Er(r)go, (paste the English text) Wojciech Kalaga

The article points to contemporary revaluations and reinterpretations taking place in the sphere of signification and construction of the cultural text whose vital feature becomes the emergence of semiotic, stylistic and media-related hybrids (advertising, the Internet). Hybrid identities inspire new forms of textuality characterised by the semiotic (semantic and syntactic) co-dependence of sign systems co-generating the message. Hybridization leads to vital changes in the functioning of the sign and of the text while a textual agreement becomes the main rule governing the new forms of textuality. The hybrid nature of commercial advertising is underlined by the latter’s ontic character: it is simultaneously a singular text, a genre, a form of discourse, an element of social interexchange and a component of the marketing process. Its multi-media, transsemiotic and intertextual nature combines textual forms until now considered stylistically incompatible or even self-excluding.  

The article presents the works of an Italian writer, Alberto Savinio as an original model of literature “beyond clear-cut distinctions”. Drawing from the theories of Roland Barthes and Jacques Derrida, it demonstrates to what extent this particular model, based on a conscious deconstruction of both formal and conceptual structure of discourse, leads to the overthrow of a cultural stereotype due to a new reading of the opposition me/other, open/ closed, familiar/strange, known/unknown etc. To achieve that goal Savinio uses the titular “hybrid identities” and the strategy of hybridization of the depicted reality. Savinio, for a long time excluded from mainstream criticism, appears to be a very contemporary writer and his reinterpretation of conceptual basis of the Western culture turn him into a postmodernist author avant la lettre. 

Ewa Łukaszyk

Hybrid Identity as Anachronism, Object of Therapy and New Entity (the Portuguese Case)

Even though Portugal appears as a relatively unified country without ethnic minorities, shifting borders or disrup­tions in national continuity, the contemporary condition of Portugal's collective identity might be described as "unstable." This instability is caused by a peculiar suspension between the recollection of a past project on the one hand and the awareness of irreducible locality and a marginalized position on the other. The dilemmas of Portugu­ese identity are explored on the basis of the works of four authors (Fernand Pessoa, Alvaro Campus, Eduardo Lourenco and Jose Saramago) who, at various moments in Portuguese history, tried to define new constituents of national identity. Those attempts, ranging from the myth of the Fifth Empire to the idea of Portugal's spiritual journey, point to the hybrid character of Portuguese identity, born at the intersection of national community and anachronic forms of self-projection which mixture may nevertheless lead to the emergence of a new form of national identity.

Joel Jansen

Aesthetic Identity and the Discourse of Cultural Greyout

Taking as a departure point the case of illegal mass-reproduction of an image painted by an Australian Aboriginal artist, Joel Jensen explores the relationship between culture, art and identity. He points to the threat referred to as "cultural greyout," i.e. the inability to reproduce the identities of the past due to the contemporary mass-produc­tion of artefacts in which those identities are reflected. Jensen follows Arthur Danto's view that mass reproduc­tion changes the conveyed meaning of an artwork and, by being distributed as a commodity within the dominating society, poses a threat to the identity of the community in which the artefact was created since the history of an artwork, i.e. the circumstances that determine the artwork's creation and distribution, contribute to its aesthetic characteristics. These, in turn, remain formative for the construction of the community's identity.

Magdalena Żardecka-Nowak

Irony — Cultural Identity — Compassion

Following his own claim concerning the necessity to abandon the Platonic-Kantian philosophical canon, Richard Rorty postulates the replacement of the traditional essentionalist language of metaphysics by the language of irony. This position forces him to establish new foundations of human solidarity and morality as it is no longer possible to refer to a universal concept of human nature. Critics stress the fact that questioning the ontic founda­tions inevitably destroys all the things that rest upon them such as morality, community and culture. Thus, Rorty's proposal to distinguish between private and public languages does not seem a satisfactory solution to the problem. For A. Bielik—Robson the very concept of irony contains "foundations" of human solidarity. In her view, irony exposes one to the experience of de-differentiation and creates a new sense of human affiliation based on the observation that however different from one another we might be, we nevertheless remain equally vulnerable. Such a claim coincides with Rorty's views much closer than his own opinions. It is through the language of irony that we are able to save our identity, the identity of our culture as well as of our moral sensitivity.

Wojciech Chyła

„Mind-body problem" — Media and biotechnology

The essay explores the problem of the relationship between mind and body in the two-fold context of Hegel's philosophy of the Spirit and the post-metaphysical notion of the body determined by a media-related biotechno­system. Postulating the liberation of the Spirit from the constrains of the body and its affiliation with virtuality the Spirit becomes inevitably engaged with the dynamics of commodity relations. As a result it becomes a part of the "play of affects" which has replaced the notions of good and evil. Though released from restrictions imposed by nature the Spirit nevertheless remains imprisoned in virtuality which gradually constitutes its new reality. The Spirit, set free from the constrains of the biological, becomes a perfect interactive consumer, a peculiar "slave to fun" responding to unlimited identity proposals and life-forms offered by the mercantile techno-system represen­ted by invasive media.

Mariusz Jazowski,

Original – Double. Towards Archaeology of Archetypism

The essay approaches the problem of human identity from the original – double perspective.

Stanley Fish, I Am (Just) a Weak American Antifoundationalist (Leszek Drong talks to Stanley Fish)

In an interview with Stanley Fish Leszek Drong discusses his inspiration by French intellectuals and the development of his philosophical views.

Monika Baer, Identity Traps. Some Remarks on Gender Categories in Gender Studies narratives

The article approaches the problem of gender-based identity dilemmas in the context of Gender Studies narratives.

Marek Pacukiewicz

A Diary in the Strict Sense of the Term. Bronislaw Malinowski's Fortunate Defeat

Inspired by two images of Bronislaw Malinowski made by Witkacy and the idea of repetition which they inevita­bly evoke, the author points to the essential duality characterising Malinowski' s Diary. The duality in question is the one between the sublime metaphysics of the mind/spirit and the dogging corporeality of the body. This parti­cular opposition is also reflected in Malinowski's language which remains unintentionally transgressive, always on the verge of succumbing to its internal centrifugal force questioning its internal metaphysical element in favour of the discourse of emptiness and melancholy. Thus, following Joseph Conrad, Malinowski's Diary inscribes itself into the context of 19th "crisis of metaphysics" which eventually opens up a path to ontological identity located between repetition and mask and susceptible to the dynamics of ontological mobility.

As a departure point the author of the essay treats Bronisław Malinowski’s claim that the successful ethnographic activity can only take place ”in the field” i.e. while living together with the natives in their natural environment. Such perspective inevitably redefines the relation between theory and practice in anthropological studies and, by extension, points to the general methodology of cultural studies as such. The key prescription behind the latter is now the idea of participation which necessarily reduces the safe critical perspective not only between theory and practice but also between the researcher and the object of study. The analysis of commonplaceness, which can only take place through direct contact, becomes thus a vital stage in constructing the image of a culture in which particular instances constitute a network of functional relations.

Marek Kulisz's review of "Philosophy of Modern Literary Theory," by Peter V. Zima (1999)

Marek Zasempa's review of "Wooden Eyes: Nine Reflections on Distance," by Carlo Ginzburg (2001)

Critical notes on books

Summaries of the feature texts of the issue.

Colophon