Mondays with WUWr #28
There’s a lot going on at the University of Wrocław Press and we want to keep you informed!
In our series #MondayswithWUWr, we keep you up to date with the most important events, book news and issues important to the Publishing House! We also encourage you to follow the wuwr.eu website and the Publishing House’s social media – Fb, LinkedIn and Instagram.
Justyna Bajda’s Blue fin de siècle nominated for the GAUDEAMUS 2024 Award of the Association of University Publishers
We are very pleased and excited to announce that prof. Justyna Bajda’s book entitled ‘Błękitny fin de siècle. Kolor niebieski w kulturze i literaturze Młodej Polski (Gabriela Zapolska – Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer – Stanisław Wyspiański)’, this year’s bestseller of the University of Wrocław Press, has been nominated for the GAUDEAMUS 2024 award.
Błękitny fin de siècle takes us on an extraordinary journey, describing the phenomenon of the colour blue in the culture of Young Poland. It transfers the blue atmosphere of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries from France to Poland, showing the functioning of blue in selected spaces of life and art. The history of the meaning of the colour and its use is a pretext for looking at selected works by Gabriela Zapolska, Kazimierz Przerwy-Tetmajer and Stanisław Wyspiański, in whose work blue is clearly visible.
The author followed the path set out by colour historians (Maria Rzepińska, John Gage), or rather the path of research into the history of individual colours indicated by Michel Pastoureau, which, as it turned out, offers a completely new, highly intriguing and unexpectedly extensive view of the period at the turn of the 20th century. In keeping with her dual training, Justyna Bajda moves with extraordinary fluency through the fields of literary history, here adding roman competence to Polish studies, and art history, broadening the spectrum to include fashion history and the history of interior design.
Added to this are such specific auxiliary disciplines as, so to speak, historical commodity science, concerning the names of fabrics and dyes. Here and there, the historical discussion of the meanings of colour is supplemented by information on chemistry and physics, including optics. Justyna Bajda has an admirable tendency to master every issue that appears on the horizon of her research. Bajda shows the works of selected artists – and, more broadly, of an entire era – not only in colour, but also in close-ups, which completely transforms our perception. As a result, we see their works in garnets and azure, shades of violet or violet. The language of colours speaks to us. The holistic approach to the phenomenon in question means that ‘Błękitny fin de siècle’ is saturated with curiosities that serve both to provide an interdisciplinary interpretation and to make the argument attractive.
These are just some of the recommendations, and given the interest surrounding this book, the excellent reviews, the content and the editorial design, we are keeping our fingers firmly crossed for this publication! The results of the competition will be announced at the Book Fair in Kraków, on 24 October.
Magia i pismo by Michał Rydlewski – book announcement from the Golden Series of the University of Wrocław
The book ‘Magia i pismo. O dwóch odmianach komunikowania: obrazowym i pojęciowym’ by dr Michał Rydlewski will soon be published. A conversation between Magda Kawalec-Segond and dr Michał Rydlewski on the pages of Rzeczpospolita Plus Minus: Magia jest człowiekowi potrzebna. Rozmowa z Michałem Rydlewskim – rp.pl
Western culture today is turning to magic. But is this return surely a sign of its evolution? Or rather, is it evidence of a disintegration of culture? What consequences will this have for the way we participate in culture? Who will be the new capitalist-metamorphic subject? Are we really in for an age of magic?
Magia i pismo significantly expands the knowledge of the process of its conventionalisation taking place in Western culture. It is linked to technological changes in the modern world, the shift of culture away from writing as the main medium of communication, the bankruptcy of Reason, the rise of capitalism and the loss of ontological security for humans. The humanities are also becoming mystical, exemplified by posthumanism and the new animism, which are not only ways of magically ‘knowing’ reality, but project new patterns of being-in-the-world that take into account the presence of magic in it and, as it were, legitimise its perspective of looking at reality.
Magia i pismo is an eminently interdisciplinary book; the author moves seamlessly through the fields of cultural anthropology, philosophy, psychology, literary studies and media studies, showing the multifaceted nature of tracing magic from the perspective of these disciplines.
Magia i pismo. | Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego (wuwr.eu)
30% discount on all WUWr publications
Follow the wuwr.eu website – the online bookshop is launching an autumn promotion on all publications – bestsellers, uniques, novelties, announcements, last copies, etc. All books and magazines at a reduced price of 30% – Promotion until the end of October!
