Vol. 18 No. 2 (2021): Walls. Presentations: Tomasz Bąk

Essays included in the upcoming issue of “Śląskie Studia Polonistyczne” focus on the concept of walls and the scientific and artistic tensions surrounding them. Approaches to the subject are broad and range from the studies of materiality, historicity, through the politics of walls — both literal and figurative — and how they function (the Berlin Wall, the Gdańsk Shipyard wall, the walls of Shanghai houses), to metaphorical aspects of border points or points of resistance. Poetry of Tomasz Bąk is the focal point of the Presentations section, accompanied by a an interview and essays analyzing the poet's work from linguistic, sociological and performative perspectives. The issue is completed by the Varia section, including texts on the economy of literature, the specificity of sources in Yiddish language, and a metacritic reflection centered around the thirty years of contemporary Polish literature.