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COLLECTIVE REPRESENTATIONS OF THE PAST AFTER WORLD WAR II: A PRELIMINARY OUTLINE[1]

AMELIA KORZENIEWSKA

 

In this article I would like to present only a few preliminary comments on an approach to the study of collective representations inspired by the post-Freudian tradition, broadly understood. The conceptual instruments developed within this tradition can, in my opinion, contribute much to the sociological and cultural-studies traditions of research on collective representations.[2] As we know, in the 1990s, a fundamental change was made in the study of social representations, due to generational change and the growing role of new mass media which brought about the consolidation of cultural models of post-modern societies. The transition from a “written culture” to an “iconographic” one took place where the function of the icon became significant. This change was accomplished through the departure from a belief in the fictitious and untrue character of collective images, toward the conviction of a fundamental, irreducible, and positively understood sense of human dependence on images, including those embodied in cultural products. On the other hand, in mass culture, an approach, fixed in the experience of totalitarian societies, here the image was very often the tool of propaganda manipulation, is no longer valid. On the contrary, nowadays, the role of cultural artefacts is stressed, not only the images but stories, myths, memory places, rituals, and stereotypes, characteristic of the common nature of collective experience. Therefore, the status of the image, interchangeably ideological in negative meaning, has been questioned. Researchers' attention focuses on their positive function, namely, building social ties and collective identity by creating a coherent image of community. In Central and Eastern European countries, this process is accompanied by a growing social interest by local researchers in their own history, evoked by sociopolitical changes after 1989, and  the development of studies on problems of “collective memory“ understood as a collection of images about history.[3] The group of these factors has led to the fact that today social images concerning the past are among those subject to the liveliest discussion, not only in science, but also in social and political life.

Freud has discussed this positive understanding of the relationship between memory and images as well as the role of irrational factors in the process of remembering, and contemporary memory researchers such as Aleida Assmann and Dominick La Capra have drawn on his work. The study of collective representations has emphasized their inextricable link with images, particularly those which concern the past.  Researchers have also drawn attention to the impacts of such established images on the development of ideas and the historical conditions of their construction.[4] It is emphasized that collective images representing a point of view characteristic of a group must, in a sense and by definition, be simplified, biased, and not free of distortions.  In Civilization and its Discontents, Freud exposes this aspect of the creation of images, showing, in the process of formation of all beliefs – whether false or not – the role of irrational motivating factors.  Recall that illusory beliefs arise when the balance between social reality and the “interests” of a person is disrupted.  The dominant factor in motivation toward action then becomes the realization of hidden desires. The power of imagination serves this end. Thus, any imagination whose content is always a particular image, and on which the work of fantasy can be observed, constitutes a distortion of reality. Consequently, when speaking of representations, Freud, while indicating participation in fantasy, identify it unequivocal with illusion.[5]   Above all, this applies to those images in which the relationship of content to reality is maintained – in the first place, images on the subject of the past, memory, and memory work.

The notion of the fictional character of images, in whose development fantasy has taken part, goes quite far in the post-Freudian tradition.  It shows that the distortion of the content of images, which may constitute a complete fiction, does not affect their function.  In other words, images may be socially effective even if their content bears no relation to reality.  This also applies to collective imaginations, which are defined from this perspective as socially shared fictions.

We are thus talking about a particular kind of representations: perceptions attributed to the other (others), so called in reference to Sartre’s “imagined gaze from the field of the other (Other),” or simply “imaginations of the other.”  The role of individual fantasy is emphasized in the creation of the abovementioned imaginations, and also as its source, but likewise dimensions of the gaze of the other, in the sense of “being observed by another.” A distinguishing feature of this type of representation is that particular notions are attributed to the other.  This forces certain social behaviors, adapted to the requirements of the assumed real, objective audience (the gaze of the other).  We may find them in different cultural practices: everyday “magical” practices, such as kissing a photograph of a beloved person; stereotypes, prejudices, mentalities, but also kinds of knowledge and forms of belief or ideology.  These imaginations are present in culture in a latent form, as resources, and lie within culture independently of its members’ individual identification with its contents, which will be discussed later. 

The form of these imaginations is at least as important, if not more so, than the accompanying contents and the way in which members of a given community respond to them, because depending on this, a symbolic structure – implicitly giving order to the whole social life of a given group – reveals itself.  Not taking into account that forms of social imagination are “imaginations of the other” can lead to “intercultural misunderstandings” – for example, if a model of belief is transferred from the culture within which it developed into another culture.  This is shown, for example, in R. Pfaller’s[6] analysis of primitive and Greek cultures in Illusion of the other: On the pleasure principle in culture; in the forms of distancing oneself from beliefs typical of one’s culture, significant discrepancies occur between the sphere of religious practice and collective imaginations that do not work today.  In contemporary culture, to believe means to “nourish a belief,” i.e., to identify oneself with the contents of religious imaginations.

              The problem of forms of imaginations, almost absent in the literature on collective representations in Poland, seems to take on particular significance in the context of the dominant role of media in today’s world.  Therefore, in addition to the consideration, based on the Polish literature, about the function of collective imagination in its community and nationwide dimensions and its significance for collective identity, we should also take into account the cultural conditions under which collective imagination arises, as these do indeed affect it.[7]

Cultural changes related to increases in mechanization and the role of media – connected with changes in perception of time and space, the domination of images and new forms of communication, and other processes such as the fluidity of social roles and the experience of a “lack of rootedness” characteristic of late modernity – have effects on processes of socialization, whose current forms differ from those that existed previously. Social processes including imaginations and their role in collective may be wrongly understood without taking into consideration the cultural aspect. As I have tried to show in the above mentioned example by contrasting traditional cultures  against  present cultures of “creed“ (confession), the source of misunderstanding  is the ignorance of rules working in society with foreign culture. This refers both to past and contemporary cultures.

Social psychologist M. Gauchet points out that in the era of late modernity, the process of individualization has gone so far that, in order to “be themselves,” social actors, instead of selecting from a pool of different lifestyles by identifying with a particular model or idea, tend to withdraw from the realm of what is common in order to divide the world into “that which interests me” and all the rest.  Individualization, in his opinion, is based on the rule of independence from others, to the extent that a shared perspective, in which I become to and for others, becomes impossible.  On the contrary, the contemporary autonomous “I” ignores membership in society and separates itself from the radical otherness that may question “me.”  The reverse side of this process is, however, dependence on the imagined gaze.  With regard to the role of the media, there is, however, a dependence, which realizes itself “outside,” without personal engagement in the lives of others and without internal reflection.  Many say that “being oneself” today means resigning oneself to the view of others, passive participation in their lives, and even living the life of another person (“being like the other”) – possibilities which are given by presence in the online network.

Therefore, since the principle regulating social life is not to become another, but the diffusion of individual identity by reference to “imaginations of the other,” the question arises as to whether and to what extent the form of imaginations may likewise have an effect on intra-social processes of integration and formation of collective identities. There is no doubt that collective representations constitute an essential factor in the formation of collective identity. Nevertheless, from this perspective, their effect on community integration does not result from identification with its image and feelings of belonging among its members.  On the contrary, collective representations functioning in the role of “imaginations of the other” lend themselves to fulfilling a more integrative role in late modern society than in traditional and modern societies, because current social models of behavior, due to their instability and the short time during which they are applicable, do not today exist exclusively so that one can identify with them. It seems obvious that if identification processes take place, they take the form of unconscious identification with images related to the other, in a spirit of distance to oneself and forgetting oneself.  This happens most often in front of a television set.

Here we can see what Freud meant by emphasizing the illusion of collective images. First, although the imagination basically belonging to oneself creates and selects them,  it seems that the reverse situation is possible. These images are not exclusively “our” products. It seems, in light of the above considerations, that we can “borrow” imagination from others.  Even if we accept  Lacan’s - one of the most prominent post-Freudians - presumption of misunderstanding in inter-human communication -   is a typical situation, according to him,  there are alleged, virtual others, who may simply not have anything in common with a particular person, and the status of the gaze of the other is phantasmatic.[8]  In this way, racial, gender, and other stereotypes are created and perpetuated.  We can also say that they may function well in the world of “political correctness” and can drive the behavior of people, even when the relationship of “I” with prejudice is denied. If the image of “I“  driven by a stereotype related to proposed classification is replaced by the image of the other as the one who acts in accordance to it. In such a way the conviction influences the behaviour of “I“, that at the same time denies being a prejudicial person. Now we can see to what extent the studies on images of our own collective hardly touches the relations taking place there.

This problem is particularly important at the level of collective imaginations concerning another group (not one’s own).  Stereotypes and prejudices, with which they must clarify particular actions of their representatives, are often attributed to them in an unjustified, simplified, and yet compelling manner.  This not only completely omits the fact of the role of such images of others in our own imagination, as well as the fact that these determine our actions, but also the lack of awareness that the other can have the same procedures.  In the study of collective representations, awareness of the relationship between prejudice (attributed to others) and social conduct in the group creating it often escapes attention, and the behavior of others is often received directly.  This is a consequence of the illusion of perspective, which is responsible for the fact that the same way of “being oneself” among others also guides “imaginations of the other,” which I erroneously interpret as the real manifestation of the other’s beliefs.

If we make this assumption about the exceptionality of the images of a given collective , we must not  prejudge them by their content, but by their social form and in what way and what  goals it is used for, and last but not least, by whether it is used in practical life by members of a given collective. A few problems are related to this issue: namely, how to understand this certainty and knowledge that accompanies such images?  The term of collective unconsciousness would be quite useful. Recalling the term of the collective unconsciousness is reported by Gauchet, which appeared in sociological research along with a tendency toward individualizing the community and the growth of self-consciousness in contemporary societies.[9] In the space of collective representations there are therefore two subsets.  The first is the realm of explicit images, that is to say, those that are directly expressed in the family, the media, and official speeches, in which the content of images becomes an expression of personal beliefs with which the person expressing them has fully identified.  This also applies to the whole sphere of human activity, which is an expression of the free will of individuals.  People who are authors or carriers of the afore mentioned ideas are followers, ideologues, researchers, and, in reference to representations dealing with the past: witnesses and victims (the perpetrator is in fact usually silent).  However, no less important is the second subset: the sphere of the collective unconsciousness, which includes “imaginations of the other” together with the whole sphere of collective symbols, from which resources are used, but nevertheless not always in the form of unambiguous identification. It concerns all the activities undertaken by the state, too.

Zaremba in his book “Big Fear“ (Wielka Trwoga) recalls the myths of the bloody Jewish matzah[10] while studying the impact of  extrarational psychological factors on the behaviour of Poles after the World War II. This myth has survived in Polish collective memory and renews itself regardless of the lack of real evidence that ritual killing of a child has ever been committed by Jews. The example shows that collective memory concerning the past has very little in common with reality. Looking from this perspective we talk rather about certain memory constructions formed from collective fantasies, psychosis, and emotions, which are also  influenced by  other factors such as feeling of guilt, silence of witnesses, long term stress, fear of illness or hunger. They are being absorbed without any afterthought and referred to in need, very often in extreme conditions in order to justify our deeds. It also shows that we should not belittle the context of individual experience and history, especially when they become the key to explaining the enigma of the collective unawareness and the results it evokes in the field of social practice.

Another problem is the issue of legitimacy in recalling the category of identity. Considering beyond the sphere of free choice, the role of extrarational factors and social determinants (worked out within the history of  the field of law, which P. Bourdieu has written about) and the fact that they influence social behaviours to an equal extent as conscious identification with given values, contents and cultural norms, the category of identity has no prominent  justification. Therefore it seems rational to apply the notion of habitus (the author mentioned above recalls) which emphasises the effective and practical, implicit knowledge of given groups members (fields) instead of recalling the notion of identity and the process of its construction. In the concept of habitus, belief in illusio, simplicity, obviousness and lack of recall of the principles of the common world and play are essential. I will come back to these issues in next part of the article.

I return now to the question of the illusory nature and particular attractiveness of collective representations in the form of “imaginations of the other,” and the resulting consequences. Collective imaginations may – and this is the second conclusion – function beyond the consciousness of the “I,” in a quasi-objective manner. S. Žižek[11] writes of the “subjective-objective” character of certain phenomena at the border of social and psychic reality, that is, those which have the characteristics of subjective experience, but which remain an element of so-called objective reality.  “Imaginations of the other” would imply the existence of an illusion understood as a self-delusion in the Kantian sense, i.e., as a weakness of the human mind.  In this sense, an illusion and the imagination that induce it constitute part of the subjective experience only to the extent that they would remain beyond human self-consciousness. With regard to its influence on human behaviours, it would testify as to the existence of images no one admits to and takes as his or her own. The “I“ does not identify itself with certain images, because it attributes these to the other.

At the same time, however, these imaginations exist in an objective manner as hidden cultural resources of a given community. As a result, in examining these imaginations, we can gain certain knowledge about a given community and the ways in which its habitus is constructed.[12] Although the process that guides itself by “imaginations of the other” remains obscured for me.  The same principle applies also within the frame of the community, such that part of the collective imagination remains in the sphere of the implicit and unconscious.

The third problem is related to the attractiveness of “imaginations of the other” in the current cultural epoch.  It depends on the way they are transferred into the sphere of social practice, despite the lack of identification with these imaginations. On a conscious level, the moment that imaginations assigned to the other become a phantasmatic explication of social conduct is overlooked.  Although I question the sense of certain imaginations, and do not attach myself to them in a lasting manner, they are not – as the other believes – emanations of his or her personality, and he or she does not identify him- or herself with the contents they carry, yet they determine his or her concrete social behaviors. This applies in particular to imaginations of the past, often derived – as researchers of late modernity emphasize – from cultural memory.[13]  As it seems, an easy access to images transmitted in public and mass media spheres, external to “I,”  influences the very process of being ahead of one’s time and displacing generational memory by a cultural one. This is done at the cost of their private, direct transmission within the closest family. Consequently, it is more difficult to identify oneself with given contents.

Fourth, the idea eventually “works” even when its content is illusory.  It is more effective the more the illusion is shared by the majority.  In the practice of social life, there is therefore little meaning for such content as we ascribe to the other. Belief that these contents are the authentic beliefs of the other influences the behavior of social actors. Images fulfill their role just because individuals submit to illusion  on the subject of the other and his convictions.

The illusion of which we are speaking becomes the condition of assimilating given contents as the guidelines in undertaking specific activities. As for the contents, their reality or rationalization is of secondary meaning for the “I” examining them, as he or she treats them as his or her own. We do not talk about images understood as the ability of imaging realistic visions which, regardless of the social practice, would function as a realization of pleasure.  On the contrary, images have the impact on the behaviour of “I,” as there are types of patterns determining its behaviour.

We are speaking here of unconscious structure, due to which and through which “things appear to us.”  In order to change something in this structure, I must overcome my own phantasmatic image of my own actions which accompanies it, and with the help of which the world is perceived and understood. We consider here the inner structure of “I,” which gives sense to his activities and behaviour. Due to this structure “I” stays in phantasmatic relation to the other (via existing imaginations about him) and himself, “I” testifies to his self-portrait and excuses himself in an unconscious, thoughtless way. It is directly related to the sphere of practice.

Imaginations of the other are constructed such that they maintain the illusion of self – for both myself and the other. And although we can speak here of the knowledge which the subject has, this is, however, not sufficient to clarify the situation in which I find myself.  I do not understand myself alone. Note that I, being guided by images of the other, am not in my own opinion, nor with that of someone who believes in these imaginations (often accompanied by individual attitudes of distance in response to practices of religion and tradition, nor with someone who thinks about this.  Therefore – this is the last conclusion – imaginations of the other compel us to specific social behaviors to a much greater extent than do imaginations of ourselves, and the knowledge that this is the case is obscured.  

Beyond the function of providing ready-made models of behavior and value, with which members of the group can generally identify, the meaning of imagination increases in this role, which other contemporary philosophers and sociologists, such as Bourdieu, Derrida, and Baudrillard show. As Bourdieu stresses, the thing that creates the social network is the belief in the game and its accompanying  which are to be realized within its frame as the common good, prosperity, happiness. These elements are included in the sphere of illusio, that is universal illusion, and are closer to imaginable range as they form rather imaginable than symbolic. It refers to these activities which were taken over by the state rather than symbolic identification. It is very characteristic for late-modern societies that the symbolic order, that is, the sphere of roles and social divisions, is submitted to what is imagined. A man faces impossible symbolic identification. Consequently he replaces it with the image becoming objective via social rituals and  symbolic personification  in the form of the figure of assumed presence of the other and his alleged glances and beliefs; namely, the  imagined  other.

This area of influence of imaginations outside the structure of identification remains largely unexplored. However, it remains a cultural pattern which is transferred in the process of socialization and acculturation.  And speaking here of such rules of behavior, transferred within acquired practical knowledge, which would consist in converting the finished form of identification on the picture appearing in place of, or instead of, identification.  Moving from the ideal of self to the ideal self, as Freudians would call this process, has defined and culturally conditioned causes.  In a highly technological world in which humans seem to have no boundaries and time is constantly accelerating, it gives a sense of control over the dynamics of social change and free choice.  From here, beyond the sphere of explicit ideals for me, the growth of “images of the other” which appear in their place – that is to say, imaginary construction – in which I attribute the real situation to another, leaving the narcissistic pleasure of one’s own omnipotence.  There are many indications that codes of behavior, which are sources of “imaginations of the other” and which determine in the first place cultural conditioning, are also transmitted within the group and remain legible for its members. The researcher who does not take into consideration the forms of social images where in the late post-modernity “I” gets closer to „the image of the other“ is strongly limited. He refers to an apparent aspect of human bonds which may be experienced as the resultant of individual  activities looking for their own profits and businesses regardless of social responsibility for others and commitments. He excludes the other part as the “secret” one in the sense of being the product of state institutions and as such remains previous to individuals.

The problem of social roles of men and women is the classical example of such a situation.  In this perspective  we may consider on the one hand   groups of women who were interested in Edith Stein in Germany, and  memory about her, as a form of  resistance against state structures of  communist Poland, especially in the context of March’68 and anti-Jewish persecution there. Beyond the apparent interest  of  German women in Edith Stein  as a person  resulting from her pedagogical work among and for the sake of women and her quite progressive opinions on the social role of women (of which I have written elsewhere[14]), we can search causes of  this phenomenon taking into account other factors, too. Undoubtedly discussion on women's rights and their role in  society took place in western European countries much earlier than in Poland due to the political situation in our country. We can see evident cultural changes in Western Germany connected with keeping memory of this person seen as the symbol of a fighter for women's rights, whereas in Poland her role in women's emancipation process  has not been undertaken at all, until recently.[15] The elements of her biography beyond the traditional and Catholic roles of a woman and a nun were not stressed. Similarly, she was included in the pantheon of outstanding representatives of German cultural heritage  in the German temple of national glory in the Walhalla memorial on the Danube. Numerous educational and artistic initiatives which were undertaken with her as a patron, and that state authorities participated in , seem to be the expression of  "new German policy" alone. Maybe the reverse side of this process is the fear of the imagined glance. Many places commemorating World War II as well as museum institutions devoted to Holocaust victims - some of which present Edith Stein as a model of an excellent German - have arisen in recent years.  As with the medieval builders of cathedrals, who took care of details invisible from the bottom for common mortals as if they had been building considering the glance of the very God himself, does this reflect the will to transfer attention  from the accusing look of the other ? Can recalling the people who resisted Nazi ideology and the betrayal of human rights as patterns for generation of young Germans be interpreted inwardly as "imaginations of the other"? Imagined expectations of the other, in this case, the Jewish community, although not declared directly, should be taken into account. They obligate one to symbolic recompensation for the evil done, which the German nation must pay for the sake of peace and possibility of propagating real politics within Europe.  This hypothesis comes from the belief that Holocaust as such fulfils the role of the lens in which - as Žižek claims - one can see internal movement of symbolic frames of our world.  This is a world, where it is not crucial to tame trauma, or to isolate it, as used to be the denominator of memory and commemorations immediately after World War II. In the present meaning Holocaust becomes the vehicle of meaning, metaphor, in relation with which the present processes of trauma and conflicts can be explained.[16] 

The dynamics and correlation of unawareness and collective consciousness were rightly estimated by S. Bednarek[17] who sees research about images of the past as the process of coshaping of social self-knowledge on the subject of its past  as well as images recorded in culture.   It is important to unfold what, so far, has been attributed to the sphere of rituals and symbols. What does post-Freudian tradition contribute to studies of collective images, especially in the range we are interested in, that is, in relation to images concerning the past? Once we take up studies of collective images regarding the past, they cannot be limited to the analysis of the relation of  given community members to  themselves and particular material products of their culture.  In consequence, we would study only the image in which the community sees itself, whereas the hidden, latent images, being also illusions themselves, and their results - being an elusive phenomenon for members of  the collective being studied  - would stay in the sphere of  collective unawareness. This means that studies of  the material vehicles of  meaning , assuming that they are the expression of social order and can supply much interesting data about a given collective and its symbolic structure, are no longer adequate. It is due to the role of the founding society, well-justified and self-understood illusion which provides the internalization of common structures, rules and possibilities of the "common world" essential in the practical ability to function and act in this world. It may happen, as I have tried to show via recalling "images of the other" as a contemporary social form of images, that material products of culture such as monuments, boards, souvenirs and other forms commemorating the past within  one memory group would be the expression of openness and tolerance towards foreign cultures whereas, for the other, they may represent an expression of domination and exploitation.[18] Material products of a given culture could express, on the one hand, the negation of existing contradictions and conflicts comprising  the organizational  basis of collective life. On the other hand, they can represent a place where particular interests of groups clash with each other. In the symbolic meaning of a given object, memory places become the subject of negotiation regardless of their equal use (equal values given object personifies or symbolizes). 

Therefore, one should at least penetrate the hidden structure which constitutes a specific framework under the sphere of accessible meanings and separate the idea of the social function of  images  from the idea of the afterthought function of this representations, applying Hodder's notion from Reading the Past.[19]  That means to consider a set of ideas , meanings and symbols taken unconsciously, shaped within long tradition as the resource influencing the form of society and deciding  about occurring or prevailing interests causing wars and conflicts  which are being used to divide and  legitimize authority.  I personally tend to treat material evidence (testimony) of the past and its contemporary commemoration not from the materialistic point of view, but from the perspective of representations associated with the place, images about it, and their evolution or lack thereof. In the context of the recalled sphere of collective unconsciousness, it is essential to study the reasons for denying the images of the past, such as the post-war reaction of Germans to Holocaust crimes, expressed in the German language (F. Augstein studied alternative, enigmatic forms of defining concentration camps and Holocaust of Jews) and the absence of  victim, Edith Stein, in Jewish memory.[20]   

 

Ankerschmit, F. (2004) Narracja, reprezentacja, doświadczenie. Studia z teorii historiografii (Kraków: Universitas).

Assmann, A. (2006) Der Lange Schatten der Vergangenheit. Errinnerungskultur und Geschichtspolitik (München: C. H. Beck Verlag).

Augstein, F. (2005) “Wie man die Dinge beim Namen nennen. Über Auschwitz schreiben”, Internationale Politik, 2.

Bednarek, S. (2010) “Jeśli nie miejsca pamięci, to co? O badaniach pamięci”, Kultura Współczesna 1 (63).

Bourdieu, P. (2005) Dystynkcja. Społeczna krytyka władzy sądzenia [Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste] trans. P.

Biłos (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Scholar).

Freud, S. (1992) Kultura jako źródło cierpień trans. J. Prokopiuk (Warszawa: KR).

Gauchet, M. (2002) “Nowy wiek osobowości. Próba psychologii

współczesnej” trans. W. Dłuski, Res Publica Nowa, 12.

Głowacka, D. (2004) “Znikające ślady: Emmanuel Lévinas, literackie

świadectwo Idy Frank i sztuka Holocaustu”, Literatura na świecie, 1–

2.

Grzegorczyk, A. (2001) “Nauka Edyty Stein o kobiecie wobec

współczesnych tendencji feministycznych” in Św. Teresa Benedykta

od Krzyża (Edyta Stein)—Kobieta i Karmelitanka Bosa—Patronką

Europy, Vol. 2. (Poznań: Biblioteka Zeszytów Karmelitańskich).

Hodder, I. (1995) Czytanie przeszłości: Współczesne podejścia do

interpretacji w archeologii trans. E. Wilczyńska (Poznań: Obserwator).

Korzeniewska, A. (2005) “Auschwitz i Holocaust. Granice rozumienia”,

Przegląd Zachodni 2.

—. (2007) Iluzja w świetle inspiracji Lacanowskich (Poznań: manuscript).

—. (2011) “Edyta Stein w pamięci Niemców, Polaków i Żydów”,

Przegląd Zachodni, 1.

Lacan, J. (1981) The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-analysis

(New York/London: W. W. Norton & Company).

Pfaller, R. (2002) Die Illusionen der anderen: Über das Lustprinzip in der

Kultur (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag).

Szacka, B. (n.d.) Stosunek do przeszłości i jej przeżywanie w

ponowoczesnym świecie pop-kultury (manuscript).

Zaremba, M. (2012) Wielka trwoga: Polska 1944–1947. Ludowa reakcja

na kryzys (Kraków: Znak).

Žižek, S. (1994) “Kant Und das ‘fehlende Glied’ der Ideologie” in H.-D.

Gondek & P. Widmer (eds) Ethik und Psychoanalyse: Vom

kategorischen Imperativ zum Gesetz des Begehrens: Kant und Lacan

(Frankfurt am Main: Fisher Taschenbuch).

—. (2005) Körperlose Organe. Bausteine für eine Begegnung zwischen

15Deleuze und Lacan (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag).

 

 

 

 

[1] This Text is a part of A. Korzeniewska’s dissertation Jacques Lacan’s Theory of

Illusion.

 

[2] Developing in Poland, since the 1960s, thanks to the work of Nina Assorodobraj-

Kula, Barbara Szacka and Andrzej Szpociński.

 

[3] Szacka.

 

[4] Assmann 2006: 30–31.

 

[5] Freud 1992: 31–32.

 

[6] Pfaller 2002: 75–79.

 

[7] This aspect is considered in Poland in the research taking place within the

following projects: Polish-German Places of Memory/Deutsch-polnische

Erinnerungsorte (R. Traba and H. H. Hahn) and Polish Places of Memory (S.

Bednarek) and the latest Lexicon of Polish Places of Memory (B. Korzeniewski).

 

[8] Lacan 1981: 76, 83–85; 105–108.

 

[9] Gauchet 2002.

 

[10] Zaremba 2012: 587–615.

 

[11] Žižek 2005.

 

[12] In speaking of the habitus, I have in mind a group of skills, which make

integration into a specific group possible. I am thus speaking of a kind of practical

knowledge of the rules and principles by which I know how to operate effectively

in a specific group and to succeed. See Bourdieu 2005.

 

[13] See Ankerschmit 2004; Korzeniewska 2007: 8–9.

 

[14] Korzeniewska 2011.

 

[15] Lately Grzegorczyk 2001: 37–60.

 

[16] Žižek 1994: 58.

 

[17] See Bednarek 2010: 100–109.

 

[18] The problem is distinctly seen in the conflict between the representatives of

Jewish memory communion and the “defenders of the cross” in the grounds of the

Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.

 

[19] Hodder 1995.

 

[20] Augstein 2005: 38; Głowacka 2004: 105–125; Korzeniewska 2005. About the

absence of E. Stein in Jewish memory see Korzeniewska 2011.

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