Acta Neophilologica

Die vernachlässigten Pionierinnen: Postmigrantische Perspektiven auf die Gastarbeiterinnen im Roman "Die Optimistinnen" von Gün Tank

2025-01-27T16:29:57+00:00

This paper examines the debut novel "Die Optimistinnen" (2022) by Gün Tank, exploring its narrative strategies for rewriting the history of post-war West Germany. The novel challenges traditional historiography by presenting the voices and experiences of female guest workers from the perspective of a postmigrant narrator. It portrays these women not only as contributors to Germany’s economic reconstruction but also as catalysts for social and political transformation and highlights their pivotal role in advancing labour rights and reshaping societal structures. Drawing on postmigrant studies, this paper argues that Die Optimistinnen reframes our understanding of migration, agency and historical belonging, offering a powerful critique of exclusionary narratives.

Die „schöpferische Indifferenz“ des „Nicht-Journalisten“: Karl Kraus’ jüdische Identitätsdiskurse im Licht und Schatten von Salomo Friedlaender, Dada und Gestalttherapie

2025-03-29T10:33:16+00:00

This paper explores the relationship between Karl Kraus, Salomo Friedlaender, Dadaism, and Gestalt therapy in the context of anti-Semitic discourse and Jewish identity construction (1900–1933). Rather than the term “anti-journalist,” Friedlaender’s concept of “creative indifference” is proposed to describe Kraus’s subversive stance. The article examines Kraus’s connection to Friedlaender, stylistic parallels, and their relevance to Jewish self-positioning. Kraus’s attitude is interpreted as a universalist attempt to resist fixed identity by embracing creative detachment.

Die Wende zum Täter in der Holocaustliteratur

2024-12-12T15:23:44+00:00

The article deals with the perpetrator perspective in studies on Holocaust and Holocaust literature. It focuses on autobiographical notes of Rudolf Höss, the infamous commandant of Auschwitz, who reports in a calm, matter-of-fact tone on the mass extermination techniques used in the camp he supervised. The paper also analyses two other novels – Death is My Trade (1952) by Robert Merle, and Jonathan Littell’s The Kindly Ones (2006). Through the example of their fictional protagonists who are both Nazi criminals, the authors point out to the dangers associated with acknowledging the views of a perpetrator, especially in the literary representation of Shoah.

Traumatyczne doświadczenie wojny i emigracji. Arturo Barea (1897–1957)

2025-02-06T19:43:33+00:00

Through an analysis of the prose of the Spanish writer Arturo Barea, the article discusses the issue of emigration caused by the Civil War of 1936–1939. In several of Barea’s works, we learn about the complicated situation of a refugee who must face traumatic memories of the war, along with the difficulties in adapting to the new post-war reality. Emigration is associated with a longing for one’s homeland and family. Moreover, it may often create a sense of failure in life. Years later, when a refugee returns to the country of origin, a feeling of alienation arises due to the experience of being “out-of-time”. There is only one short story in which Barea presents a positive picture of life in exile.

Хронотоп войны: антивоенное послание в современной русскоязычной драме

2025-03-05T08:51:24+00:00

Russian-language anti-war drama of 2022–2025, centered around the Echo of Lyubimovka festival, is not only a collection of highly relevant texts that construct a vision of wartime reality and the individual’s existence within it but also an invaluable document of the era—a collective testimony of its time. In this article, we examine key categories of the war chronotope as an embodiment of crisis time and space in anti-war plays from the festival’s repertoire (including Vanya Is Alive by N. Lizorkina, An Animal Attacked by Y. Tupikina) and outline the principles of crisis consciousness that dominate contemporary Russian-language anti-war drama.

Webb’s Shropshire and Hardy’s Wessex: Literary and Geographical Influences on the Early Novels of Mary Webb

2025-02-04T14:11:28+00:00

Mary Webb, whose novels and poetry portray her native county of Shropshire, was a keen reader of Thomas Hardy. Several biographers and scholars – including Gladys Mary Coles, Andrew Radford and Carol Siegel – have noted Hardy’s influence in her work. However, while these authors have explored aspects such as sexual politics, classical myth, and biographical details, they have focussed less upon Webb’s use and description of landscape, as well as Shropshire mythology and folklore. This article will build upon a small amount of research by these scholars, and not only examine the influence of Hardy’s works in Webb’s own writing but also note how she developed her own style stimulated by Hardian influence. It can be assumed that Webb’s use of local legends, vernacular, and landscape mirrors, to some extent, Hardy’s aesthetic depiction of his native Wessex. Additionally, her use of legend and folk beliefs creates a kind of Gothic rendering of a fictional Shropshire, akin to some of Hardy’s portrayals of Wessex. This article examines Webb’s life and literary influences – particularly Hardy, to whom she dedicated her fourth novel – and, following Coles, considers how her time spent living in the West Country, influenced the creation of her first novel.

Kommunikation beim Klettern aus pragmatischer und lexikalischer Sicht

2025-04-05T17:35:44+00:00

Im vorliegenden Beitrag wird die Monographie Zur Kommunikation von Kletternden – eine pragmatisch und lexikalisch orientierte Analyse von Krzysztof Sakowski besprochen, in der die Kommunikation von Kletternden aus pragmatischer und lexikalischer Perspektive untersucht wird. Die Studie analysiert die Klettersprache im Deutschen und im Polnischen, wobei sowohl Fachterminologie als auch umgangssprachliche Begriffe betrachtet werden. Ein besonderer Fokus liegt auf der Struktur und Funktion von Seilkommandos, der Benennung von Kletterrouten sowie der Entwicklung des Kletterjargons im Zuge neuer Disziplinen wie Bouldern oder Free-Solo-Klettern. Zudem wird die Rolle digitaler Medien bei der Verbreitung und Standardisierung der Kletterlexik beleuchtet. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass sich die Sprache des Kletterns durch eine Mischung aus präziser technischer Kommunikation und kreativ geprägtem Soziolekt auszeichnet, der sich stetig weiterentwickelt.

Getting to Grips with Wrestling History and its Uses for Literary Scholars

2025-02-03T17:27:25+00:00

The history of traditional wrestling is arguably little known amongst many literary scholars, and yet the sport features in a number of historic literary texts, including some by Shakespeare, Chaucer and Thomas Hardy as well as more recent authors such as Winston Graham. This review article suggests that a literary scholar might benefit from learning more about the sport history. Mike Tripp’s Cornish Wrestling: A History is an examination of a little known and, currently, little practised sport which was once popular in both England and amongst the English diaspora, featuring in a number of nineteenth-century English novels, such as R.D. Blackmore’s Lorna Doone. The review shows how Tripp’s detailed history of the sport might be used to illustrate potentially useful details in selected literary texts, which might otherwise be obscure to a literary researcher, including examination of the wider culture and practice of wrestling in the English West Country, and remarks on how the history of Cornwall can explain the sport’s presence and role in various literary texts.

Rosyjski kolonializm i Polacy

2025-05-03T06:23:18+00:00

The book by Karina Gaibulina (Ethnographers Under Coercion. Polish Exiles in the Colonial Service of the Russian Empire, WUW, Warszawa 2024) deals with the part that Polish exiles (Adolf Januszkiewicz, Bronisław Zaleski, Seweryn Gross) played in the colonial expansion of the Russian Empire in 19th century. The basic methodological perspective of the work are post-colonial studies and the theory of orality and literacy. The review presents the book by Gaibulina from a historical-literary perspective (historical-literary and genological context, theory of orality and literacy, post-colonial studies). An interpretive background are the traditional historical-literary and historical studies on stay of the Poles in Siberia and Central Asia in 19th century (Zofia Trojanowiczowa, Antoni Kuczyński, Wiktoria Śliwowska and others). Karina Gaibulina graduated from the University of Warsaw and University of St. Gallen (Switzerland).

Modyfikacje językowe jako przejaw postkolonialnej transkulturowości w oryginale i przekładzie

2025-03-19T11:09:34+00:00

This paper raises the issue of transculturality in Portuguese-language African literatures and draws attention to the difficulties of showing transculturality in translation. It describes the meaning of transcultural transformations in postcolonial literature and looks for their manifestations, focusing especially on modifications of common expressions, proverbs and phraseological compounds that indicate the fusion of traditional orality with writing, in order to adapt the official language (Portuguese) to the described (African) reality. The comparative material comes from the novel Terra sonâmbula by Mia Couto (Mozambique) and its translation into Polish by Michał Lipszyc.

Artykuł porusza zagadnienie transkulturowości w portugalskojęzycznych literaturach afrykańskich i zwraca uwagę na trudności związane z ukazywaniem jej w przekładzie. Opisuje znaczenie transkulturowych modyfikacji w literaturze postkolonialnej i szuka ich przejawów, skupiając się szczególnie na modyfikacjach potocznych wyrażeń, związków frazeologicznych i przysłów, które wskazują na łączenie tradycyjnej oralność z literaturą w celu dostosowania języka urzędowego (portugalskiego) do opisywanej (afrykańskiej) rzeczywistości. Materiał porównawczy został zaczerpnięty z powieści Terra sonâmbula autorstwa Mii Couto (Mozambik) i jej tłumaczenia na język polski, dokonanego przez Michała Lipszyca.

Etos akademicki – historia i tradycja wobec wyzwań współczesności (próba rekapitulacji dyskusji)

2025-04-03T17:51:40+00:00

The text is devoted to the academic ethos and aims to indicate the most important issues related to this problem. Individual thematic threads have been arranged and presented in the following order: 1. discussions and legal acts as well as publications devoted to the ethos from the end of the twentieth century to recent years; 2. history of the concept; 3. an attempt to find the essence of ethos and define it; 4. indication of certain types and categories of description of the ethos of science; 5. presentation of contemporary changes related to the globalization of science.

Potencjał tekstów literackich w rozwijaniu refleksji językowo-kulturowej na lekcji języka obcego

2025-04-10T20:46:10+00:00

The question of whether foreign language literary texts, due to their specific character and interpretation possibilities, should play a significant role in language education will be answered in the affirmative by many foreign language educators (in Poland). However, the omission of literary texts, both in foreign language textbooks and in foreign language classes, stands in opposition to the stance presented above. The aim of this article is to recapitulate the value of multi-perspective foreign language literary texts in language education, paying particular attention to their invaluable potential in the context of shaping reflexivity as well as developing learners’ linguistic and cultural reflection, i.e. the ability to think, reflect, analyse and infer in depth.

Na pytanie, czy obcojęzyczne teksty literackie z uwagi na swoją specyfikę i możliwości interpretacyjne, powinny odgrywać w kształceniu językowym znaczącą rolę, udzieli wielu dydaktyków języków obcych (w Polsce) twierdzącej odpowiedzi. Pomijanie tekstów literackich tak w podręcznikach do nauki języków obcych, jak i na lekcjach języków obcych stoi jednak w opozycji do wyżej zaprezentowanego stanowiska. Celem niniejszego artykułu jest ponowne przypomnienie wartości wieloperspektywicznych obcojęzycznych tekstów literackich w kształceniu językowym, ze szczególnym zwróceniem uwagi na ich nieocenione możliwości w kontekście kształtowania refleksyjności oraz rozwijania refleksji językowo-kulturowej uczących się, tj. umiejętności pogłębionego myślenia, rozważania, analizowania i wnioskowania.