„Meticulous Work.” Dorota Głowacka: Po tamtej stronie. Świadectwo – afekt – wyobraźnia; Anita Jarzyna: Imaginauci. Pismo wyobraźni w poezji Bolesława Leśmiana, Józefa Czechowicza, Krzysztofa Kamila Baczyńskiego, Tadeusza Nowaka

Abstract

The reviewer of Dorota Głowacka’s and Anita Jarzyna’s books emphasises the intuition of both scholars in terms of recognising a distinct category within the Holocaust studies, which allows for not only sympathising with the Shoah victims because of “relational imagination” but also counting it among other genocides (such as that of Canada’s indigenous people). In both projects, imagination does not equal making things up or confabulating; the phenomenon of
imagination, as the reviewer proves, lies in inventing a new language of sensitivity, which would go beyond the frames of acknowledging one event (in this case, the Shoah). Głowacka postulates a necessary (from the perspective of the dynamically expanding field of genocide studies) reversal of the established direction of flow of knowledge and memory from the centre to the peripheries, originating in colonial policies, and its replacement with a different system (which can be called a wandering one, borrowing Achille Mbembe’s expression); such a new arrangement would undermine the previous tendency and render “multidirectional memory” (a notion by Michael Rothberg) valuable. While both authors of the reviewed books work in different academic fields, their research is unified by the category of imagination, which both transcends historical and literary currents, and makes it possible for seemingly disproportionate  phenomena (such as torture and exclusion of women as agents) to interfuse; for such phenomena, the Shoah would be an event foundational à rebours (and thus providing an opportunity to rebel, to object, and to construct a new subject).