Translations by Anna Kisiel
Griselda Pollock, Nichsapha: Utęsknienie. Niematerialne tuché koloru w malarstwie po malarstwie po historii
Bracha Lichtenberg Ettinger. Eurydyka – Pieta, 2017
Polski przekład artykułu Griseldy Pollock, Nichsapha: Yearning/Languishing the Immaterialtuche of... more Polski przekład artykułu Griseldy Pollock, Nichsapha: Yearning/Languishing the Immaterialtuche of Colour in Painting after Painting after History. Współautorką przekładu jest Anna Kisiel.
Papers by Anna Kisiel
Er(r)go. Teoria - Literatura - Kultura, 2023
Sofia Papastergiadis - the protagonist of Deborah Levy's Hot Milk - seems to be encircled by vari... more Sofia Papastergiadis - the protagonist of Deborah Levy's Hot Milk - seems to be encircled by various monstrosities. First, her overbearing, monstrous mother suffers from an equally monstrous unidentifiable illness, because of which the two women travel to Almería, seeking answers and potential therapy. Second, while in Andalusia, Sofia is often attacked by Medusae/jellyfish, which is a painful, yet uncannily addictive experience. Third, the protagonist is puzzled with her own doubtful motivations, hasty decisions, and dark fascinations, resurfacing, for instance, in a pursuit of toxic, but sensual, affairs. All of these drive Sofia to investigate yet another monster: one residing inside her. In this article, I propose a reading informed by psychoanalysis and feminist criticism which aims at tracing how the discourse of illness interweaves with that of monstrousness in Levy's Booker-shortlisted bildungsroman. Keeping in mind that disease and monstrosity engage in an interplay of secrecy and revelation in the novel, I wish to study the implications of that for the protagonist and her relationships with others.
Rana. Literatura – Doświadczenie – Tożsamość, 2022
The aim of this article is to analyse childhood wounds of Joe Jacobs, the protagonist of Deborah ... more The aim of this article is to analyse childhood wounds of Joe Jacobs, the protagonist of Deborah Levy’s novel Swimming Home, through the prism of psychoanalytically grounded trauma studies. By means of studying Jacobs’s family life and his precarious relationship with Kitty Finch, a woman he has just met, I demonstrate how trauma and an unceasing sense of homelessness construct the protagonist’s identity. I note that Jacobs, a Holocaust survivor, strives for – but is incapable of – coming home, while Kitty functions as a mirror that reflects his repressed self-knowledge. As it turns out at the end of the novel, it is Kitty who guides him home: home which, as a locus of trauma, happens to be accessible only through death.
Openness in Distance: Introductory Remarks on Academic Teaching Informed by Bracha L. Ettinger’s Matrixial Theory
Studies in Philosophy and Education, 2022
This article aims at introducing the matrixial theory of Bracha L. Ettinger to the field of acade... more This article aims at introducing the matrixial theory of Bracha L. Ettinger to the field of academic teaching. As it intends to prove, feminist pedagogy would benefit from a matrixinformed approach to teaching, especially in the times of social distancing imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Since of all student groups it is the university students who have been most directly affected by precarity and employment instability, they seem to be in an urgent need of openness, compassion, and understanding; the matrixial theory – as this article demonstrates – responds to this necessity. Bracha L. Ettinger is a psychoanalyst, feminist, artist, and daughter of Holocaust survivors; her matrixial theory, based on the notions of the matrix and subjectivity-as-encounter, is a feminist supplement to psychoanalysis. The article begins with introducing the underpinnings of this psychoanalytical system and outlining its application in various areas, ranging from art history to trauma studies. Subsequently, the research joining Ettinger’s work and pedagogy is analysed; as it is shown, while these studies recognise the pedagogical potential of the matrixial theory, their scope is currently reduced to art-related disciplines. The next part is devoted to selected matrixial concepts that come out as especially relevant in the pedagogical context. What the article offers is a theoretical incentive to reflect on an approach to teaching based on reciprocity, responsibility, and participation despite the limit posed by the computer screen: an approach which – in the times of global precarity – can help define anew the student–teacher partnership.
Humanities and Cultural Studies, 2021
Marian MacAlpin, the protagonist of Margaret Atwood's The Edible Woman, is a "marvellously normal... more Marian MacAlpin, the protagonist of Margaret Atwood's The Edible Woman, is a "marvellously normal" (Atwood 207) young woman. However, at one point-coinciding with the acceptance of her partner's marriage proposal-something goes utterly wrong. Her body, in an act of revolt, refuses to accept more and more food; it becomes an increasingly independent, as if exterior entity. While trying to fight off this impenetrable rebellion, Marian comes to face social norms she is supposed to comply with as a woman, finding them indeed indigestible. Written in 1965 and published in 1969, The Edible Woman touches upon issues that are still relevant for the contemporary reader. This article examines Margaret Atwood's novel within the framework indebted to the recent shift of feminist studies towards fragility: a notion that no longer has to entail mere passivity or surrender. Aiming at an exploration of the theme of a fragile corporeal protest, this article juxtaposes the revolt of Marian's body with such tropes and categories as fluidity and containment, abjection, agency, and becoming in order to trace the dual nature of corporeal resistance presented in the novel.
ER(R)GO. Teoria – Literatura – Kultura, 2020
Bracha L. Ettinger's artistic series, Eurydice, is grounded upon a historical photograph from the... more Bracha L. Ettinger's artistic series, Eurydice, is grounded upon a historical photograph from the liquidation of the Mizoch ghetto on 14 October 1942, depicting naked women and children waiting to be executed. The artist treats this picture as a basis of her artworks and covers it with layers of paint. It is, however, difficult to identify this art as archival. By means of her artistic procedures, Ettinger endeavours to free her paintings from the bounds of representation; what she does is-as I claim-(anti-)archival work. This article aims at studying the relation between Ettinger's oeuvre and the photographic archive. First, I try to point out the insufficiency of the archive and to identify Ettingerian attempts to work it through. Second, I discuss the notion of the gaze in the matrixial psychoanalysis. Just as the look of Orpheus sends Eurydice back to the Underworld, the spectator's gaze may kill the women from Mizoch again; this is the impasse Ettinger strives to break.
ER(R)GO. Teoria – Literatura – Kultura, 2016
In the picture entitled Self-portrait talking to Vince Francesca Woodman, an American photographe... more In the picture entitled Self-portrait talking to Vince Francesca Woodman, an American photographer, endeavoured to capture her own voice. That which had been uttered became thereby unutterable, resulting in a sequence of doodles coming out of the artist’s mouth: the chain interrupted within the frame of the photograph in its attempt to reach the listener. This picture is both the space and the reason for the confrontation of two psychoanalytical views – Lacanian and Ettingerian – on the notion of the voice. While in Jacques Lacan’s thought the voice is introduced as objet petit a, inextricably bound to the Other and desire, Ettinger – author of the matrixial theory, practising psychoanalyst, artist, feminist, and member of the Second Generation after the Holocaust – defines this concept as link a, thus emphasising the connection inspired by the prenatal encounter, its fragility and intimacy. Collating these two viewpoints and the photographic art of Woodman lets one open the potentialities of the voice in the field of visual studies and consider the relationship between this notion and the senses. Such a juxtaposition challenges the boundaries of not only photography – the medium seemingly sentenced to silence – but also theory, for which the image can provide a platform of dialogue, as it relentlessly resists the reduction to solely one perspective.
Proceedings of the Third Annual Student Research Festival, 2016
Published under the name Anna Maraś
Postscriptum Polonistyczne, 2021
Eavan Boland's poem "The Journey" depicts the dream of a woman, who - just like Inanna, a Sumeria... more Eavan Boland's poem "The Journey" depicts the dream of a woman, who - just like Inanna, a Sumerian goddess - embarks on the eponymous journey into the underworld, guided by Sappho. At first, she sees nothing in the darkness, yet, having accustomed to it, she observes mothers and children in loving embraces: the image which is immediately disturbed by the female's guide, who makes the persona realise that these people are the victims of an unspecified plague. At this moment, the woman, stricken with terror, notices the signs of sickness and death; among others, she sees infants being poisoned during breast feeding. Sappho stresses that the watched mothers have a lot in common with the speaker-they are all loving and caring, despite their occupation or status, but also despite the tragedy they participate in. In this feminine transfiguration of The Aeneid, the terrified lyrical subject expresses the wish to provide a testimony on their behalf; however, Sappho assures her that she is here precisely in order to gain this knowledge of her genesis. When the woman finally returns to reality, everything remains as it was, but she feels the difference nonetheless; she is deeply affected by the events she has seen. The aim of my paper is to analyse Eavan Boland's take on the path towards femininity in the context of Bracha L. Ettinger's matrixial theory. What Ettinger proposes is a supplement to Freudian-Lacanian approach, which makes it possible to conceive of a new, feminine-based, non-binary matrixial difference, grounded upon proximity, hospitality, and exchange instead of a set of separations and the male/female opposition. I will endeavour to prove that Ettingerian psychoanalysis and Boland's piece, when combined, can unfold the potential of a matrixial journey towards becoming a woman, grounded upon such notions as compassion, fragility, wit(h)nessing, exchange, connectivity, and transsubjective experience, unthinkable from the Oedipal perspective.
Analyses/Rereadings/Theories Journal, 2020
A historical photograph of women and children from the Mizocz ghetto taken in 1942 just before th... more A historical photograph of women and children from the Mizocz ghetto taken in 1942 just before their execution constitutes one of the most recurring motifs in Bracha L. Ettinger's visual art. By means of her artworks, Ettinger endeavours to retrieve these women's dignity and work through their traumas at a point when they are unable to do it themselves. Yet, one cannot ignore a number of questions that arise in the context of this kind of aesthetic practice; after all, Ettinger uses an archival photograph, taken by an anonymous photographer, and her acts of altering and decontextualising this "ready-made" material are aimed at producing a certain artistic effect. The objective of this article is to reflect on the issue of authorship in Bracha L. Ettinger's theory and art. Having introduced two Eurydicial artworks, I proceed to unravel the status of a matrixial artist-author. In order to do so, I analyse such notions as ready-made art, matrixial Otherness, trauma of the World, gaze, and appropriation.
Romanica Silesiana, 2017
The aim of this article is to study the underpinnings of the matrixial theory introduced by Brach... more The aim of this article is to study the underpinnings of the matrixial theory introduced by Bracha L. Ettinger, and her installation in the Freud Museum - to be more precise, Freud's study room-so as to examine their paradoxical status in Freudian-Lacanian space(s). As I attempt to show, both parts of Ettinger's activity are not against the Law of the Father, but rather they constantly disobey his rules; Ettinger tirelessly endeavours to include the Mother alongside the paternal order. We thus observe not so much the rejection of Freud's and Lacan's paradigms as the movement on their boundaries and their subsequent transgression - and this may be seen as the greatest promise Ettinger provides us with.
Avant: The Journal of the Philosophical-Interdisciplinary Vanguard, 2017
In the House and Space2 photographic series, Francesca Woodman captures the environments that may... more In the House and Space2 photographic series, Francesca Woodman captures the environments that may be considered disruptive; still, it is a female model-in her inconstant poses, always partially blurred or hidden-that holds the viewer's attention. The pictures therefore evoke a twofold sense of obscurity, since their unfriendly interiors are occupied by the uncanny, semi-absent yet ceaselessly present, disappearing woman, who turns out to be Woodman herself. Woodman's spectral presence and the unhomely locations she haunts-being simultaneously the photographer and the object of her photographs-are examined in this article by means of Bracha L. Ettinger's matrixial theory. Ettingerian psychoanalysis, juxtaposed with Roland Barthes, Sigmund Freud, and Jacques Lacan, provides the tools to challenge the dominant non-affirmative understanding of Woodman's self-portraits as works of disappearing and failing subjectivity: an understanding whose obvious point of support is found in the artist's biography. Instead, Ettinger's system makes it possible to look at this oeuvre through the prisms of fragility, homeliness, and the potential emergence of blurry, ghostly subjectivity. Moreover, the article examines the ways in which Woodman resists the divisions imposed on her and the medium she uses (such as the Barthesian triad of Operator, Spectator, and Spectrum, and the dichotomies of me / the Other and subject / object).
Narracje o Zagładzie, 2018
The article focuses on both theoretical and artistic activities of Bracha L. Ettinger, an Israeli... more The article focuses on both theoretical and artistic activities of Bracha L. Ettinger, an Israeli artist, author of the matrixial theory, psychoanalyst, feminist, and daughter of Holocaust survivors. It endeavours to prove that Ettinger’s artistic gesture – on the one hand – stands for almost-borderless closeness to traumatic events and – on the other hand – may occasion the viewer’s suspension between such notions as now and then or presence and absence. To specify, it attempts to demonstrate that gesture can move the viewer towards the traumatic experience of the Other. As Ettinger herself admits that in her case art and theory are strongly interconnected, this article follows a similar path, trying to show how these two instances affect each other in a productive way. The article begins with an introduction to Ettinger’s artistic technique, the notion of trauma(s) in her oeuvre, and the matrixial take on memory. It moves on to the interpretation of chosen paintings from Ettinger’s most famous series, Eurydice, based on the 1942 picture of the execution of naked women in the Mizocz ghetto, and of selected works of art with a mother theme; these artworks are read through the prism of, among others, the trauma of the World and the fort/da game. Lastly, the article hints at ethical implications of chosen Ettingerian concepts that apply to the aesthetic practice.
Narracje o Zagładzie, 2016
Wound – Proximity – Non‑memory. Psychoanalytically Grounded Trauma Discourse from Freud to Etting... more Wound – Proximity – Non‑memory. Psychoanalytically Grounded Trauma Discourse from Freud to Ettinger
Trauma is a notion whose perception in the psychoanalytic discourse has undergone dynamic changes, starting from the transfer of this concept to the psychic ground, through the conceptualisation of its impossibility of being shared, ending with Bracha L. Ettinger’s intervention. The aim of this paper is twofold: to track these changes and to (re)define the potential of thetrauma discourse(s). After the analysis of main assumptions concerning the psychic wound in the thought of the fathers of psychoanalysis, the author proceeds to the branch of trauma studies influenced by the Holocaust, so as to finally introduce Bracha L. Ettinger – a clinical psychoanalyst, theoretician, artist, feminist and member of the Second Generation after the Holocaust – and her matrixial theory. As the author endeavours to demonstrate, this thought provides us with the tools to rethink the shape and possibilities of the trauma discourse.
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Translations by Anna Kisiel
Papers by Anna Kisiel
Trauma is a notion whose perception in the psychoanalytic discourse has undergone dynamic changes, starting from the transfer of this concept to the psychic ground, through the conceptualisation of its impossibility of being shared, ending with Bracha L. Ettinger’s intervention. The aim of this paper is twofold: to track these changes and to (re)define the potential of thetrauma discourse(s). After the analysis of main assumptions concerning the psychic wound in the thought of the fathers of psychoanalysis, the author proceeds to the branch of trauma studies influenced by the Holocaust, so as to finally introduce Bracha L. Ettinger – a clinical psychoanalyst, theoretician, artist, feminist and member of the Second Generation after the Holocaust – and her matrixial theory. As the author endeavours to demonstrate, this thought provides us with the tools to rethink the shape and possibilities of the trauma discourse.
Trauma is a notion whose perception in the psychoanalytic discourse has undergone dynamic changes, starting from the transfer of this concept to the psychic ground, through the conceptualisation of its impossibility of being shared, ending with Bracha L. Ettinger’s intervention. The aim of this paper is twofold: to track these changes and to (re)define the potential of thetrauma discourse(s). After the analysis of main assumptions concerning the psychic wound in the thought of the fathers of psychoanalysis, the author proceeds to the branch of trauma studies influenced by the Holocaust, so as to finally introduce Bracha L. Ettinger – a clinical psychoanalyst, theoretician, artist, feminist and member of the Second Generation after the Holocaust – and her matrixial theory. As the author endeavours to demonstrate, this thought provides us with the tools to rethink the shape and possibilities of the trauma discourse.