The foundations of pop-culture revolution in music were laid with various elements of different subcultures and traditions, resulting in a universal ethos of ethnic and class exclusion. The reception of early rock and roll was shaped by racial politics inasmuch as the unification of music was preceded by a profound social and cultural segregation. However, the ‘black’ origins of rock and roll need to be supplemented with a ‘white’ element – the socially and class-wise marginalised ‘hillbillies’. The history of pop as a homogenising language of musical emotions cannot ignore the complex identity of ‘white’ musicians and music producers from Memphis interested in ‘black’ inspirations and shaped by the perspective of their own ‘culture of scarcity’. Elvis Presley is a symptomatic example of a relationship between ‘white’ rock and roll and class exclusion. Both the musicians and audiences of early rock culture, regardless of the colour of their skin, were members of a disadvantaged group. Featuring as an aggressive prototype of a rocker on stage, Elvis inadvertently became their tribune. His radicalism echoed in the genetic mix of his songs from across a variety of genres and types. He was a mimetic model setting a direction for the emancipation of both ‘whites’ and ‘blacks’. This was the first time when teenagers disobeyed the adult culture so openly and explicitly. Presley’s song-writing also coincided with society’s melancholic reintegration with the officially repudiated traditions, helping young people move beyond the existing divides towards a greater unity.
In works by Zygmunt Haupt, the motif of entropy was a unique moment associating the speculative character of modern scientism with modernist prose. The scientific explanation – physics – is used to interpret the world’s natural and social history. Haupt extends the connotations of the second law of thermodynamics, typically conceptualized in terms of humanities as a pessimistic perspective on the passing of energetic livelihood of life, the human world, civilization. At the beginning of his experience of America, it provided him with both hope and hopelessness. The paper analyzes similarities between Haupt’s and Faulkner’s prose, as well as formal similarities between their worldviews. Writing about the Delta, both authors are interested in the imbalance between nature and civilization, which leads to a crisis of both nature and human society. Entropy turns out to be a paradoxical trace of hope in the growing disorder which may be heralding a new system, and with it – a form of younger entropy.
PL
Motyw entropii w twórczości Zygmunta Haupta był unikatowym momentem kojarzącym spekulatywność nowoczesnego scjentyzmu z modernistyczną prozą. Wyjaśnienie naukowe – fizyka – posłużyło interpretacji historii naturalnej i społecznej świata. Drugie prawo dynamiki, na ogół rozumiane w humanistycznym ujęciu jako pesymistyczna perspektywa przemijania energetycznej żywotności życia, świata ludzkiego, cywilizacji, u Haupta rozszerzyło swoje konotacje. Ameryka u progu jej doświadczenia przez pisarza niosła przesłanie zarazem nadziei i beznadziei. W artykule sygnalizuję podobieństwa prozy Haupta i Faulknera. I nakładanie się na formalne podobieństwo pokrewieństwa światopoglądowego. Piszących o Delcie Missisipi nowoczesnych prozaików interesuje brak równowagi między naturą i cywilizacją, który prowadzi do kryzysu tak natury, jak i ludzkiego społeczeństwa. Entropia okazuje się tutaj paradoksalnym śladem nadziei we wzrastającym nieporządku, który może zwiastować „pączkowanie” nowego systemu, a wraz z nim formę młodszej entropii.
The article speaks to the deconstruction of men’s images in William Wyler’s films. One may observe a different paradigm of what is male in the said director’s pacifist trilogy. The alternative masculinity utopias constructed therein are quite awe-inducing due to their emancipatory scope. Friendly Persuasion (1956), The Big Country, and Ben-Hur (1959) are films depicting not only the fight against patriarchal stereotype, but also reaching beyond the restrictions of heteronormativity. The libidal coordinates of the narratives are in sync with biopolitical status of modernity. Surprisingly enough, at the heart of Hollywood some brave cinematic post-masculine projects were developed.
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