Full issue of the journal.

Title page and letter of contents.

The editor-in-chief’s preface devoted to the key ideas for the contemporary literary and cultural theory, which introduces the debates foregrounded in this issue.

The guest editor's preface devoted to the key ideas for the contemporary literary theory and liberature, which introduces the debates foregrounded in this issue.

The purpose of the article is to locate liberature within a greater historical and theoretical framework, and to propose an understanding of liberature as a genre. For many years, materiality of literature has been excluded from literary studies, finding its shelter either in library and information studies or among editors. Recently, this tendency has been changing rapidly, as the variety of studies and theories on electronic literacy, new media literacy or the visual aspects of widely recognised works do not cease to prove. Liberature is no exception in this matter. It is argued that the increasing interest in liberature, along with its reception, provides a fertile ground for reading it as an independent genre. With this assumption in mind, the very notion of genre should no longer be perceived as a fixed collection of bounding rules and categorising devices, but rather as the dialogic and creative space aiming at influencing and referring to other texts. In this sense, such a position of liberature, already recognised in Polish literary criticism, might genuinely serve its predominant purpose to explore the refreshing and effective methods of reading, which apply— but are not limited—to the germinating liberary tradition. In fact, they may stimulate new interpretations of diverse preceding texts, whose both materiality and visuality have been repressed.

The main emphasis of the article is on the genological analysis of liberature, characterised as the “total literature,” and proposed by Zenon Fajfer in 1999. The argument consists of three layers. Firstly, the author discusses the terms in which one can speak of liberature as a literary movement. This thesis, however, remains highly problematic, since it entails an unclear relation between liberature understood as a pioneering project (inaugurated by Zenon Fajfer and Katarzyna Bazarnik), and an element within the greater historical perspective, inspired by such “proto-liberary” writers as William Blake, George Herbert or Stephané Mallarmé. Secondly, liberature is theorised as an independent genre, which has emerged due to the increasing value of the formal and material dimensions of literary texts. Finally, bearing in mind the intersection of the semantics and the materiality of the medium taking place in “liberary” works, the author poses the problem of their ontological hybridity. As the article points out, in this case, liberature, with its ephemeral, singular and heterogeneous texts, may be regarded as the system consisting solely of differences.

Focusing on Zenon Fajfer and Katarzyna Bazarnik’s “model” liberary piece entitled Oka-leczenie ((v)eye/olation, first published in 2000), the article argues that the widely-understood physical shape of a liberary work is inevitable for its proper reading and comprehending. In this paper liberature is discussed as a total literature because of the fact that not only the text and additional visual elements are essential for the reading process, but also because the physical aspects of a work, e.g. empty or cut places, convey the message and express certain senses by means of their silent presence. The liberary body is described as one which may be hurt, destroyed, or even dead. Moreover, liberature is presented as a literature which not only records and conveys a certain content but also shows it through its very specific body and the content that was inscribed in it.

As its point of departure the article takes the intensifying tendency of contemporary art to conjoin the so-called classical literacy with the refreshing capabilities provided by the new media. It is argued that both new media works and the classical literary ones adapted to them—along with new types of books such as audiobooks or e-books, and the new theories recognising their difference—result in a paradigm shift due to which the very category of medium might seem obsolete. Consequently, the article proposes to withdraw from it and privilege the interface instead. It is through this revitalising trope that material traits of liberary works may be affirmed in the way they influence the perceptive, temporal, spatial and sensory capacities of the “reader.” Following this observation, liberature may be regarded as the constitutive element of our epoch. Regardless of whether it is only a fashionable category or an actual break, liberature marks the importance of the material aspect of communication. This pioneering term in turn becomes the part of a greater set of phenomena constructing our already trans-medial everydayness.

Authored by the proposer and theorist of liberature, the article discusses the idea of liberature and connects its theory and practice in an innovative manner. Contrary to the Author’s previous elucidations, the focus is not so much on the physical form of the liberary work but on the essential position of the voice in the reading of liberature, which, until recently, was lost among textual elements of such a work. Fajfer underlines the idea of a total, bodily work which is planned in its entirety and whose body is able to “speak” to its readers. This speaking is especially noticeable in the spectacle called The View from a Deep Tower [Widok z głębokiej wieży], directed by Teresa Nowak, which moves towards the “theatricality” of poetry. Fajfer describes this spectacle as a new experience for a poet whose main purpose used to be the visual presentation of a textual form. In this new, aural quality of poetry, the author notices a new dimension of the total literature.

Revolving around the concept of the so-called artist’s book, the article compares liberary works with the artist’s books created by several authors. Sarah Bodman analyses the artistic creations of three main book-artists: the American authors Sally Alatalo and John McDowall, and Elisabeth Tonnard from the Netherlands. The main similarity between liberary works and the artist’s books is discovered in the physical side of the two, particularly in the meticulous designing and careful publishing of the work, which takes into consideration the size, material and appearance of the work envisaged by its author. Bodman indicates the distinction between liberature and the artist’s books in the different main foci of the two. According to her, book-artists focus on the book as an object of artistic value where every other element, including the text, is subordinate to the book-format while liberary authors create works which are primarily literary and textual in their essence.

The article contemplates the condition of an artists after postmodernism, with special emphasis on the ideas stemming from their works and the category of authority. It is argued that since ideas attributed to particular artistic works have been changing dramatically, even though the authors rarely show interest in any of them, there exists an independent ontological origin of art. Consequently, it is demonstrated that regardless of different configurations, artists and ideas, the aforementioned basis, or rather movement, remains trans-historical. Even though both ideas and authorities are associated with artists, they are rather produced by theoreticians, historians, critics, philosophers and academics. Bearing that in mind, it might be claimed that postmodernism—just as existential and romantic hermeneutics before it—poses neither a threat nor a radically new order, since artists are still driven by the same force that will later provide the underpinnings for new authorities and ideas.  

A review of a poetic performance Widok z głębokiej wieży (A View from a Deep Tower) by Zenon Fajfer, dir. Teresa Nowak, Hipertekstowo project, Kinoteatr Rialto, Katowice, 25 April 2015 r.

Critical notes on: (1) Alain Badiou, Rhapsody for the Theatre, edited and introduced by Bruno Bosteels, translated by Bruno Bosteels with the assistance of Martin Puchner (London, New York: Verso, 2013), pp. 174; (2) Griselda Pollock, After-affects / After-images: Trauma and aesthetic transformation in the virtual feminist museum (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013), pp. 384.

Summaries of research articles in English.

Information concerning submission procedures and the stylesheet for prospective Authors.

The colophon of the present issue.