FAQ

Call for papers – Literature of social advancement

Literature of social advancement

The folkloric turn, which has long been evident not only in scholarly reflection, is also reflected in the readership popularity of publications dealing with the subject - belonging to both fiction and non-fiction in the broadest sense. This is evidenced by the great readership of best-selling, Peasant Women. Tales of our grandmothers by Joanna Kuciel-Frydryszak. With the (re)activation of folk history, the presence of themes related to social advancement is increasing. The two issues are linked, although a certain shift in the attention of the authors is noticeable - they focus more on recreating stories of personal, individual advancement (and the starting point is not necessarily, although it can still be, peasant roots). The interclass mobility stories gradually create an alternative map of tensions. Advancement, at first sight positive, conceals contradictions, primordially invisible costs, which are borne by the promotees as well as by their parents, partners, siblings. Therefore, in the planned issue of „Konteksty Kultury”, we will encourage a closer look at various aspects of the literature of social advancement, its existence or crystallisation. This would be (already is?) a heterogeneous area of literature in which the past is reconstructed with an awareness of the social location of the person recalling - speaking for themselves, but also going beyond the singularity.

Creativity focused on advancement (manifested, among other things, as a sense of inadequacy, and identity work to be done) is often a genological hybrid. It includes autofictional texts that come close to the poetics of memoir or autobiography or autobiografiction (to use Max Saunders' term), it does not shy away from (auto)biography (often of a transgenerational nature), and is keen to use the poetics of the essay. The circle of those writing about various versions of social advancement is diverse and constantly expanding. They include Nobel Prize winner Annie Ernaux and Didier Eribon, Éduard Louis, Carolyn Steedman, who tell their own  advancement stories, but also come to terms with their family past; Tomasz S. Markiewka in Nothing was happening, Maciej Jakubowiak in Hanka, Ishbel Szatrawska in The Depths, Renata Lis in My beloved ask questions about the meanders of promotion narratives, deposit gains, and account for losses. Researchers, Agata Zysiak in Points for Origins. Post-war modernisation and the university in a working-class city, and Agata Szczęśniak in Moved. Advancement and Emotions in Socialist Poland chart the historical-political and moral background of class displacement in communist Poland.

It is therefore worth considering whether the literature of social advancement (or, more precisely, of social advancement) can develop into an autonomous phenomenon that also generates new genre solutions? What is its potential place on the map of personal documentary literature, or non-fiction more broadly? How do issues of advancement and issues of autoethnography and autosociobiography resonate? What is the emancipatory aspect of advancement literature? What do contemporary writers of advancement say about when theme of advancement began to appear in prose or non-fiction? Is it possible to draw a line demonstrating of genealogical evolution (taking place in leaps and bounds, or perhaps with continuity)? Related to these questions are other issues that undoubtedly allow for a more precise characterisation of a possible new variety of literature - questions such as the gender of advancement, relations between nomadicity and class mobility, shame, the appropriation of advancement stories. The issue of „Konteksty Kultury” will also be devoted to mentioned subjects.