Volume 16 Issue 3 (2019)

2019

Publication date: 09.2019

Licence: CC BY-NC-ND

Editorial team

Issue Scientific Editor dr hab. Łukasz Tischner, prof. UJ

Issue content

Postcolonialism. The Need for Awareness

Postkolonializm. Potrzeba uważności

Łukasz Tischner

Konteksty Kultury, Volume 16 Issue 3, 2019, pp. 297 - 298

https://doi.org/10.4467/23531991KK.19.029.11733

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Postkolonialna lekcja uważności

Katarzyna Mroczkowska-Brand

Konteksty Kultury, Volume 16 Issue 3, 2019, pp. 299 - 323

https://doi.org/10.4467/23531991KK.19.030.11734

A special focus on the consequences of colonialism, what the author calls postcolonial awareness, is required because of the importance and timeliness of this legacy in the contemporary world. Postcolonial literature is tasked in this context with recording the traces of cultures either disappearing or already lost due to the actions of colonizing powers. The author discusses examples of literary texts that fulfill this function through various forms of narration and imaging. In the novel Tracks by Louise Erdrich we find an approximation of the way of life of the Chippewas, before they were confined in reserves, in the narrative of Nanapush which is addressed to his granddaughter. In the text of the Cameroonian writer Leonora Miano, La saison de lombre, we can “listen” to voices that record the experience of being abducted and taken into slavery. Richard Flanagan, in turn, recalls the traumatic experience of the loss of life, land, and culture during the colonial genocide in Tasmania, and one of the last testimonies relating to these experiences is that of an Aboriginal girl, one of the heroines of the novel Wanting.

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Między litością a współodczuwaniem. O uważnym czytaniu świata, który już nie zawsze daje się uchwycić w postkolonialnych kategoriach

Ewa Łukaszyk

Konteksty Kultury, Volume 16 Issue 3, 2019, pp. 324 - 335

https://doi.org/10.4467/23531991KK.19.031.11735

This contribution establishes a dialogue with the essay of Katarzyna Mroczkowska-Brand and her proposal of “mindful reading.” The author adds some further comments concerning the notion of mindfulness, getting back to the Buddhist origin of the term. She also criticises Mroczkowska-Brand’s readiness to speak of postcolonial studies Anno Domini 2020. Quite to the contrary, the author points at the exhaustion of typically postcolonial paradigms in such a rapidly changing world as ours. The persistence of postcolonial mentalities is often treated as a factor of stagnation, just like the eternal return to the Sykes–Picot agreement, shown as quite unfortunate in Fouad Laroui’s novel, Ce vain combat que tu livres au monde. Other examples brought forth as the exemplification of “post-postcolonial” changes in the contemporary world are two novels of Tsitsi Dangarembga, the writings of the Malay intellectual Farish Noor, the city chronicles of Kalaf Epalanga, as well as some texts from Guinea-Bissau (Andrea Fernandes, Tony Tcheka).

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Od Carlisle Industrial School do uniwersytetu trzeciego świata: LaRose Louise Erdrich i dekolonizacja indiańskiej edukacji

Joanna Ziarkowska

Konteksty Kultury, Volume 16 Issue 3, 2019, pp. 336 - 357

https://doi.org/10.4467/23531991KK.19.032.11736

The article discusses the project of decolonizing education of Native Americans on the example of the novel LaRose by Louise Erdrich and la paperson’s theory of decolonization. In her novel, Erdrich returns to the second half of the nineteenth century to expose the mechanisms that led to the nationwide creation of boarding schools for First Nation children that were a means of mass assimilation of Indigenous Americans. Separation from home and the ban on speaking native languages led to a sense of cultural alienation and the conditions in underfunded schools often resulted in increased student mortality. Recalling the trauma of boarding schools, experienced by many generations, Erdrich proposes a cultural and ideological reclaiming of the education system so that it is not identified only with the colonizer’s institutions. Thus, she is involved in a decolonization project, which is conceived as acting in the name and for the good of the local community. Decolonization understood in this way, as the construction of a new order on the foundations of the old one, is perceived as an affirmation of indigenous cultures and an action focused on political change.

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Vargas Llosa i tubylcy. O poznaniu Innego dla siebie samego

Nina Pluta

Konteksty Kultury, Volume 16 Issue 3, 2019, pp. 358 - 375

https://doi.org/10.4467/23531991KK.19.033.11737

In the following text I take a closer look at the tension that arises between postcolonial themes and the tradition of the novel focused on the internal transformation of a white hero in two books by Mario Vargas Llosa, The Way to Paradise (2003) and The Dream of the Celt (2010). Both of these novels feature historical personas, the painter Paul Gauguin and the Irish patriot Roger Casement – two Europeans who traveled to colonial territories at the turn of the 20^th century. In both novels natives play a subservient role towards the European heroes: literally, adopting a subordinate stance towards them; and at the plot level, as coming in contact with them is the catalyst of the protagonists’ internal transformation. I briefly explain the special situation of Latin American intellectuals, whose cultural ties with the former empire are stronger than in other colonial regions. Next, I comment on the relationship between Europeans and natives, arguing that the postcolonial character of Vargas Llosa’s novel is limited, paradoxically, by the successful and enjoyable implementation of the traditional European narrative in which the hero’s visions and plans come into conflict with the outside world.

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„Oddać Césaire’owi, co cesarskie”. O pomijanych interpretacjach głosów postkolonialnych

Agata Mrowińska

Konteksty Kultury, Volume 16 Issue 3, 2019, pp. 376 - 388

https://doi.org/10.4467/23531991KK.19.034.11738

This article examines the problem of interpretation of literature classified as postcolonial by Polish and European literary criticism along with the issue of giving voice to authors from the former colonies. The public image and the work of one of the most eminent authors of this kind of literature, the Martinique poet and politician Aimé Césaire, serves as an example. As a well-known representative of the negritude movement in the humanities, he became a victim of the concept that he himself created – an ideological, simplified understanding, popularized by other great figures of this movement, introduced a pattern that became obligatory when reading Césaire’s works. By proposing a rereading of the epic Notebook of a Return to the Native Land, the article attempts to overcome earlier analyses and the limitations of existing translations in order to accurately represent the voice that is inscribed into the text.

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Emigracja, kolonizacja, antropofagia w kontekście „gorączki brazylijskiej”

Henryk Siewierski

Konteksty Kultury, Volume 16 Issue 3, 2019, pp. 389 - 392

https://doi.org/10.4467/23531991KK.19.035.11739

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„Bóg kiełbasy i pierogów” – polskie wątki w prozie Louise Erdrich

Agnieszka Gondor-Wiercioch

Konteksty Kultury, Volume 16 Issue 3, 2019, pp. 393 - 407

https://doi.org/10.4467/23531991KK.19.036.11740

This article analyses selected stereotypes present in the novels of Louise Erdrich – in the so-called Love Medicine series, The Round House, and LaRose. The author juxtaposes the deconstruction of stereotypes of Native Americans with the deepening of the psychological portraits of Polish Americans, focusing on the topics of history and religion. The most important motifs are the heroes’ dependence on fundamentally understood Catholicism and on Ojibwe shamanism. The article draws attention to the effects of forced Christianization for the Ojibwe people and to the unreflective continuation of Catholicism in the descendants of Polish immigrants, both of which lead to a blurring of identity and to internal conflicts oftentimes externalized through self-destructive actions. The author also draws attention to humorous themes that show how the characters deal with the dilemmas resulting from the conflict of cultures.

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Po końcu światów? Dystopijna podróż w czasie w opowiadaniu Shermana Alexie Odległości

Katarzyna Mroczkowska-Brand

Konteksty Kultury, Volume 16 Issue 3, 2019, pp. 408 - 414

https://doi.org/10.4467/23531991KK.19.037.11741

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„Trzeba wierzyć, że życie coś znaczy”. Z Michałem Szczepańskim rozmawiają Anna Mateja i Anna Spiechowicz

Michał Szczepański, Anna Mateja, Anna Spiechowicz

Konteksty Kultury, Volume 16 Issue 3, 2019, pp. 415 - 426

https://doi.org/10.4467/23531991KK.19.051.12108

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