Critical Theory and Critical Genres

This book is the result of a shared conviction of the necessity to advance the international discourse on criticism. It positions itself within contemporary considerations of the theory and practice of criticism and presents texts by Polish scholars (e.g. literary critical theory, feminism, genre studies, and comparative literature).

Charles Russell is Professor Emeritus of English and American Studies at Rutgers University, Newark, New Jersey (USA), where he was Director of American Studies and Associate Director of the Institute on Ethnicity, Culture, and the Modern Experience. Arne Melberg gained his PhD in Literature at the University of Stockholm (Sweden) and is now Professor in Comparative Literature at the University of Oslo (Norway). Jaros?aw P?uciennik is Professor Ordinarius of the Humanities at the Chair of Theory of Literature at the Institute of Contemporary Culture, University of ?ód? (Poland) with specialization in literary culture, cognitive semiotics, and new media of reading. Micha? Wróblewski is a PhD student at the Institute of Contemporary Culture at the University of Lód? (Poland). He has published on pop culture, cognitive cultural studies and critical theory.

Contents: Ewa Kraskowska: A Critique of Criticism – Pawe? ?uków: Kant’s Redefinition of Reason: Criticism, Freedom, Enlightenment – El?bieta Winiecka: Distance - the Figure of Modernity – Marek Ka?mierczak: Literary Theory as Critical Epistemology and Deontology: Notes on the Concerns in Fiction in Relation to the Images of the Holocaust in Mass Media – Olga P?aszczewska: Comparative Literature: Metacriticism and its Paradoxes – Danuta Ulicka: The Protocol and the Magazine. Two Styles of Literary Criticism in the So-called Russian Formalism – Danuta Szajnert: The Subversive Potential of an Apocryphon – Natalia Lemann: Could We Conserve Ourselves From the Past? Alternates Histories and Uchronias as Literary Apories of Politics and Historical Knowledge – Magdalena Bednarek: Leaving the Tower. Feminist Rewriting of Fairy Tales in the Contemporary Polish Prose since 1989 – Izabella Adamczewska: The Ecological Novel as a Critical Genre – Micha? Wróblewski: The Evolutionary Potential of Metacriticality in Reference to «Watchmen» - the Graphic Novel by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons – Agnieszka Karpowicz: Logo-visual Genres. From Criticism of Language to Social Critique.