Dr hab. Anita Jarzyna, a professor at the University of Łódź, will present the fields of research within which she is currently developing and verifying the assumptions of the concept of post-koine. During her speech, she wants to centre on the interdisciplinary issue of animal biographies, and consider them as one of the potential variants of post-koiné: the language – and imagination – of a diversified, multi-species community. She suggests taking a look at the possibilities and limitations of the life writing formula with regard to non-humans. She proposes reflecting on its scope: its (omni?)presence; its point, almost hidden, occurrence; its dispersion in narrations in a broad sense, both anthropocentric and non-anthropocentric, in order to pose questions about the literary and cultural implementation of animal biographies; about the role and obligations of researchers who extract transcribe such fictional or documentary stories. Simultaneously, she wants to address their (inevitable?) entanglement in anthropocentric schemas, and the ways of transgressing and modifying these models, perhaps even substituting bios for zoe.
After the lecture, at 16:00, workshops for doctoral students entitled Praktykując „post-koiné” (Practising “post-koine”) will begin. During the workshops, prof. Jarzyna would like to discuss the expectations of literature, especially non-anthropocentrically oriented literature. Her main intention is – starting from a seemingly elementary question of which texts we define this way, and which we don’t, while remembering that our interpretations should benefit the animals (and, in a broader perspective, nature and new, multi-species communities) – that we consider whether and when we enter into ideological discussions with poems; whether we require – in response to possible abuse or manipulation – that they fully represent certain ethical standpoints; how we, therefore, problematise the issue of autonomy of poetic voices; lastly, how we situate them in the context of theoretical reflection; to what degree we are willing to open the discourse to interferences or interventions on their part. As a result, what makes us intellectually disappointed with them, and what makes us inspired and delighted, also aesthetically. Participants are encouraged to prepare specific examples from their research projects to examine during the workshops.
Guest’s bio:
Anita Jarzyna (1984) – habilitated doctor, professor at the Department of Polish Dialectology and Logopaedics at the University of Łódź, lecturer in Antropozoology at the Faculty of “Artes Liberales”. Literary researcher with the main interest in 20th-century poetry, interpreter. Her area of interest includes ecocriticism, animal studies, and Holocaust studies. Author of the books “Pójście za Norwidem” (w polskiej poezji współczesnej) (Lublin 2013), Imaginauci. Pismo wyobraźni w poezji Bolesława Leśmiana, Józefa Czechowicza, Krzysztofa Kamila Baczyńskiego, Tadeusza Nowaka (Łódź-Kraków 2017), and Post-koiné. Studia o nieantropocentrycznych językach (poetyckich) (Łódź 2019);co-editor and editor of a few thematic issues of journals (Poznańskie Studia Polonistyczne, Polonistyka, Polonistyka. Innowacje, Tekstualia, Narracje o Zagładzie) and collective volumes including: T. Nowak, Spowiedź wyobraźni (szkice i rozmowy). Her work has been published, among others, in journals Colloquia Litteraria, Czas Kultury, Konteksty. Polska Sztuka Ludowa, Pamiętnik Literacki, Porównania, Poznańskie Studia Polonistyczne, Przestrzenie Teorii, Slavia Occidentalis, and collective monographs. She was awarded scholarships from, among others, the Kulczyk Family Fund and the Władysław Kuraszkiewicz Fund; she also received the Young Art Medal in literature in 2015 and the University of Łódź Fund Academic Award.
Translated by Natalia Noworól (student of English Studies at the University of Wrocław) as part of the translation practice.
