Luce Irigaray in Conversation with Katarzyna Szopa

The text aims at outlining a new concept of democracy that is based on respecting differences, starting with sexuate difference which – according to Luce Irigaray – makes up a foundation for human individuation. Drawing upon philosophical and political democracy models originating in ancient Greece, Irigaray unmasks their exclusion-based character, proving that they are incapable of facilitating a culture filled with respect for differences amongst citizens regardless of their sex/gender. Luce Irigaray proposes that a new democratic model is required, the one that would include democracy’s most profound facet, namely – human subjectivity.

Symbolically subversive facet of the virginity motif in Luce Irigaray’s philosophy is the major focus of the presented text. It commences by citing a thesis
by Claude Lévi-Strauss speaking of the patriarchal social structure, which exercises heteronormative sexuality and reproduction control, being based upon the principle of the exchange of women. What the said subjugation of women and turning them into means of exchange by masculine subjects entails, is repression of feminine subjectivity, corporeality, sexuality, masculine dominance becoming paramount, and the coercion of heterosexual male substitution, that is, transformation of women into replaceable entities. Irigaray calls this phenomenon “the women market” – the principle of patriarchal culture which establishes their prices based on their structural position in circulation. The virgin – an obvious sign of transaction taking place between men – is utilized
by Irigaray as a basis for a new project of female autonomy which, in turn, instigates entirely new order of the corporeal, drives and desires, designed for symmetricity closeness, and relationality. Juxtaposing this project with a category of “self-excitability,” which sees feminine subjectivity as immanently causative, lead us to a redefinition of the traditional pattern of sexuate/sexual difference founded on hierarchy and repression, aimed at the ethics of sexual/sexuate difference and their inclusive openness to newly-defined, variegated, and manifold subjectivities.

This article’s aim is an attempt at discussing the notion of reproductive work/labour pondered over by female representatives of Italian autonomism and also
eminent in Luce Irigaray’s philosophy. By pointing to the said relationship between Irigaray’s thought and Italian feminist movements, the author indicates the missing link in feminist historiography, referring feminist thought back to the origins of Marxist philosophy. Following the trail of thought of both the feminist female theoreticians and Luce Irigaray, the author proves that through regaining the significance of reproductive work/labour playing crucial role in patriarchal-capitalist economy, it is actually possible to redefine the gender distribution of labour/work based on exploitation of women in economic, social, political, and cultural dimension. Putting sexuate difference to the eponymous work would, therefore, involve intertwining those two programmes: Irigaray’s philosophy and Italian autonomism, accompanied by a political programme per se, which would transform social relations between men and women,
thereby creating new worlds and new relations. 

In the present article the author endeavours to compare the main assumptions of Italian post-operaist feminism (mostly those related to the Wages for Housework campaign) with Luce Irigaray’s sexuate difference philosophy. Assuming as a departure point the notion of labour force reproduction, the author tries to prove the synergic potential sustaining between the two mentioned perspectives – the most noteworthy convergence between them is the eventually shared ontological horizon stemming from Marx’s perspective on communism as “the real movement which abolishes the present state of things.”

In this text Luce Irigaray enquires into questions pertaining to knowledge production, contemporarily derivative upon capitalist system of production and the ideology promoting sexual/gender neutrality, along with corporeal/bodily, class-related, and cultural non-differentiation. According to the female philosopher, the said system contributes to exploitation of not only human work, but most of all energy that fuels our ability to bond and be together. Therefore, going back to the most fundamental structure of human subjectivity determined by the sexuate difference, may prove to be not only a strategic resistance device meted out against capitalist organisation of work, but also a path leading to another world, where a coexistence acknowledging mutual/reciprocal difference may appear possible.

In this contribution, the author attempts to critically discuss main issues referred to by Ovidiu Anemţoaicei in his book Male Bodies and Sexual Difference.
A Proposal for a Feminist Corporeo-Ethics (published in Romanian, 2017). Anemţoaicei’s is a new take on relations between male bodies, men, and masculinity that endeavours to implement, in the field of men’s studies, the notion of sexual difference as understood in Luce Irigaray’s thought. His readings of Irigaray’s works lead Anemţoaicei to a postDeleuzian interpretation of the concept of “becoming-man,” which allows him to outline a framework of newly-defined masculinity, a non-hegemonic ethical stance on female and male corporeality.

This article’s aim is to show, as exemplified by fiction and activism, that the concept of mimeticism appearing in Luce Irigaray’s early works may prove to become instrumental in overcoming difficulties associated with giving witness or uttering a confession. Though ostensibly they are uttered to “tell the truth,” or to produce the authenticity effect, thanks to Irigaray’s optics, we may gauge their efficacy under present circumstances by deconstructing their alleged veracity and the credibility of the witness-giver.

The article is devoted to The Songs of Bilitis, published at the end of 19th century in France by Pierre Louÿs, who posed as a discoverer and translator of ancient pieces by a beloved Sappho’s apprentice, but in fact authored them. The songs are divided into three parts. In the initial one, Bilitis is a young girl discovering for the first time her corporeality and sexuality. In part two, she resides in the island of Lesbos and is in a fulfilling/happy relationship with Mnasidika. In part three, she is in Cyprus as a temple courtesan. Ramifications of the mentioned literary forgery are a key point here, namely: What occurs in literary (and lovers’) communication if one assumes the authorship by a women or, conversely – if we assume a male authorship.

Atonement (an Extract)

I Merely Write Stories. Anna Kańtoch in Conversation with Anna Marchewka

The text discusses a monograph by Piotr Rypson about Mieczysław Berman. When we consider Czerwony monter [The Red Assembler], however, we need to refer to a concept that is closely akin, namely, Andrzej Leder’s take on revolution. What is underscored here is Berman’s composite photographs since, as the author of this discussion believes and expands upon in her text – they depict most accurately the times of the photo designer’s life. He is considered the creator of the communist propaganda’s graphical language. And that is probably why a considerable period has had to elapse before he became again considered “worthy” of the scholarly interest. It seems, in this day and age, important to reconsider the works of this world-renown “assembler” of red propaganda, merely in order to trace the remnants of his style in the graphic-design culture of today.

The article discusses a reportage by Karolina Bednarz entitled Kwiaty w pudełku. Japonia oczami kobiet [Flowers in a Box. Japan Seen by Women]. The Bednarz’s intellectual pedigree as a representative of the Polish School of Reportage’s young generation is presented along with the prominence and weightiness of this tradition for Polish non-fiction writing. It is shown how Bednarz deconstructs the stereotypical image of Japan as modern and liberal state by pointing to social inequalities and legal regulations discriminatory against women. At the same time, the factual layer of the book is praised along with the author’s empathy while conducting interviews with her female interviewees, yet what is criticised is the hardly sufficient emphasis put on the eponymous leitmotif, that is, the flowers in a box.

The present text comprehensively discusses a book by Katarzyna Szopa entitled Poetyka rozkwitania. Różnica płciowa w filozofii Luce Irigaray [Poetics of Blossoming. Sexuate Difference in Philosophy of Luce Irigaray]. The author of the article posits the monograph in question within the continuum of contemporary feminist thought and sees it as an instance of redefining essentialism. What, as the author suggests, seems the most worthwhile about Szopa’s book is inscribing Luce Irigaray’s thought in feminist materialism, aside from the literary scholarship of the author adding value to her critical adroitness.

The article critically analyses the book Chaos Warszawa. Porządki przestrzenne polskiego kapitalizmu [Warsaw-Chaos. Spatial Orders of Polish Capitalism] by Joanna Kusiak. An attempt at juxtaposing the said publication with other takes on today’s Warsaw space, the city’s post-World War II rebuilding, and post-1989 transformation, results in complex yet reappearing image of Warsaw as a city tainted with chaos. Considering different ways out of this stalemate, on the other hand, as in approaching the problem from another angle, is the aim of the present text. The book by Kusiak is a starting point for a discussion regarding not only space and chaos, but also theoretical discourse related to the city space and its meaning for Warsaw’s development.

This thorough review discusses in detail a book by Artur Hellich Gry z autobiografią: przemilczenia, intelektualizacje, parodie [Playing Games with Autobiography: Concealing, Intellectualizing, Mocking]. Together with Hellich, the author inspects the reasons for distrust of the eponymous genre during the People’s Republic of Poland’s period, and traces the transmutations thereof instigated by the writers. Strategies deployed in selected literary works by K. Brandys, S. Lem, R. Zimand, A. Sandauer, P. Roth, and P. Feyerabend, described as a crypto-autobiography, selfmythologizing, and autothematic picaresque novel. Jewish descent, in the case of majority of mentioned authors, was a factor prompting the titular games with the confessional genre. Aside from giving justice to Hellich’s novel discoveries and compelling interpretations, the review’s author also enters into dialogue with him concerning the understanding of broadly understood autobiographical writing.

The author examines metaphors related to weight in the oeuvre of Magdalena Tulli, indicating the notion that elucidates and orders what has hitherto defied interpretation in her novels. It is pointed out by the essay’s author, and corroborated by numerous quotations from Tulli, that the Warsaw-based writer often described as a post-modernist weaving multi-thread narrative, in fact creates literature devoted to a single topic – the Shoah. An interesting way of indicating this fact is a painting by Hans Memling, Last Judgement, mysteriously appearing in Magdalena Tulli’s novel entitled Włoskie szpilki [Italian High-Heels].

The article investigates the theme of waste in Kacper Bartczak’s poetry volume Pokarm suweren [The Sovereign Food]. An introduction outlining the cultural contexts prefaces the interpretation proper; those contexts are filled with visions of waste dominant in global imagination. The said interpretation touches upon the issue of subjectivity in the poems, the understanding of which is conditional upon are contexts of moving and transforming characteristic of the lifecycle of waste in various spaces. Other notions interpreted herein are language interceptions frequent in the volume along with Bartczak’s “notional recycling.” Within the mentioned waste contexts, the author of the article also places the problem of political and social resounding of the discussed poems.

The work attempts at defining the category of “literary generation” from the standpoint of literary criticism and sociology of literature. The author summarizes the theses of Kazimierz Wyka’s Pokolenia literackie [Literary Generations] and shows how the notion itself lost its interpretative potential. Later on, he focuses on such notions as “generational experience” and “humanist rightness.” By analysing the notion of “identity” in post-modern discourse, in turn, he shows that in fact it impossible today to think about generations in a way proposed by Wyka. Finally, a conclusion is presented regarding “generation” as still viable analytical category, but only when treated as a conscious self-proclamation of writing projecting themselves as such. 

A Report from conference 'The Archive Experience: Writing, Body, Remembrance' (University of Silesia in Katowice, December 2017).

The article endeavours to present the most significant features of Anna Kańtoch’s prose works. Not only is the author in question capable of utilizing various conventions of popular literature, such as: fantasy, science-fiction, and detective stories, but also to mingle them and come up with “hybrid-genres” that are difficult to pigeonhole (Czarne, Niepełnia). Spatial and temporal changeability characterize the novels and short stories of the Katowice-based writer, making the world depicted therein a place existing “in-between,” and moreover, involving both – brutality of rules that world is governed by as well as palpable desire of a proper moral order, which does not always eventually gains the upper hand.

The text gives concise account of an outline history of Silesian Science-Fiction & Fantasy Club (Śląski Klub Fantastyki – Polish noun fantastyka encompasses both science-fiction and fantasy works), which is the oldest of its kind established by the fantastyka aficionados in Poland. It has been in operation since 1981, and it is registered as a public benefit institution.