Of Misfits

Dr. Joanna Bator, author | guest professor, Warsaw
Prof. Dr. Przemysław Czapliński, guest speaker, Poznań
Dr. Corinne Fournier Kiss, Bern

Part 1: Of Misfits

Introduction (for teachers, PhD-students and advanced MA-students): 10:15 - 11:30
Misfits undermine binary oppositions. Indeterminately betwixt and between, they do not fit. According to Zygmunt Bauman, Western modernity has fought a veritable war against indetermination and ambivalence – a war that was in vain from its very beginning, since it is precisely disharmony and ambivalence that modernity draws its dynamism from. With Bauman’s thesis in mind, we will discuss our ambivalent relations towards ambivalence and if there might be a change of such dynamism in today’s “postmodern condition” – also beyond a Western context. Participants are asked to shortly introduce themselves with examples of misfits relevant inside their own discipline.
Mandatory Reading: Bauman, Zygmunt 1990: Modernity and Ambivalence. New York: Cornell. 53-84, 90-101.

Part 2: Gender Misfits

Lecture by Joanna Bator and plenary discussion (for teachers, PhD’s and advanced MA’s): 11:45 – 13:00
An introduction of the topic of the misfiting third genders in anthropology and Literature is followed by specifics: Michał Witkowsk, author of Lovetown and fashion blogger (or rather his camp public persona) will be presented as an example of a double misfit who doesn't fit into the hetero-norm and rejects the gay-norm at the same time. For other examples of gender performances, we will move to Japan where we encounter rebellious misfits called otaku (nerd) who do not want to follow the gender script of a normative man; kawaii girls who reject the prospect of growing up; onnagata, kabuki actors playing female roles and otokoyaku, Takarazuka actresses who play male roles in glitzy romances.

Part 3: Misfits in Poland and Polish Literature

Lecture and Discussion by Prof. Czaplinski: 14:15 - 15:30 (open for general public)
The lecture will concern changes in the imaginary community of Polish culture in the period from mid-80s to the present day. The basis of the community in the early 80s was the idea of identity. The reduced collective identity did not allow the voice of social differences, which began to appear only in the late 80s in literary works representing the ethnic, gender and sexual misfits. The specificity of the emancipation in Polish culture consisted in the fact that the list of misfits was wider, and that their entrance was played out in two stages.

Workshop: 15:45-17:30 (for teachers, PhD’s and MA’s)
Mandatory reading: Gombrowicz, Witold 19531: Transatlantyk (all readings available on ILIAS or on request).

Joanna Bator was born in Wałbrzych, Poland, in 1968. She graduated in cultural studies and philosophy. Her debut novel was Kobieta (in English: A Woman), written in 2002. Until 2011 she was a university lecturer and lived for several years in Japan where she wrote Piaskowa Góra (2009; in English: Sandy Mountain; the German translation, Sandberg, was published by Suhrkamp in 2011). The story of three generations and its sequel Chmurdalia (in English: Cloudalia; German translation, again with Suhrkamp: Wolkenfern) of 2013 was highly acclaimed and established her as one of the most important voices of contemporary Eastern European literature. In 2013, her most recent novel, Ciemno, prawie noc (2012), won the Nike Literary Award (Nagroda Literacka Nike), the most prestigious award for Polish literature.

Przemysław Czapliński is professor of Polish literature at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland, and chief of studies on literary criticism. He has published widely in the fields of Polish modern and postmodern literature, the history of ideas, the history of literary criticism, and the sociology and anthropology of literature. A recipient of several national book awards, Czapliński is the author of over a dozen books, and has edited and coedited several volumes. He organized several interdisciplinary conferences, most recently on: the Holocaust, the anthropology of literature, the relation between modernity and Sarmatism, the poetics of migration, the poetics and politics of Camp.