DATE

SUBJECT OF THE MEETING

 DURATION

Wednesday
Oct. 22th
Room 1.48
Neophilologies Building
13:00-14:30

Meeting One: Why Study Literature and Film?

This introductory lecture addresses problems related to the  transformations of Western culture and literary sensitivity throughout the ages.  Questions raised include:

• What is the relationship between literature and language?
• What is the relationship between literature and metalanguage?
• What is a metanarrative?
• How is literature related to metanarratives in time of a crisis? Of War? Of radical transformations?
• In what sense does literature search for language?
• Towards the canon...

Homework:
Explain the following concepts

• a metanarrative
• a canon
• demise of metanarratives

90 minutes

Wednesday
 Oct. 29th
Room 1.48
Neophilologies Building
13:00-14:30

Meeting Two: Metanarratives and Suspension of Disbelief

The second introductory lecture is dedicated to the fates of the  fantastic in the culture. Questions we will try to address include:

• In what sense are science fiction and fantasy similar to fairy tales and magic tales?
• What do the words "once upon a time" do?
• In what sense is this phrase a stylistic marker of a "convention of a fairy tale"?
• In what way is it parallel to "A long time ago in a galaxy far far away..."?
• How do such phrases decentralize the conventional, mimetic discourse of realism?
• How does the mechanism of the suspension of disbelief work?
• How is our language related to the shape of our world in the context of logocentrism?

Homework:

• Reflect upon the concept of the willing suspension of disbelief
• Reflect upon the idea of logocentrism
• Re-read fairy tales you know from your childhood
• Are fairy tales necessarily for children? Why? Why not?
• Read my article "Poza murami Sandomierza"
  

 90 minutes

Wednesday
Nov. 5th
Room 1.48
Neophilologies Building
13:00-14:30

Meeting Three: On Dangerous Fairy Tales

The meeting assumes the form of a lecture dedicated to one of the most intruguing cinematic fairy tales of the recent years, Shrek. The goal of the talk is to offer a starting point for a discussion relating to a plethora of complex problems emerging in the context of the so-called "cultural Other." The argumentation of the paper is presented in the light of selected, widely acclaimed products of American popular culture, or - more precisely - American popular film as it functions in academic contexts and in the context of Polish-American cultural relations. The presentation concentrates upon the problem of the so-called "visible/invisible otherness," i.e.: racial otherness, or otherness understood as a breach with the cultural stereotype of beauty as presented in a contemporary postmodern "crackpot" fairy-tale of Shrek. The discussion thus aims at indicating pro-social stances, which American-made "wild fairy-tale" of Shrek seems to promote, and, subsequently, at analyzing processes related to the directionality of the transfer of such values from the dominant culture (the donor of values) to dominated cultures (acceptors of values). The methodological frames of the presentation are determined by poststructural literary, theory of culture and theory of translation. This talk offers a close reading of the movie as a short deconstructive history of otherness in . It examines the international poupularity of the film in light of its cultural tranlatability; the genesis from William Steig’s book SHREK to the movie; Shrek as a fairy tale about Beauty and Order

Homework:

• Watch the original movie Shrek (not the sequel)
  
• Read websites related to William Steig's Shrek
• Thoroughly study the website of "Without Sanctuary"
• Read the story "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Remember that in the original the story is subtitles "A Tale for Children." Why?

90 minutes

Wednesday
Nov. 12th
Room 1.48
Neophilologies Building
13:00-14:30

Meeting Four: The Other Revisited

Back to  debate: we will make an attempt at defining possible approaches to otherness in literary and cinematic imagination pertaining to out subject:

• Why is "The Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" a problematic character?
• How does human capability of "skipping over the inconvenience of wings" relate to the ability to suspend disbelief?
• Why is it "easy" to kill Orcs?
• Who are enemies in popular SF and fantasy films? In fairy tales?
• Who are the enemies in the Star Wars series?
• Eyes, imagination and binarity of the construction of the Star Wars

Homework:

• Read: Playing in the Dark: Whiteness in Literary Imagination by Toni Morrison
• Read my article "Obrazy z ekfrazy"
• Read the "Introduction" to Ralph Ellison's The Invisible Man

90 minutes

Wednesday
Nov. 19th
Room 1.48
Neophilologies Building
13:00-14:30

Meeting Five: Toward the Star Wars: On Post-War

The meeting is dedicated to an overview of the most important social and cultural phenomena of post-war . Issues raised in the discussion ought to concern:

• The significance of the A-bomb
• Civil Rights Movement
• Black Power Movement and the Nation of Islam
• The rise of feminist movement
• The Beatniks and the Hippies
• Politics, literature and cinema: from Red Scare to Atomic Cafe

Homework:

• Study thoroughly the hyperlinks above
• Study the following speeches: "I Have a Dream" (text) and MP3 - Martin Luther King, "The Ballot or the Bullet" (text) and MP3
• Refresh your memory of The Pioneers by James Fenimore Cooper
• Read my article Limes Culturae
• Read Art Redding's article "Mitografie z Pogranicza"
• Read Frederic Jackson Turner's "The Significance of the Frontier in American History"

 90 minutes

Wednesday
Nov. 26th
Room 1.48
Neophilologies Building
13:00-14:30

Meeting Six: Tatooine: The Outer Territories

The meeting is dedicated the discussion concerning equality, liberty and pursuit of happiness as central values of the American metanarrative in the context of the discussion of the American West. Issues raised will concern the following

• Han Solo as a Western Hero
• Luke Skywalker's story as Bildungsroman
• Permeability of the Frontier
• Jabba the Hutt/Cattle Barons
• America vs. the Evil Empire

Homework:

• Watch any classic western movie at home (e.g. The Stagecoach, Who Killed Liberty Valance or How the West was Won)
• Refresh your memory of Nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson
• What is Oversoul?

 90 minutes

Wednesday
Dec. 3rd
Room 1.48
Neophilologies Building
13:00-14:30

Meeting Seven: May the Force be with You

The meeting is dedicated to the central concept of the Star Wars: The Force. Questions raised respect the following issues:

• The Force and Buddhism
• The Force and Transcendentalism
• The Force and Midichlorians
• The Force and the Jedi

Homework:

• Answer the following question: in what way does the change of the approach to the Force between the episode VI and episode I testify to the change of the poetics of the film and how does this relate to the consummeristic aestheticization of the film?

 90 minutes

Wednesday
Dec. 10th
Room 1.48
Neophilologies Building
13:00-14:30

Meeting Eight: Towards a Christian Narrative and Commercial Success

Watching Episode I: The Phantom Menace

Homework:

• Answer the following question: in what way does the Star Wars narrative correspond to the narratives of the Lord of the Rings and the Matrix
• Prepare pictures of Star Wars gadgets or Star Wars based merchandise; prepare Star Wars based commercials (download them from the web), be ready to discuss such items.
  

 90 minutes

Wednesday
Dec. 17th
Room 1.48
Neophilologies Building
13:00-14:30

Meeting Nine: Star Wars Gadgets and Commercials

 90 minutes

Jan. 7th-14th
room 304
Żytnia 12
14:40-16:20

Meeting Ten: After Star Wars

Individual conferences dedicated to papers, credits

 by appointment