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The purpose of this paper, which offers some academic reflection situated within the realms of urban studies and ecocriticism, is to identify and define a new literary genre - the textual urban biotravel. The author of this paper considers literary representations of the genre to be based on the following texts: Atlas dziur i szczelin (Atlas of Potholes and Cracks) by Michał Książek, Warszawa dzika (Wild Warsaw) by Arkadiusz Szaraniec, Wszystkie okna dla oknówek (Every Window for Martins) by Paweł Pstrokoński, Pozwól rzece płynąć (Let the River Flow) by Michał Cichy, Rzeki, których nie ma (Rivers That Don't Exist) by Maciej Robert, and, to some extent, Miasto do zjedzenia (Edible City) by Przemysław Owczarek and Dwanaście srok za ogon (The Birds they Sang) by Stanisław Łubieński. Textual urban biodramas, a genre of textual passages connected with maintaining an urban-nature balance rather than modernisation, are an example of rurbanalia - body of literature engaged with the idea of feral cities. In these biotravels, the flâneur is replaced by the biodrifter - a mudwalker and brushcrawler. The author distinguishes two types of textual urban biotravels: the immersive and the hauntological. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Z Teorii I Praktyki Dydaktycznej Języka Polskiego is the property of Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Slaskiego and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Porównania / Comparisons. A Journal on Comparative Literature & Interdisciplinary Studies is the property of Adam Mickiewicz University Poznao, Press of "Poznanskie Studia Polonistyczne" and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Er(r)go: Teoria, Literatura, Kultura is the property of Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Slaskiego and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article aims at an exegesis of Stefan and Franciszka Themerson’s Europa, one of the most prominent achievements of the Polish interwar avantgarde. For decades, the film was considered lost, and its recent discovery allows revisiting the way the film was thought of and understood, as well as its significance for the understanding of peculiarity of Polish culture. Focusing on the film’s images and topoi, as well as its contexts, such as biographies, social and intellectual background of its authors paper tries to read meanings rooted in the realm of the interwar Poland. Europa provides an image of modernity alternative to the western one. This image highlights the tensions between the progress, industrialisation, urbanisation, and the provincial, tradition, sensibility to nature and harmony, which were present in Poland placed in a midway between the West and the East. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Śląskie Studia Polonistyczne is the property of Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Slaskiego and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Z Teorii I Praktyki Dydaktycznej Języka Polskiego is the property of Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Slaskiego and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Z Teorii I Praktyki Dydaktycznej Języka Polskiego is the property of Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Slaskiego and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper discuses an eco-apocalyptic non-fiction, which can be described as dark biology (referring to dark fantasy, dark science-fiction or noir crime fiction). The analysis is focused on Richard Preston’s, David Quamenn’s, Karl Taro Freenfeld’s and Nathan Wolfe’s medical/ scientific nonfiction and heroic-exploratory narratives. The authors of dark narratives about viruses use the motives typical of crime, thriller, horror or sensation fiction. This analysis is set in a context of „dark ecology” — Timothy Morton’s eco-critical project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is devoted to an analysis of Michał Głowiński's Wilcze futro (Wolf Fur), one of the "short texts" that the writer placed for over two decades in the Polish literary papers. An exceedingly detailed analysis and interpretation of the piece allows the author of the paper to reconstruct the rules of micropoetics which is characteristic of Głowiński's writing. The tools offered by dream studies and ecocriticism proved particularly helpful in the reading of the text in question. The analysis contained in the article allows to expound the so far not clearly identified features of Głowiński's writing, namely sensitisation to lives of other, not necessarily human, beings, especially animals, a polemics with anthropocentric paradigm, and breaking the stereotypes related to the connections between a man and natural world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that many methodological approaches that currently dominate in the field of literary studies accept (more or less tacitly) the myth of anthropogenesis established in the works of Jean Jacques Rousseau. The myth is a specific elaboration of the myths on the origins of man as a social creature present in the humanistic tradition. Thus the narration of Rousseau distorts the way the older, especially humanist, literary works are now interpreted. It is also connected with the limited reception of such works within the new currents, which are declaratively non-anthropocentric and anti-essentialist. Not only the humanistic writings, but also their ancient sources, are commonly inscribed with the supposition about the separated status of man and the existence of the strict division between the human and the non-human. The aim of the aforementioned new studies is to challenge such division. The role of the thought of Rousseau in the modern reception of ancient texts has been acknowledged in the works of Denise Leduc-Fayette and Ralph A. Leigh. However, even the very first interpreters of Rousseau's ideas pointed to his powerful employment of the plots taken from the ancient authors, especially the stoics. In contrast to the existing research literature, the aim of the paper is not to be an exhaustive comparative analysis of the ideas of Seneca and Rousseau. Such analyses have been largely presented within the existing literature, i.e. in the works of Georges Pire, Raymond Trousson, Lucien Nouis, Mikołaj Olszewski. Instead, the author attempts to identify the specific elements of the ancient antropogenetic myth, which were ignored by the 18th century philosopher in his devastating criticism of humanistic literary culture. The first section of the paper is devoted to the reconstruction of the plot with Rousseau in mind. It is illustrated with the analyses of the educational treatise Emile. The following sections refer to the ancient texts whose authors in varied ways employed Hesiod's myth of the origins of humanity. The analyses include not only the commonly addressed Letter XC of Seneca, but also (inter alia) the multiple fragments of the works of Cicero and the Platonian dialogue Protagoras. The author adopted the assumption that only such wider comparative analyses of different versions of the myth disclose its interesting but seriously overlooked elements. The paper emphasizes the role of common metaphors referring to maternity. They appear functional for expressing the relation between human arts and the social condition of man. It also describes the internal hierarchic relations between various realms of human actions and creations. Rousseau, as well as the ancient authors, recreates the rituals relating to childbirth and nurture. The author argues that all such descriptions have a similar function in the analysed texts. As a specific metaphor they express the ambiguous, ontological status of a human community. They also imply that such a community should not be perceived as a durable social structure but as a constantly recreated experience. At the same time, the analyses provide an interpretation of the widespread humanistic motif of the arts (and later literature) as "bounding the community together". In the conclusion of the paper, the ancient metaphors are related to the concepts of modern anthropology, such as the idea of liminality in the works of Victor Turner. The author stresses the necessity to read the old metaphors anew. She claims that they express enthralling but still seriously under-read ideas about human experience, creations and communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals with the topic of ecologically oriented poetry of Krystyna Miłobędzka as a vital tradition for 21st-century Polish ecopoets. The author tries to trace the changes in the poetic canon after 1990 and shows the increasing interest in Miłobędzka’s poetry among modern poets. By analyzing mainly meta-poetic texts, the paper contrasts Miłobędzka’s posthumanistic, “event-driven” way of writing with the humanistic lyrical subject of Wisława Szymborska’s poetry. The author presents the former as more influential and more productive for modern, ecopoetic styles, including elements such as: waking the awareness, organic perspective of language, an egalitarian way of life and thinking about relations in categories of space and adhesion rather than domination.

The article shows how climate fiction can help to stimulate public concern about the consequences of climate change for rivers and how literary representations of such consequences can simultaneously provide an effective medium for talking about climate change in general. To achieve this goal, the article scrutinizes three novels representative of climate fiction – namely The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi (2015), Gold Frame Citrus by Claire Vaye Watkins (2015), and Forty Signs of Rain by Ki Stanley Robinson (2004) – through the lens of methodological ecological communication and ecocriticism, especially affective and empirical ecocriticism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The problem of nature deterioration in the Anthropocene has become an important art concern, thus leading to analysis of ecological images in the texts of various genres. Our analysis of such imagery in a gaslight romance series is equally topical. The subject of the study is universe of the series of novels by Cindy Spencer Pape which centres around alternative nineteenth century London with highly developed steam engines and corresponding technology. Ecocritical approach is chosen as the research method of the study as the novels have powerful ecological imagery, which requires close analysis. The series covers a number of years, and so the ecological deterioration due to coal overuse can be traced through various London locales, which are described in different time frames, and the comparative reading of these descriptions provides the proof of ecological deterioration. It reveals the consistent ecological discourse within the series, its ties strengthened through steady layering of the images of nature, burdened with progressing pollution. There is social dimension to the issue, as the poorer urban residents are shown to be more effected by this problem due to their jobs, work and living conditions. The paper aims to reveal these numerous aspects of ecological imagery in the texts. The results. Close text analysis of various levels allows us to decipher the multi-layered ecological images and dwell on the message they bear. As the environment degradation takes place in the past, the series allows us to describe its results as facts and compress its progress in time and space within the span of the novels setting. This intensifies the image of the catastrophe, makes it feel more immediate and pressing, thus becoming a powerful plot tool that results in search for solutions of the problem and alleviation of the existing results of coal overuse. This research is the basis of further analysis of ecological imagery in steampunk and gaslight romance as genres, fruitful in that regard.

When Lara Croft travels, she travels light – sans suitcase, but in most cases with enough firepower to take opposing forces ranging from dinosaurs to bloodthirsty locals. However, her big guns seems often unnecessary titillation, for she can manage very well without them thanks to her exquisite acrobatic and hand-to-hand combat skills. She will vault over any obstacle, swim across rapid flowing rivers and abseil the steepest ravines. Lara Croft’s travels are often as physical as the virtual world would allow. That physicality returns our attention to the oft forgotten aspect of travelling namely the body of the traveller, not only defined by its position in space, but also by the ordinary and extraordinary circumstances of its biological interaction with the surrounding environment. In this paper I would like to explore the interplay between the body of the traveller and contexts it is located in. These contexts range from the narrative and gameplay aspects of the Tomb Raider series, but also go beyond the border of the game and are realised in the transformative and reflective cultural milieu of the game. In particular I want to focus on the representations of Lara Croft as an archetypal “action girl” and “adventurer archaeologist” and how these representations are realised in reference to the changing (maturing?) video game environments. In the framework of postcolonial and ecocritical theories I want to explore the dyads of body/the purported exotic, body/natural environment, as well as physical/mental aspects of travelling.

The purpose of this review is to familiarize the Polish reader with the extensive and interesting monography: Speculative Taxidermy: Natural History, Animal Surfaces, and Art in the Anthropocene, published by Columbia University Press. The Author Giovanni Aloi – art historian and museumologist, takes up the challenge of opening new fields, and asking new questions in research on taxidermy in art and science. The speculative methodological approach proposed by the author, draws on the new materialism, archology of knowledge and “speculative turn,” and enables him not only to thoroughly analyze the art involving taxidermic objects, but also to conduct erudite analyzes of discourses, practices and “nexuses” defining complex human-animal relationships. Taxidermy is a pretext to reflect on the sources of animal representation in contemporary culture and discourse of natural history, as well as to show the abovementioned relationships in the context of ecological, economic and environmental crises, and the uncertainties characterizing the “dark ecology” of the Anthropocene. This work is an extremely valuable contribution to Ecocritical studies and the still developing field of animal studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The central aim of this article is to situate the curatorial and artistic practice, ecosophy and aesthetic thought of György Kepes within the political landscape of the cold war United States. Półtorak discusses multiple manifestations of Kepes' ecological thinking in the 1960s in view of the artist's pacifist turn, one responding to the complicity of his prior didactic and design-related activities with imperialist politics. György Kepes' political position in the postwar years is compared to stances embraced by such scientists as Norbert Wiener or Lewis Mumford, who sustained an ambiguous attitude towards their host institutions - embedded within the military-industrial complex - in the cold war years. In the last part of the article Półtorak points at contemporary continuations of Kepes' ecosophy and the model of cultural practice he proff ered in the 1960s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]