Volume 21 Issue 4

2024

Publication date: 15.04.2025

Description

The publication of this issue was financed by the Jagiellonian University in Kraków – Faculty of Polish Studies.

Cover design: Paweł Sepielak

Licence: CC BY 4.0

Editorial team

Editors Dr hab. Mateusz Antoniuk, Dr Karina Jarzyńska, Prof. Aleksandra Kremer, Prof. Pau Freixa Terradas, Prof. dr hab. Joanna Zach

Editor-in-Chief Dr hab., prof. UJ Łukasz Tischner

Editor of Issue 4 dr hab. Anna Pekaniec, Dr hab. Dorota Siwor

Secretary Dr hab. Dorota Siwor

Issue content

Literatura awansu społecznego

Literatura awansu społecznego. Uwagi wstępne

Anna Pekaniec

Konteksty Kultury, Volume 21 Issue 4, 2024, pp. 275-278

https://doi.org/10.4467/23531991KK.24.033.21265

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Mierzenie się z Olbrzymem – awans społeczny kobiet oczami synów i wnuków na przykładzie Nic się nie działo Tomasza S. Markiewki i Hanki Macieja Jakubowiaka

Agata Berniak-Klich

Konteksty Kultury, Volume 21 Issue 4, 2024, pp. 279-293

https://doi.org/10.4467/23531991KK.24.034.21266

The aim of this paper is to conduct a comparative analysis of women’s social advancement in communist Poland based on two books: Nic się nie działo. Historia życia mojej babki (Nothing Happened. Story of My Grandmother’s Life) by Tomasza S. Markiewka and Hanka. Opowieść o awansie (Hanka. Story about Advancement) by Maciej Jakubowiak. The main interpretation issue is associated with both authors – as they were raised during the period of political transformation in Poland. This experience had shaped their outlook of social advancement portrayed in said books. Based on theoretical publications (such as Pierre Bourdieu’s Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste or Magdalena Szcześniak’s Poruszeni. Awans i emocje w socjalistycznej Polsce [Touched. Social Advancement and Emotions in Socialist Poland]) the author reflects on women’s social standing, their advancement opportunities as well as its varying dynamic and trajectory.

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Odmowa awansu w Pełni Andrzeja Kondratiuka

Anna Taszycka

Konteksty Kultury, Volume 21 Issue 4, 2024, pp. 294-303

https://doi.org/10.4467/23531991KK.24.035.21267

Using the forgotten film Pełnia (Full Moon, 1979) directed by Andrzej Kondratiuk as an example, the author analyses the refusal of participation in social advancement. The main character of the film is the architect Wojtek, who moves to the countryside near Warsaw in search of answers for the dilemmas that bother him. Meetings with the village inhabitants, guests from Warsaw and life in harmony with nature dictate a slow rhythm of the film.

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W pętli awansu społecznego. Kobiece ścieżki postępu w sagach rodzinnych na podstawie Gorzko, gorzko Joanny Bator i Rozrzuconych Liliany Hermetz

Anna Zatora

Konteksty Kultury, Volume 21 Issue 4, 2024, pp. 304-319

https://doi.org/10.4467/23531991KK.24.036.21268

The article focuses on the way the authors of two contemporary family sagas – Joanna Bator in Gorzko, gorzko (Bitter, Bitter, 2020) and Liliana Hermetz in Rozrzucone (Scattered, 2021) – present a picture of female social advancement. The family saga is a literary genre centred around generational problems shown against the background of socio-historical changes. The analysis of the novels makes it possible to show the changes that have precisely occurred in the definition of “social advancement” when micro-histories and voices of women hitherto overlooked in the leading narrative are taken into account. Advancement today turns out to be a non-linear phenomenon that arouses ambivalent emotions.

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„Czy to jest prawdziwa historia?”. Problematyka odbioru we francuskiej współczesnej literaturze awansu społecznego. Wstępne rozpoznania

Katarzyna Thiel-Jańczuk

Konteksty Kultury, Volume 21 Issue 4, 2024, pp. 320-332

https://doi.org/10.4467/23531991KK.24.037.21269

This article discusses the reception of literary work as projected by contemporary literature of social advancement. The starting point for further analysis is the work of two French writers, Annie Ernaux and Édouard Louis, the so-called “class deserters” of popular and working-class origins. The first part of the article focuses on the promotion of writing in popular culture and the meaning of “ordinary writing” for the two writers. The second part analyses the practice of reading by the “ordinary recipients” of literature who are exemplified by both writers’ mothers. Finally, the third part reflects on the forms of “first-degree” reception of a literary work that stem from these practices.

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New Look na awans społeczny kobiet. Pejzaż dobrej kobiety Carolyn Steedman jako emancypacyjny esej literatury awansu społecznego kobiet

Marcelina Noworyta

Konteksty Kultury, Volume 21 Issue 4, 2024, pp. 333-346

https://doi.org/10.4467/23531991KK.24.038.21270

The article analyzes Carolyn Steedman’s Landscape for a Good Woman as a feminist essay that portrays the social mobility process in case of working-class women. Steedman – describing her childhood and her mother’s aspirations – explores how fashion and material desires became tools of resistance against social inequalities. The author presents envy as an emotional response to social exclusion, which becomes a central narrative element. The article highlights the importance of the contemporary feminist essay in examining the social and gender challenges women face in their pursuit of upward mobility.

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Od magii do nauki: awans społeczny a kobiece dziedzictwo w Boginiach z Žítkovej Kateřiny Tučkovej w świetle teorii Pierre’a Bourdieu i Elaine Showalter

Katarzyna Horabik

Konteksty Kultury, Volume 21 Issue 4, 2024, pp. 347-361

https://doi.org/10.4467/23531991KK.24.039.21271

The article presents the analysis of the novel The Last Goddess by Kateřina Tučkova from the perspective of social advancement of the main female character – Dora Idesova – that is seen in the context of Pierre Bourdieu’s and Elaine Showalter’s theories. The main focus lies on the struggle to legitimate the female legacy of goddesses, which was marginalised through social, political or academic structures. In the light of Bourdieu’s theory; the article examines the way Dora navigated between tradition and modernity, while trying to gain recognition within the academia in spite of her cultural and symbolic capital being constantly diminished. From the perspective of Showalter’s theory; the analysis is focused on Dora’s attempt at reclaiming the female autonomy and identity, which were historically repressed by the patriarchal power structures. The article showcases, how the theoretical tools of Bourdieu and Showalter enable the observation of marginalisation and resistance processes as well as the difficulties directly connected to the social advancement within the discussed novel.

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„Nikt nie wie, że o niej piszę” (A. Ernaux, Bliscy). O twórczości Annie Ernaux rozmawiają: Anna Czabanowska-Wróbel, Karolina Czerska, Inga Iwasiów i Anna Pekaniec

Anna Czabanowska-Wróbel, Karolina Czerska, Inga Iwasiów, Anna Pekaniec

Konteksty Kultury, Volume 21 Issue 4, 2024, pp. 362-377

https://doi.org/10.4467/23531991KK.24.040.21272

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Literature and Its Neighbourhoods

Czułe sojusze. Literackie patografie Mateusza Pakuły i Barbary Woźniak

Wiktoria Kulak

Konteksty Kultury, Volume 21 Issue 4, 2024, pp. 378-393

https://doi.org/10.4467/23531991KK.24.041.21273

The article analyzes the pathographic narratives of Mateusz Pakuła’s Jak nie zabiłem mojego ojca i jak bardzo tego żałuję (How I Didn’t Kill My Father and How Much I Regret It, 2021) and Barbara Woźniak’s Niejedno (Many Things, 2021), considered as literary representations of tender alliances formed between the ill people and those who care for them. Key interpretative tools for analyzing this issue include Olga Tokarczuk’s Nobel Prize-winning reflections, Jolanta Brach-Czaina’s philosophical project, and Catherine Malabou’s concept of destructive plasticity.

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Drogi zbawienia. Soteriologiczne nadzieje Jana Józefa Szczepańskiego

Beata Gontarz

Konteksty Kultury, Volume 21 Issue 4, 2024, pp. 394-412

https://doi.org/10.4467/23531991KK.24.042.21274

This article concerns the reading of Jan Józef Szczepański’s writings in the field of soteriological issues. Soteriology – initially present mainly in the sphere of religion – has nowadays gained wide social resonance and has become secularized. Using literary material (the short story Autograf [Autograph] is the starting point), essays and diaries; an attempt has been made to reconstruct the sources and contexts of the soteriological issues taken up by the writer. An attempt was also made to identify – on the basis of Roman Ingarden’s concept of metaphysical qualities and Charles Taylor’s concept of modern epiphany – the conditions and possibilities of the soteriological function of literature as declared by Szczepański.

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Recenzje

Maria z Czartoryskich Wirtemberska – preromantyzm en pratique [rec. Alina Aleksandrowicz, Twórczość Marii z książąt Czartoryskich księżnej Wirtemberskiej. Literatura i obyczaj, Wydawnictwo DiG – Edition La Rama, Warszawa 2022, ss. 497, seria Fasci Radzivilliani, ISBN: 979-10-95627-84-5]

Artur Timofiejew

Konteksty Kultury, Volume 21 Issue 4, 2024, pp. 413-419

https://doi.org/10.4467/23531991KK.24.043.21275

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Files to download

Imprint PDF Table of contents PDF Notes about the Authors PDF

Słowa kluczowe: social advancement, Polish People’s Republic, political transformation, women, intergenerational relationships, Andrzej Kondratiuk, midlife crisis, Pełnia, village in film, social advancement, family saga, microhistory, Liliana Hermetz, Joanna Bator, committed literature, reception, ordinary reader, first-degree reception, Annie Ernaux, Édouard Louis, social mobility, envy, working class, gender, feminist essay, social advancement, culture capital, women’s legacy, Pierre Bourdieu, Elaine Showalter, patriarchy, female identity, Czech literature, pathographies, tenderness, tender narrator, destructive plasticity, illness, salvation, faith, soteriological function of literature, metaphysical qualities, modern epiphany

Funding information

The publication of this issue was financed by the Jagiellonian University in Kraków – Faculty of Polish Studies.