Travelling Concepts
Of Mythologists and Abjection: Reading Barthes' Mythologist Figure Through the Lens of Abjection
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Matteo Kobza
Roland Barthes' discussion of myth in "Myth Today" produces, almost as a by-product, the figure of the mythologist, that is, of the one who is able to identify – to see through – the 'double system' of myth. Put differently, the text's discussion of myth (re-)produces its readers – and literary scholars more generally – as figures that occupy a very particular position in relation to myth. More specifically, they are placed in the position of an outsider, of one who, because of their understanding of myth, can never again be truly immersed in it. This paper, then, makes use of Julia Kristeva's notion of abjection to explore the precarious position of the mythologist. Importantly, this is not an attempt at bluntly forcing one theoretical framework onto the other, simply because it is possible. Instead, it is an exploration of how ideas can traverse each other, as one idea comes to illuminate and draw to the fore what remains at the margins in the other. Accordingly, this paper does not claim that the mythologist clearly is or is not an abject figure. Instead, it illustrates that, by thinking through the lens of Kristeva's framework, aspects of myth which would otherwise remain intangible in Barthes’ text can be made available for exploration. In this way, it aims to not only illuminate the role of the mythologist, but also performatively demonstrate that letting one idea travel through another can be particularly fruitful when the connection between them is not necessarily obvious.
The Conceptions of Gaston Bachelard in the Present-day Poland
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Malgorzata Fabrycy
Gaston Bachelard, (1884-1962), was a French philosopher and an author of multiple conceptions. At the beginning of his carrier, he was occupied mainly by the sciences and epistemology, but later in his life he developed also the poetics of imagination, and, less know, the philosophy of vertical time. This theory concentrates on being in the moment and shows how this state of mind translates into the creative act, and into the poetry. For this reason, Bachelard’s conceptions influenced profoundly the XXth century Humanism and gave us the new tools to understand its representations in the literature. Moreover, thanks to their universal dimension, his conceptions are still recognized as relevant in many disciplines all over the world. That being said, interest in his work is not equal across countries. The aim of our paper will be to analyze the impact that Bachelard’s ideas had on the Polish humanist circles (philosophers and literary critics) and the state of the research in this domains in Poland during the last few decades. It is all the more interesting that some of his books have not even been translated into Polish yet. Therefore, we take a closer look at the possible causes and effects of this situation.
The Qing Travellers in Europe - Cultural Identity, Gender Identification and Representation : A Perspective of Transcultural Translation
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Yuan Gao
This study examines Chinese travel writings during the latter half of the 19th century, with a particular focus on the complexities of gender identification and representation. Seeing these travels as transcultural practice and these travel writings as transcultural translation (both literally and metaphorically), this study analyses the linguistic features and their cultural manifestations and implications, aiming to reveal the process by which notions on gender were translated and transferred across linguistic and cultural boundaries, and how this played a role in shaping perceptions of foreign lands and cultures. As the travellers, exclusively male and primarily literati-officials, crossed the ocean and engaged with people from a different cultural context, the very concepts of masculinity and femininity, morality and immorality, as well as propriety and impropriety, underwent significant transformation. Thus, their encounters with Europeans were accompanied by perplexity and difficulty in identifying gender and understanding gender roles. By examining the moments where perplexities or difficulties arise, this study reveals the contrasting gender ideologies intertwined in and beyond the language. One major finding is that the travellers attempted to incorporate alien European women into the Confucian symbolic system to contend with their perceived menace. As a result, they either idealized European women as Confucian “Mingfu” or “Guixiu” for diplomatic reasons, or sexualized and even stigmatized them as contrary to Confucian morality based on their appearance and behaviour.
