Anna Barcz
Alumna of the University of Warsaw and the Institute of Literary Research / Polish Academy of Sciences; she works as an Assoc Professor in Warsaw at the Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History. Her research reconceptualises stories humans tell about hazardous environments and events such as river floods. She conducted projects on ecocritical literature devoted to the main Polish rivers and on cultural animals studies. More: https://ihpan.edu.pl/en/employees/researcher/anna-barcz-2/
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Videos by Anna Barcz
Readers: Gwidon Jakubowski (Muzeum Ziemi PAN)
Adam Kapler (Ogród Botaniczny PAN)
Cezary Krawczyński (Muzeum Ziemi PAN)
Paweł Pstrokoński (Ogród Botaniczny UW)
Fragments of texts used: Monika Bakke
Daniel Chamovitz
Michał Kruszona
Henri Lefebvre
Phil Macnaghten
Tim Morton
Anna Nasiłowska
Rainer Maria Rilke
John Urry
Jennifer Wolch
Atlases by Anna Barcz
Books by Anna Barcz
Soviet Eastern Europe represents a unique relationship between violence and the landscape, where human and ecological disasters are dramatically converged. Eastern European cultural memory reveals these ecological scars because trauma is perceived here as more than human. Literature of this period is a special kind of radar, showing how language itself was affected by the Soviet colonization of Eastern European cultures and environments; how it was contaminated by Soviet propaganda and a worldview deformed by communism. The scope of the literature I analyse demonstrates a larger argument: history must be reconsidered through memory of the Stalin era and the late stage of heavy modernity.
The book consists of three parts. The first presents examples of how realism has been redefined in trauma studies and how it may refer to animal experience. The second explores that which is added to the narrative by literature, including the animal perspective (a zoonarrative) and how it is done (zoocriticism). The third analyses cultural texts (such as painting, circuses, and memorials) which realistically generate animal vulnerability and provide non-anthropocentric frameworks, anchoring our knowledge in the experience of fragile historical reality.
Spis treści:
Wstęp do ekokrytyki 17
Zagadnienia i problemy badawcze ekokrytyki 19
Przegląd polskich stanowisk wobec problematyki ekologicznej w literaturze 52
Redefiniowanie realizmu i nowe możliwości interpretacyjne 86
Niemota przyrody a realizm (post)traumatyczny 94
Słaby ludzki podmiot – miejsce na język przyrody 119
Realność ekosystemu w Placówce Prusa 121
Niezdara Dygasińskiego i sprawstwo przyrody 139
Dziecięce pomiędzy: Świat i ślepa dziewczyna Dygasińskiego oraz Suka Reymonta 155
Nie-ludzki rodowód poezji: Leśmian 176
Splot historii i zagrożenia: głos drzew w Glorii victis Orzeszkowej 195 Zwierzęta – podmioty (nie)obecne 207
Człowiek i zwierzę – problem granicy w Dziennikach Gombrowicza 209 Ujarzmianie bestii? Walka byków Sienkiewicza 222
Relacje: Wilk, psy i ludzie Dygasińskiego 239
Próba reprezentowania zwierząt: Ostatnie historie i pisarstwo Tokarczuk 256
Moja przyjaciółka krowa – wspólne doświadczenia. Hartwig i Brach-Czaina 272
Posthumanizm i znaczenie zwierzęcych narracji w literaturze 286 Zookrytyka i zoonarracje. Oczy tygrysa Czyżewskiego 314
Papers by Anna Barcz
Finally, the chapter synthesises and summarises the gaps and challenges in contemporary blue humanities education in Poland, while arguing for the need to reformulate and remodel the didactic contents in relation to the existing sources of cultural water heritage discussed in Polish schools.
out that the traumatic history of the city, which has not been recognized so clearly in the environmental sense, is applicable in the analysis of these novels and by greening the undeveloped wastelands.
and for historical river management approach, the authors discuss different accounts of the 1934-flood: firstly, works from the historical period (J. Kurek, K. I. Gałczyński, relevant newspapers) and secondly, a contemporary reference to 1934 and flood narrative in prose (M. Płaza). All these literary sources contain numerous renamings of the Polish flood management dictionary but have one historical feature in common: they anchor the
modern militarization of language in flood narratives (the fight against the river) and the symptomatic discourse of power and control (ruling over the river). Finally, these sources led the authors to the conclusion that both the Polish experience of World War I and later subsequent armed conflicts, as well as the impact of militarized state policy left their stamp on the flood lexicon and deepened the divide between humans and disempowered
rivers.
climate threats. In this article we would like to explore the resilient role of animal and human-animal (inter-species) communication. We are particularly interested in how eco-translation can be used as a research paradigm
bringing together such semiotic areas as zoo-, eco- and biosemiotics (e.g. Uexkull 1992; Sebeok 2001; Kull et all 2011; Maran 2011; Marais 2019 and others) where the interdisciplinary studies show how animal and
human worlds (umwelten) overlap. The overarching aim of the article is to show the notion of eco-translation can be used to develop interpretive frameworks as a response to climate and environmental vulnerability.
renamings in the flood vocabulary. Examination of language militarization in flood narratives (fighting the river) and its symptomatic discourse of power and control (control over the river element) shows that both the Polish experience of the First World War – along with subsequent military conflicts – and the impact of militarized state politics left a mark on the flood vocabulary and resulted in a disagreement between the human
subject and the living river.
The book consist of articles written by academics representing many different fields of humanities (such as anthropology, literary studies, cultural studies, history, art history, art criticism, musicology, ecocriticism) and articles and a manifest of famous contemporary artists. The first part of the book focuses mainly on the problem of war commemoration and on the presence of animal memorials dedicated to animals who took part in military conflicts. Next part of the book pertains to the question of commemoration of genocide, using the example of Rwanda genocide, Roma and Sinti genocide and Shoa. Last part of the book scrutinize non-traditional contemporary commemorations, such as sonic memorials, ephermal objects and other contemporary practices of remembrance.
Through the example of Szczepan Twardoch’s novel Drach (2014), I show how the inhuman voice of the Silesian land redirects cultural memory from the region’s human history of ethnic and national conflict to its environmental history of coal extraction. I also indicate how the novel depicts the material bond between this region’s mining culture and its environmental memory.
Through a book of reportage about a town on a mountain in Lower Silesia, Miedzianka by Filip Springer (2011) translated into English as History of a Disappearance (2017), I analyse patchy cultural memories of the period of Soviet uranium mining, which are evoked by actual gaps and holes that mining left in the mountain and that tend to open up unexpectedly under buildings and people’s feet.
Readers: Gwidon Jakubowski (Muzeum Ziemi PAN)
Adam Kapler (Ogród Botaniczny PAN)
Cezary Krawczyński (Muzeum Ziemi PAN)
Paweł Pstrokoński (Ogród Botaniczny UW)
Fragments of texts used: Monika Bakke
Daniel Chamovitz
Michał Kruszona
Henri Lefebvre
Phil Macnaghten
Tim Morton
Anna Nasiłowska
Rainer Maria Rilke
John Urry
Jennifer Wolch
Soviet Eastern Europe represents a unique relationship between violence and the landscape, where human and ecological disasters are dramatically converged. Eastern European cultural memory reveals these ecological scars because trauma is perceived here as more than human. Literature of this period is a special kind of radar, showing how language itself was affected by the Soviet colonization of Eastern European cultures and environments; how it was contaminated by Soviet propaganda and a worldview deformed by communism. The scope of the literature I analyse demonstrates a larger argument: history must be reconsidered through memory of the Stalin era and the late stage of heavy modernity.
The book consists of three parts. The first presents examples of how realism has been redefined in trauma studies and how it may refer to animal experience. The second explores that which is added to the narrative by literature, including the animal perspective (a zoonarrative) and how it is done (zoocriticism). The third analyses cultural texts (such as painting, circuses, and memorials) which realistically generate animal vulnerability and provide non-anthropocentric frameworks, anchoring our knowledge in the experience of fragile historical reality.
Spis treści:
Wstęp do ekokrytyki 17
Zagadnienia i problemy badawcze ekokrytyki 19
Przegląd polskich stanowisk wobec problematyki ekologicznej w literaturze 52
Redefiniowanie realizmu i nowe możliwości interpretacyjne 86
Niemota przyrody a realizm (post)traumatyczny 94
Słaby ludzki podmiot – miejsce na język przyrody 119
Realność ekosystemu w Placówce Prusa 121
Niezdara Dygasińskiego i sprawstwo przyrody 139
Dziecięce pomiędzy: Świat i ślepa dziewczyna Dygasińskiego oraz Suka Reymonta 155
Nie-ludzki rodowód poezji: Leśmian 176
Splot historii i zagrożenia: głos drzew w Glorii victis Orzeszkowej 195 Zwierzęta – podmioty (nie)obecne 207
Człowiek i zwierzę – problem granicy w Dziennikach Gombrowicza 209 Ujarzmianie bestii? Walka byków Sienkiewicza 222
Relacje: Wilk, psy i ludzie Dygasińskiego 239
Próba reprezentowania zwierząt: Ostatnie historie i pisarstwo Tokarczuk 256
Moja przyjaciółka krowa – wspólne doświadczenia. Hartwig i Brach-Czaina 272
Posthumanizm i znaczenie zwierzęcych narracji w literaturze 286 Zookrytyka i zoonarracje. Oczy tygrysa Czyżewskiego 314
Finally, the chapter synthesises and summarises the gaps and challenges in contemporary blue humanities education in Poland, while arguing for the need to reformulate and remodel the didactic contents in relation to the existing sources of cultural water heritage discussed in Polish schools.
out that the traumatic history of the city, which has not been recognized so clearly in the environmental sense, is applicable in the analysis of these novels and by greening the undeveloped wastelands.
and for historical river management approach, the authors discuss different accounts of the 1934-flood: firstly, works from the historical period (J. Kurek, K. I. Gałczyński, relevant newspapers) and secondly, a contemporary reference to 1934 and flood narrative in prose (M. Płaza). All these literary sources contain numerous renamings of the Polish flood management dictionary but have one historical feature in common: they anchor the
modern militarization of language in flood narratives (the fight against the river) and the symptomatic discourse of power and control (ruling over the river). Finally, these sources led the authors to the conclusion that both the Polish experience of World War I and later subsequent armed conflicts, as well as the impact of militarized state policy left their stamp on the flood lexicon and deepened the divide between humans and disempowered
rivers.
climate threats. In this article we would like to explore the resilient role of animal and human-animal (inter-species) communication. We are particularly interested in how eco-translation can be used as a research paradigm
bringing together such semiotic areas as zoo-, eco- and biosemiotics (e.g. Uexkull 1992; Sebeok 2001; Kull et all 2011; Maran 2011; Marais 2019 and others) where the interdisciplinary studies show how animal and
human worlds (umwelten) overlap. The overarching aim of the article is to show the notion of eco-translation can be used to develop interpretive frameworks as a response to climate and environmental vulnerability.
renamings in the flood vocabulary. Examination of language militarization in flood narratives (fighting the river) and its symptomatic discourse of power and control (control over the river element) shows that both the Polish experience of the First World War – along with subsequent military conflicts – and the impact of militarized state politics left a mark on the flood vocabulary and resulted in a disagreement between the human
subject and the living river.
The book consist of articles written by academics representing many different fields of humanities (such as anthropology, literary studies, cultural studies, history, art history, art criticism, musicology, ecocriticism) and articles and a manifest of famous contemporary artists. The first part of the book focuses mainly on the problem of war commemoration and on the presence of animal memorials dedicated to animals who took part in military conflicts. Next part of the book pertains to the question of commemoration of genocide, using the example of Rwanda genocide, Roma and Sinti genocide and Shoa. Last part of the book scrutinize non-traditional contemporary commemorations, such as sonic memorials, ephermal objects and other contemporary practices of remembrance.
Through the example of Szczepan Twardoch’s novel Drach (2014), I show how the inhuman voice of the Silesian land redirects cultural memory from the region’s human history of ethnic and national conflict to its environmental history of coal extraction. I also indicate how the novel depicts the material bond between this region’s mining culture and its environmental memory.
Through a book of reportage about a town on a mountain in Lower Silesia, Miedzianka by Filip Springer (2011) translated into English as History of a Disappearance (2017), I analyse patchy cultural memories of the period of Soviet uranium mining, which are evoked by actual gaps and holes that mining left in the mountain and that tend to open up unexpectedly under buildings and people’s feet.
The capacity to cope with the flooding Oder, especially after the major flood in 1997, intertwines with the problematic Polish-German relationship, including Silesia. For Polish communities, whose environmental cultures have been distorted by wars, resettlement and communism, vulnerability and resilience perceptions lack representations of the tangible river. It is culturally bounded in the stigmatising image of the Oder as the border of division, revived after 1945 and exposed by the Polish communist party in the so-called ‘Polonisation’ of the ‘Recovered Territories’. Fiction detects the problem of overworking the difficult past in response to the Oder’s hazardous nature. Writers representing an emotional attachment to the river and an aquacritical approach express the need to learn about the river’s lively nature, both in cooperating and sharing space, which is called the environmental adaptation.
Dominique Lestel – Myśleć sierścią. Zwierzęcość w perspektywie drugoosobowej
Monika Żółkoś – Mikro-formy i makro-lęki. Owady jako wyzwanie dla animal studies
Anna Barcz – Portrety ludzi i zwierząt a zagadnienie podobieństwa po Darwinie
Steve Baker – Sztuka współczesna i prawa zwierząt
Jessica Ullrich – Strefy kontaktu. Spotkanie psa i człowieka ( Psio-ludzkie metamorfozy w sztuce współczesnej)
Izabela Kowalczyk – Pułapki posthumanizmu – w kontekście użycia zwierząt przez sztukę
Dorota Łagodzka – Wystawy sztuki zwierzęcej w Polsce od końca lat dziewięćdziesiątych XX wieku do dziś
Aleksander Nawarecki – Zoofilologia pod auspicjami augurów
Anna Łagodzka – Zezwierzęcenie, zwierzątko i animalizacja języka
Martin Ullrich – Między filologią a biologią. Muzyka zwierząt z epistemologicznej i metodologicznej perspektywy
Robert Mckay – Czytając mięso. Literacka polityka gatunkowa w powieści Michela Fabera Pod skórą
Justyna Tymieniecka-Suchanek – Trzeba (za)bić to zwierzę… Homo crudelis w rosyjskiej publicystyce początku XX wieku
Anita Jarzyna – Herezje: odzyskiwanie wrażliwości (Tadeusz Nowak, Jerzy Nowosielski)
What does it mean to give voice to the river? What is the function of folk beliefs and riverine mythologies in generating ecological knolwedge in the Anthropocene? These questions were adressed in this online lecture for the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice.
This meeting was held on 17.11.2018, Osiedle Jazdów, Solatorium, Warsaw. Artwork ©Marta Buriak