Abstract

In the Polish dramatic works of the 21st century, a group of texts dedicated to the phenomenon of cultural mobility can be distinguished. They become a literary proof of the existence of dynamic “contact zones” between the local and global, domestic and worldwide, or familiar and foreign. This article aims to discuss selected dramatic works in reference to the concept of cultural transfer. Three texts written for the theatre (The Sexual Life of Savages by Marcin Cecko, Caliban’s Death by Magda Fertacz, and Sorrows of the Tropics by Mateusz Pakuła) are subject to analysis. The issue of confrontation between a European and representatives of other cultures addressed in these works in a variety of ways testifies to their authors’ interest in the assumptions of post-colonialism and posthumanities. The works under investigation are highly dependent on the social and civilizational context, constituting an artistic form of reaction to the profound migration changes under way on the European continent. The authors use various symbolic codes and strategies for representing the world not with the aim of comparing different cultures, but as a starting point for reflection on the dynamics of the process of cultural interaction. Moreover, one of the central issues taken into consideration is the question of identity of particular individuals portrayed as they come into contact with the Other. Apart from the concept of cultural transfer, the examination of the aforementioned dramatic works involves Wolfgang Welsch’s idea of transculturalism, Stephen Greenblatt’s concept of cultural poetics, and the findings of ethnopoetics.