Michał Sowiński

Fantastic Money. Economy in sci-fi narrations

The main goal of this text is to show why money is so wildly represented in the sci-fi narrations. The main reason for this is the obscure nature of money – its phantasmatic origin (according to Jan Sowa’s conception). The second reason is the imperative to create a logical and consistent universe in sci-fi narrations. Money, as one of the most important elements of the reality, must be included in the plot. And, last but not least, money and the whole economic and sociological system related to it, is a very useful and powerful tool for critical purposes.

In the further parts of the text the author interprets two sci-fi narrations which are emblematic for Polish sci-fi genre – the book Limes inferior by Janusz Zajdel and the movie O-bi, o-ba: Koniec cywilizacji (‘O-bi, O-ba: The End of Civilization’) directed by Piotr Szulkin. These two examples show that money can be used in sci-fi narrations not only as a world-building element, but also as an important critical tool. Because of its nature, the sci-fi genre is particularly predestined to explore the social and political mechanism which stands behind the money and economic system.

The article is based on the analysis of the recent study Literatura polska po 1989 roku w świetle teorii Pierre’a Bourdieu. Raport z badań which deals with the diagnosis of 25 years of Polish literature by using Bourdieu’s theory. The article comments the results of the study as well as proposes wider perspective for the sociology of literature. The main question in the text relates to the condition of the literary field and its main actors which are writers. The autonomy of literary field postulated by Bourdieu has a problematic status in Polish literature after 1989. Similar problems affects the writer’s habitus which depends on market regulations and other non-literary aspects. In the conclusion the article concerns different possibilities of using such problematic condition of the literary field for future activities of certain actors of the field.
 

This text is a review of the latest book by Agata Bielik-Robson as seen in the context of all her intellectual projects. The authors point to a significant shift of Bielik-Robson’s interest which leads her toward the reinterpretation of the texts of Jewish philosophers who represent messianic vitalism. The reviewers also try to present what for Bielik-Robson is the main opposition between Eros and Thanatos and explain what Erros is – the third way which is proposed by the philosopher as an alternative for the subject defined by the tragedy of existence. The authors of the review also point in a slightly polemical mode to the philosophical contexts only marginally presented in the book (mainly Vattimo’s pensiero debole) which need to be defined more precisely but are sometimes deliberately ignored by the author.