. The author emphasizes the need to perceive not only metaphorical but also materialistic dimensions of disability in order to deconstruct and dislocate (and not only duplicate) ableist clichés. The key role in this process is played by the categories of embodiment and lived experience, as well as the strategies of "staring back" (R. Garland-Thomson) used by contemporary Polish artists with disabilities.
Art. 48 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation guarantees everyone the right to qualified legal assistance. The question of the means and methods it should be provided with has been debated between lawyers for a long time. A number of scientists talk about the need for legislative consolidation of the ‘advocate monopoly’. Others consider it appropriate to license the legal services market. These disputes remain relevant today. However, in 2019, Russia has undergone a reform of procedural law, which lawyers have called a ‘process revolution.’ Many rules of procedural codes have undergone major changes. In particular, as a result of the reform, the requirements for persons who may act as representatives in civil matters have been substantially changed. In the framework of this article, an attempt is made to analyse the reform of the institution of representation. Based on a systematic analysis of procedural legislation and law enforcement practice, the author comes to the conclusion that legislative consolidation of the need for higher legal education for representatives can be called one of the positive aspects of the reform. This article provides an analysis of the development trends of the institution of representation in the historical aspect. The author concludes that it is maintaining logical and consistent movement along the path of becoming an‘advocate monopoly’ in Russia. It seems that subject to its competent and phased introduction, as well as the reform of the corps of the bar itself, not only by increasing its number but above all by increasing the professionalism of its members, it can and should become an effective tool in the civil process.
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