Er(r)go …,
on English studies. And so we submerge into our own spring—since Er(r)go emerged from English studies—and then we follow the arms, the tributaries, the tides. Thus the substantiation of the intellectual mood of the times of the early onset of cultural studies; on the one hand, once a forbidden fruit, on the other, anxieties and fears: it could mean the loss of cultural identity and identity of literary studies; could mean dangerous Marxism, could mean losing aesthetic values and diffusion in egalitarianism. And  a related problem: what is the role of English philologists—professionals in promoting foreign culture and foreign language—towards linguistic identity of their nation? Are they sinking the national ship (that’s Sienkiewicz) pumping in linguistic contamination instead of pumping it out, or are they helping the ship to stay afloat on the stormy seas of change? Thus, the ambivalent myth of the English philologist. The English philologist as Robinson Crusoe on an island overgrown with different contexts, Polish and not Polish. And, of course, the problems of translation. The translator as the third element—the mediator between two realities, which do not yield to mediation; subjectivity in translation and the translator’s leap of faith. 

Desubjectification and the translation industry; a mass fraud. What is there to read, if fools and rogues create reading lists? Thus the fundamental question of canon: equality or elitism? The canon as the foundation and the emanation of identify. Thus away with Dead White European Males! But will the Zulu give us Tolstoy? At least there remains Marquise de Sade’s pornology, but apart from that “nothing, an empty space of the impossibility of identification.” Humanist education as possible salvation? But of what kind? Right-winged, or the search for the only truth, or left-winged, the shaping of intellectual independence? And here the English philologist calls upon Rorty and chooses a compromise, albeit not without hesitations, tensions and polemics. English as Latin of today?

The present issue was prepared under the supervision of Leszek Drong

The current interest in cultural studies marks a departure from a period characterised by immanent approaches to the literary work, i.e., those approaches which abstracted it from external cultural contexts. Over the last few decades in Poland the foci of cultural studies have been considerably different from those which have motivated British or American scholars. This essay aims at highlighting the reasons for those differences: they include geographical, historical and ethnic factors. Also, more importantly, the ideological motivation for the research in the field cannot be directly transplanted in Poland which used to suffer from a communist oppression and thus is radically skeptical of any intellectual developments inspired by marxism. Finally, the process of translating the scope and meaning of anglophone cultural studies into Polish academic reality may constitute a good opportunity for axiological reflection concerning the necessity of retaining evaluation standards in our culture.

The aim of the essay is to consider the ramifications of abandoning Latin as the lingua franca of Europe (with primary emphasis on Poland) and embracing English as a new international standard of communication. In Poland the use of foreign languages has always been fraught with political and class implications. At the same time certain foreign languages (e.g. Latin, French) have been used to bestow distinction on the speaker/writer and identify her/him as a superior citizen. In Sienkiewicz’s novellas and short stories, characters resort to various foreign languages to convey their attitudes to particular nations and emphasize their social positions.

This essay takes its inspiration from Adorno and Horkheimer’s work Dialektik der Aufklärung, which critically examines culture at large. Schauffler interrogates all the key words used in his title in order to discuss the significance of translation in contemporary culture and communication. The industrial aspect of translation is related to Walter Benjamin’s claim that (literary) translation is not supposed to serve the reader. Nowadays, on the other hand, translation is an industry and as such is obliged to be subordinated to the demands of the market. That reflects on the assumptions and strategies employed by the translator: her/his attitude to the source language and the very notion of translation are modified accordingly.

This essay discusses the image of the English scholar in Poland, using as one of its methodological tools recent developments associated with cultural studies. The irony of this approach lies in the fact that those developments have been imported to Poland by the same English scholars who are to be scrutinized in their light. Nowak locates the predicament of the contemporary English scholar between two basic positions: that of a harbinger of a foreign culture which is likely to enrich her/his native one and that of an entrepreneur who has been skilled in capitalizing on her/his knowledge and access to foreign business models. Thereby the English scholar in Poland is torn between two opposing forces which define her/him in radically different ways.

Sławomir Masłoń – Between Pleasure and Pleasure: Fools and Knaves Make Their Own Reading Lists

Drawing from the Lacanian interpretation of the Shakespearean distinction into fools and knaves the article touches upon the cultural mechanisms behind the making of the contemporary literary canon.

Leszek Drong – Postmodern Zarathustra as a mass product of liberal education system, or, Richard Rorty’s philosophy of humanistic education

Critical notes on books

Summaries of the feature texts of the issue.

Er(r)go stylesheet and policies of submission

Colophon