In this article, I conduct a comparative analysis of several selected literary works in terms of the motif of youthful beauty that appears in them, the genesis of which can be linked to the figure of the ephebe, present in ancient art, mythology and literature. The discourse emerging from this comparison concerns not only the canon of (non-)masculine beauty, but also non-heteronormative eroticism and crossing the binary of gender. The authors, referring to the works of Plato (The Symposium, Phaedrus) or the Homeric story of the fate of Achilles and Patroclus from The Iliad, revise and transform ancient patterns, inscribing them in contemporary realities and historical and literary contexts.
The article analyses the popularity of the so-called soft masculinity in East Asia and the controversy it arouses among the political elites of the People’s Republic of China. The growing interest of young Chinese people in genres such as danmei raises fears of feminisation and emasculation. In response, models of military masculinity are being promoted, an iconic example of which is the film Wolf Warrior 2. The article draws on theoretical models of masculinity, including the concepts of R. W. Connell and Kama Louie, to present these phenomena to the Polish reader. It points out that analysing Chinese debates on masculinity not only deepens our understanding of contemporary cultural tensions in China, but also provides a broader perspective for reflecting on European concepts of masculinity.
The article investigates the intersection of masculinity, disability, and contemporary dance, analyzing how male dancers with disabilities challenge normative constructs of masculinity through crip choreographic practices. The author examines performances by artists such as David Toole, Rafał Urbacki, Raimund Hoghe, and Michael Turinsky, who employ cripping strategies to subvert ableist and patriarchal norms while articulating alternative masculinities that embrace vulnerability, difference, and queerness. Methodologically, the study integrates performance analysis with theoretical frameworks from disability studies, queer theory, and feminist critique.
The article analyzes Blutbuch, the debut novel by Swiss non-binary author Kim de l’Horizon, as a multidimensional reflection on the impact of heteropatriarchal structures and the accompanying violence and trauma on family relationships and the experiences of a non-normative child. Particular attention is paid to the literary representation of the process of discovering the body and gender and forming queer, fluid identities. The analysis highlights the novel’s engagement with transgenerational trauma and the ways in which silenced histories of violence shape family dynamics and individual subjectivities. The article also explores how autofiction functions here as a narrative strategy of reclaiming one’s story, confronting tabooed experiences of pain and oppression, and creating space for queer voices excluded from heteropatriarchal discourse.
The relationship between queer identity and shame is one of the key themes in queer theory, with shame sometimes becoming a fundamental aspect of identity for individuals within the queer community. This article focuses on literary representations of shame in Slovenian literature, particularly in connection with queer masculinities. It examines the work of Ivan Mrak, specifically his autofictional novel Ivan O., which is the first autobiographical literary work with a queer theme in the Slovenian context. The article discusses the complex nature of shame and its impact on the protagonist’s life experience, exploring how shame influences processes of identification and self-representation in society while attempting to outline the trajectory of decentring queer shame throughout the novel.
Olga Tokarczuk’s short story “Przetwory” from the collection Opowiadania bizarne (2018) offers an example of literary exploration of masculinity which – due to the absence of an appropriate model and insufficient self-reflection – fails to realise its developmental potencial. The hermeneutical reading of the work proposed in the article uncovers the son’s persistent bond with his mother, which the writer deliberately conceals beneath a grotesque plot. What initially may seem a humorous story about a man whose mother punished him from beyond the grave for refusing to become independent reveals, through a micrological reading, the potential of Greek tragedy. The voices of the scholars of masculinity invoked in this article resonate with Tokarczuk’s short story, thus providing an adequate literary commentary on contemporary masculinities.
The article focuses on representations of masculinity in postfeminist reinterpretations of well-known stories addressed to young adults. The research material consists of selected Anglo-Saxon retellings of fairy tales and works belonging to the canon of Western literature, popular among teenage readers. I point out that contemporary authors usually present anti-patriarchal views in their novels, creating oppressive and misogynistic protagonists, or create “new” models of masculinity. I also try to assess whether such actions fit into postfeminist discourses of equality or whether they are pseudo-feminist narratives that stabilize stereotypes and discredit efforts towards inclusivity; on the one hand, excluding men, and on the other, caricaturing their representations.
W niniejszym artykule poddano analizie reprezentację męskości w wybranych opowiadaniach ze zbioru Akhila Sharmy Życie pełne przygód i rozkoszy. Tekst jest próbą zbadania w jaki sposób męscy bohaterowie, indyjscy imigranci w USA, wpisują się w dyskurs hegemonicznej męskości, realizowanej jako męskość patriarchalna. Sharma próbuje zrewidować negatywne stereotypy indyjsko-amerykańskiej męskości, wskazując momenty kryzysowe, które niosą potencjał transformacji męskości patriarchalnych w bardziej pozytywne modele męskości. Krytyka patriarchatu jest wzmocniona przez re-orientalizujące techniki narracyjne.
The essay focuses on the father figures depicted in Wojciech Kuczok’s novel Gnój [Muck], analysing the techniques used to deconstruct these characters. The final character in the series of father figures is the image of old K. – in this relationship, the son experiences internal disintegration caused by his father’s actions, a rupture that marks the process of identity formation. As a result of painful experiences, the subject finds within himself a desire for his father’s death or imagines this death, perceiving it as liberation, the end to his torment. Thus, the deconstruction of the father on a moral, axiological and cognitive level transforms into a dream of the physical annihilation of this figure – a dream spun by an internally broken son: the destroyed dreams here of destruction.
The article describes the origins of Polish fascism in the context of one of the first periodicals promoting this ideology. Faszysta Polski was published in 1926, and its authors introduced Italian concepts to Polish readers. The author analyses the magazine in terms of the overrepresentation of male voices within it and the persuasive strategies adopted by the weekly’s writers. The aim of the article is to identify the reasons for the interest in fascism, the mechanisms of influence on the audience, and to emphasize that this doctrine sought to create a new type of masculinity based on submission to the leader and the ideology itself.
The article presents the socio-cultural functions of the phantasm of masculinity in Jacek Komuda’s neosarmatic works. The point of reference in the analysis of neosarmatism as a phantasm is Przemysław Czapliński’s and Maciej Parkitny’s research on Polish Enlightenment and the function of the warchoł figure in political and social discourse. The analysis of the construction of the anti-heroic masculinity model in Komuda’s work draws on Filip Mazurkiewicz’s theses on the construction of hegemonic masculinity in 19th-century Polish literature. As a result, Komuda’s historical phantasm of neosarmatism, based on a stereotype, reveals attempts to escape the demands of modernity and a creation of a field of imaginary hegemony in opposition to the structural weakness of Polish masculinity.
This paper seeks to initiate a discussion on whether xenofeminist theory can serve as a methodological tool for film studies, specifically through its core tenets: gender abolition, anti-naturalism, and technomaterialism. Xenofeminism challenges traditional gender roles and naturalistic determinism, urging us to reconsider their portrayal on screen. Technomaterialism challenges the idea that digital interactions are separate from the physical world by focusing on the material conditions of digital culture. I argue that integrating xenofeminism into film studies fosters nuanced understandings of gender, technology, and societal norms, enriching cinematic analysis. The paper also offers a technomaterialist reading of one of the Netflix’s Black Mirror episodes, “Joan Is Awful.”
The text is an experimental combination of a scientific essay and reportage – a kind of literary field study. Following Wojciech Prażmowski’s photographs, the author travels to Solec-Zdrój in search of the place where the “KINO” once stood, as described in Andrzej Stasiuk’s Going to Babadag. Reconstructing the history of this building, the author rereads a key passage from the novel through the lens of Borges’s figure of the Alef.
The article is devoted to selected aspects of artistic imagery in the poetic oeuvre of Adam Czerniawski. The author focuses on the poems in which the painting serves as a pretext for reflection on temporal space, analysed in the context of the entanglement in time of both the painting (landscape, specific figure) and the person contemplating it, in this case the poet himself. Particular attention is devoted to the reflection that Czerniawski included in his poem “View of Delft.” The article highlights the originality and distinctiveness of artistic imagery in Adam Czerniawski’s work, which is repeatedly presented in a comparative perspective in relation to the ekphrastic poetry of two other poets associated with the “Continents” literary group – Andrzej Busza and Bolesław Taborski.
The purpose of this article is to analyse how Tracy K. Smith’s award-winning collection of poems, Life on Mars, negotiates the material and conceptual boundaries of loss in relationship to the issues of finitude, memory, and survival. Referring to Karen Barad, Jacques Derrida, and Georges Bataille among other critics, the text analyses how Smith uses earthly and sidereal perspectives, metaphorically unpacking one in the other to challenge the regimes of presence/absence, life/death, known/unknown, or future/past. The first part of the article largely is dedicated to the poetic and philosophical encounters of the personal loss, anxieties over the future, and the complexity of materiality. In the other part, a more ethically-engaged reading of a single poem, “They May Love All That He Has Chosen and Hate All That He Has Rejected,” is presented, which discusses loss as a paradoxical form of agency.
10.31261/errgo
English
Język Polski