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AFGHANISTAN >>>
AL-ANDALUS >>> ALBANIA >>> ALGERIA >>> ANDORRA >>> ANGOLA >>> ANTIGUA & BARBUDA >>> ARGENTINA >>> ARMENIA >>> AUSTRALIA >>> AUSTRIA >>> AZERBAIJAN >>> BAHAMAS >>> BAHRAIN >>> BANGLADESH >>> BARBADOS >>> BELARUS >>> BELGIUM >>> BELIZE >>> BENIN >>> BHUTAN >>> BOLIVIA >>> BOSNIA & HERZEGOVINA >>> BOTSWANA >>> BRAZIL >>> BRUNEI >>> BULGARIA >>> BURYATIA >>> BURKINA FASO >>> BURUNDI >>> CAMBODIA >>> CAMEROON >>> CATALONIA >>> CANADA >>> CAPE VERDE >>> CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC >>> CHAD >>> CHILE >>> CHINA >>> COLOMBIA >>> COMOROS >>> CONGO >>> COOK ISLANDS >>> COSTA RICA >>> CROATIA >>> CUBA >>> CYPRUS >>> CZECH REPUBLIC >>> DENMARK >>> DJIBOUTI >>> DOMINICA >>> DOMINICAN REPUBLIC >>> ECUADOR >>> EGYPT >>> EL SALVADOR >>> EQUATORIAL GUINEA >>> ERITREA >>> ESTONIA >>> ETHIOPIA >>> FIJI >>> FINLAND >>> FRANCE >>> GABON >>> GAMBIA >>> GEORGIA >>> GERMANY >>>
GHANA >>> GREECE >>> GREAT BRITAIN >>> GRENADA >>> GUATEMALA >>> GUINEA >>> GUINEA-BISSAU >>> GUYANA >>> HAITI >>> HONDURAS >>> HUNGARY >>> ICELAND >>> INDIA >>> INDONESIA >>> IRAN >>> IRAQ >>> IRELAND>>> ISRAEL >>> ITALY >>> IVORY COAST >>> JAMAICA >>> JAPAN >>> JORDAN >>> KAZAKHSTAN >>> KENYA >>> KIRIBATI >>> KOREA >>> KUWAIT >>> KYRGYZSTAN >>> LAOS >>> LATVIA >>> LEBANON >>> LESOTHO >>> LIBERIA >>> LIBYA >>> LIECHTENSTEIN >>> LITHUANIA >>> LUXEMBOURG >>> MACEDONIA >>> MADAGASCAR >>> MALAWI >>> MALAYSIA >>> MALDIVES >>> MALI >>> MALTA >>> MARSHALL ISLANDS >>> MAURITANIA >>> MAURITIUS >>> MEXICO >>> MICRONESIA >>> MOLDOVA >>> MONACO >>> MONGOLIA >>> MONTENEGRO >>> MOROCCO >>> MOZAMBIQUE >>> MYANMAR >>> NAMIBIA >>> NAURU >>> NEPAL >>> NETHERLANDS >>> NEW ZEALAND >>> NICARAGUA >>> NIGER >>> NIGERIA >>> NORWAY >>>
OMAN >>> PAKISTAN >>> PALAU >>> PALESTINE >>> PANAMA >>> PAPUA NEW GUINEA >>> PARAGUAY >>> PERU >>> PHILIPPINES >>> POLAND >>> PORTUGAL >>> QATAR >>> ROMANIA >>> RUSSIA >>> RWANDA >>> SAHRAWI REPUBLIC >>> SAINT KITTS & NEVIS >>> SAINT LUCIA >>> SAINT VINCENT & GRENADINES >>> SAMOA >>> SAN MARINO >>> SÃO TOMÉ & PRINCIPE >>> SAUDI ARABIA >>> SCOTLAND >>> SENEGAL >>> SERBIA >>> SEYCHELLES >>> SICILY >>> SIERRA LEONE >>> SINGAPORE >>> SLOVAKIA >>> SLOVENIA >>> SOLOMON ISLANDS >>> SOMALIA >>> SOUTH AFRICA >>> SPAIN >>> SRI LANKA >>> SUDAN >>> SURINAME >>> SWAZILAND >>> SWEDEN >>> SWITZERLAND >>> SYRIA >>> TAJIKISTAN >>> TANZANIA >>> THAILAND >>> TIBET >>> |
a global scrapbookIt has been one of those leading dreams of modernity to make a complete collection of the world. Grandiose institutions have been built to host such collections: of art, of butterflies, of ethnic artefacts gathered by imperial expeditions. My collection of images and stories is private and non-hegemonic, yet it has its own aspirations of being exhaustive, at least to such a degree that each country (in cultural and natural, rather than political sense) has at least something: a poem, a story, a cultural practice to represent it. Just a glimpse that brings about another glimpse, and another, till an intricate, detailed image should emerge. In fact, I am also interested in ignorance, the cultural frontiers of knowledge. We move in determined cultural horizons that put some parts of the world in the limelight, while other places remain in the shadow. Just to give an example, Guinea-Bissau is quite a visible place from Lisbon, while quite invisible from Kraków. As I move between my academic locations, I can observe countries, cultures, languages suddenly jump out of nowhere.
This is how, searching for a way of spending my life, I decided to make a complete collection of the world through my own real and imaginary expeditions. Completeness is a work-in-progress of course, implying a growing density of perception, descending to tiny identities, ethnic groups, places few people ever heard about. I would not hear about many of them myself, were it not for this project. It consists mainly in reading world literature, often as I move from one place to another, but there is more: also art, cinematographic narrations, and music, although in the last domain I am the least expert and have lesser means of providing commentary or analysis of any sort. Be that as it may, it is all about experiencing the world, being one with it. All the drama of such an endeavour comes from the fact that I am someone who comes from such a marginal, closed space, where books of the world arrive late, if ever. The reading notes and essays that I gather in this section must thus be seen as a self-analysis of an ignorant, fighting to get out of darkness. For a long time, I was rejecting the idea of realising this project, even if it appealed to me so much; I thought it is a loss of time, dragging me away from the serious academic work I should be doing. This is why I tried to stop myself from making this sort of universal collection; in vain. And I must say that this section of my website is a fruit of a genuine passion; I was often experiencing what the psychologists call the flow, unable to count the hours spent on choosing and editing my pictures, writing my texts, thinking about books I had read in more or less distant past, gathering the scarce and chaotic information on the world that I might have received in difference moments since primary school, since my first fascination with the world as a child. Associating World Literature with my own biography, formation, actual travels that I could have under different historical and economical circumstances. Certainly, to do so is contrary to academic usages to which I had been trained. And more, perhaps against the very habits of self-restriction imposed upon me as a woman. To be a globetrotter, to be a polyglot, even to be a photographer, these are things good for other, better than me: dominant, privileged, male. These are things for professionals acquiring great visibility: people from television, journalists, travelebrities. But I knew that the narrations they produced were usually shallow, simplistic. At least in Poland, where I am from; there is a reason, I think, why this page is not written in Polish: because those people who read in Polish are usually glad and content with those simplistic renderings of the world they receive. Perhaps such an endeavour would be much more useful, if my notes were written in Polish, not in English. Once I even asked for a small grant destined for the vulgarisation projects; but it was denied to me; I suppose that hose people responsible for distributing money thought precisely this: that we have so many travelebrities already, so many colourful reviews publishing nice pictures from all around the world. This is how I got this sensations that the Poles have no need of me whatsoever. Globally, I suppose, someone might eventually need me. The Poles do not. Apparently, there is no horizon of knowledge and awareness, nowadays, with all the electronic means, with all the information industry working 24 hours a day to bring the news closer to us. It is a paradox that we remain in a state of world blindness, unaware of what world really is and unable to make sense of it. In this section of my website, I collect countries, including my own, about which I know a lot, where I stayed for some considerable time, on which I have published academically. But the part I consider the most interesting and authentic is where I search for countries, peoples, languages and cultures of which I initially had nothing but the name. Is their existence as insignificant, as meaningless to us as it seems? They might have been silenced, for a reason or another, by some power controlling the flow of information, deciding what is important and interesting, and what is not. They might also be silenced by our sheer ignorance, our inability of going as far as it would be necessary to meet them. As I scratch the world, there are more and more things that appear, and the understanding I reach often concerns more than just the peoples and cultures in question. Finally, as the years passed by, I became a full professor in Poland, and I would say quite an excellent one, at least for the country's modest conditions. At a given stage some awareness appeared that the nation might actually need my competence; if not for the vulgarisation, at least as a member of various committees attributing academic degrees to younger scholars studying exotic authors; while the great bulk of older professors who ever achieved higher academic distinctions were specialised either in Polish literature, or in any of the major ones (English, German, French, Russian). This is how I ended up gaining some sort of importance; and I refer to those experiences here, mentioning some books and academic dissertations published by Polish scholars. I suppose those texts, otherwise rather modest and as a rule dealing with phenomena that had been already very well studied elsewhere, would be invisible in the international context. But overall, I do not believe I might ever become truly popular, either in academia or in front of the general public. I am too complex, too extravagant for my country; people are afraid of me. I used to be invited for debates and events before, many years ago, but not any more now. This is why my world collection couldn't be more private, more intimate, in spite of those academic glimpses I've just mentioned. I'm not a professional of those things. I have no servitude. One day, in some distant year to come, the collection will be complete, and perhaps at that future moment some people may discover it and study it as a thing of the past, a testimony what the world might have been for a Pole, a female, a refugee, a survivor. After all, being a specialist in World Literature is quite an acceptable academic job description. If one manages to make things dense enough. In any case, I have right to make my world collection privately, startig from tiny bits and fragments and making it grow. Just like other people collect postal stamps from all over the world; I did it as a child. Now I collect images and narrations. That's all. |
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