Adam Woźniak

Discipline, Biopoower, Immunitas: Introduction to Studies on Power Mechanisms in Józef Mackiewicz’s War Novels

The aim of the article is to provide a preliminary identification of the mechanisms of power in Józef Mackiewicz’s war novels. The first part focuses on the tools of discipline and biopower. Particular attention is paid to the methods of gaining knowledge of the individual subject (confession) and the collective subject (Foucauldian security, immune mechanisms). In both cases, the mechanism of acquiring knowledge of the subject is at the same time a method of its production. The second part complements these considerations by providing an analysis of methods of resistance to both types of power. The third part considers the thesis according to which the mechanisms of population production and protection may be combined in Mackiewicz’s novels with the so-called immunological understanding of war.

Socrates, Meursault, and The Brothers Karamazov: The Court Trial as a Philosophical Medium

The aim of this study is to characterise the way that literary accounts of court trials shape the space for philosophical considerations. In the first part of the text, Marshall McLuhan’s concept of the medium is introduced and interpreted within the context of Martin Heidegger’s notion of technology. The second part of the paper, meanwhile, concerns the opposition between language and reality, which is crucial for the philosophical implications of courtroom space. This study includes also the “law and literature” perspective. The theoretical reflection is based on an analysis of The Stranger by Albert Camus, The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Plato’s The Apology. Finally, the third part deals with the literary composition of the court trial account.