Since “we live in a culture of confession” (Gilmore 2001: 2; Rak 2005: 2) a rapidly growing popularity of various forms of life writing seems understandable. The question of memory is usually an important part of the majority of autobiographical texts. Taking into account both the popularity of life writing genres and their recent proliferation, it is interesting to see how the question “what would we be without memory?” (Sebald 1998 [1995]: 255) resonates within more experimental auto/biographical texts such as a graphic memoir/novel I Was a Child of Holocaust Survivors (2006) by Bernice Eisenstein and a volume of illustrated poetry and a biographical elegy published together as Correspondences (2013) by Anne Michaels and Bernice Eisenstein. These two experimental works, though representing disparate forms of writing, offer new stances on visualization of memory and correspondences between text and visual image. The aim of this paper is to analyze the ways in which the two authors discuss memory as a fluid concept yet, at the same time, one having its strong, ghostly presence. The discussion will also focus on the interplay between memory and postmemory as well as correspondences between the texts and the equally important visual forms accompanying them such as drawings, portraits, sketches, and the bookbinding itself.
This paper explores the possibilities of introducing contemporary Canadian texts into a Polish university classroom. It contextualizes teaching English language literature in Poland as well as seeks options for promoting values such as openness and tolerance while facilitating global reading and raising students’ awareness on global conflicts and their meaning in the contemporaneous world. The paper aims at demonstrating that Canadian literature courses composed of texts concerned with immigration and multiculturalism turn out to have an enormous potential in creating valuable debates on the problem of embracing otherness, seeking bridges in mutual understanding, and promoting openness towards different identities. On the basis of close readings of three texts, M. Ondaatje’s The English Patient, A.J. Borkowski’s Copernicus Avenue, and E. Stachniak’s Necessary Lies, the present article also demonstrates how Canadian literature enriches and rescales students’ perception of cultural heterogeneity and responsibility of reading, thus offering new perspectives on the rapidly changing world.
Figura domu. Szkice o najnowszej anglojęzycznej literaturze emigrantów z ziem polskich i ich potomków w Kanadzie analizuje najnowszą, anglojęzyczną literaturę polskiej grupy etnicznej oraz potomków emigrantów z ziem polskich w Kanadzie. Twórczość ta rozwija się dynamicznie w ostatnich latach, a szczególny jej rozkwit można zaobserwować od 2010 roku. Tytułowa figura domu to zarówno oś analityczna wyznaczająca różnorodne podejścia do pojęcia domu, jak i metafora poszukiwania przynależności i zakorzenienia w Kanadzie. Wśród autorów, których twórczość została poddana analizie, znaleźli się pisarze znani i nagradzani – Ewa Stachniak, Andrew J. Borkowski i Katherine Koller; pisarze o korzeniach żydowskich, których przodkowie zamieszkiwali tereny Polski – Norman Ravvin, Anne Michaels i Bernice Eisenstein; a także autorki najmłodszego pokolenia – Aga Maksimowska, Kasia Jaronczyk i Jowita Bydlowska. Znajdujemy tu również dyskusję nad antologią pt. Polish(ed): Poland Rooted in Canadian Fiction oraz pamiętnikami emigrantów czy zapisami życia Marii F. Zielinskiej, Petera F. Dembowskiego, Felixa Opatowskiego, Betty Rich oraz Connie T. Braun. Ponadto książka zawiera sześć wywiadów przeprowadzonych w Kanadzie z wybranymi autorami, którzy mówią nie tylko o swojej twórczości, ale i o doświadczeniu migracji i zakorzenienia w Kanadzie, a także o swoich związkach z Polską.
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