• ISSN: 2382-6282 (Print); 2972-3108 (Online)
    • Abbreviated Title: Int. J. Lang. Lit. Linguist.
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    • DOI: 10.18178/IJLLL
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HOME > Archives > 2019 > Volume 5 Number 3 (Sep. 2019) >
IJLLL 2019 Vol.5(3): 168-175 ISSN: 2382-6282
DOI: 10.18178/IJLLL.2019.5.3.222

Polish Futurism: Literature and Sexual Politics

Kasper Pfeifer

Abstract—The aim of this paper is to analyze the way in which Polish futurists redefined Marinetti’s assumptions and to study the projects of gender and power relations they consequently put forward. The Italian futurist’s manifestos and theories constituted a basis for further, more progressive postulates proposed by the Polish futurists, including the attempts of the latter to abolish patriarchy. The discourses introduced by these postulates were focused on the future, and were supposed to be the means of re-designing the habitus of the semi-peripheral region, to use the terminology of the world-systems theory. The purpose of Polish futurists was to transfer the country and its culture from the semi-periphery to the core – in other words, to get Poland out of a cultural and economic obscurantism and move it towards the level of the countries of Western Europe. The way in which one should thus analyze the sexual politics of Polish futurism is to see it as a chain of discourses revolving around the future and stemming from artists’ dissatisfaction with the modernity of the periphery. The analysis of texts and manifestos penned by the Polish futurists conducted throughout the article reveals that one of their main demands was to shift the dynamics of gender relations, which was seen as a condition on which a veritable modernity might exist. This eventually leads to the following conclusion: the egalitarian project of a new gender hierarchy devised by Polish futurism – although firmly rooted in the phallogocentric gaze – should be considered as a bold proposal of social change aimed at creating a new society and new gender roles to be played in that society.

Index Terms—Literature, Bruno Jasieński, futurism, gender studies, sexual politics, world-system theory, semi-periphery countries.

Kasper Pfeifer is with University of Silesia, Faculty of Philology, Katowice (e-mail: pfeifer.kacper@gmail.com).

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Cite: Kasper Pfeifer, "Polish Futurism: Literature and Sexual Politics," International Journal of Languages, Literature and Linguistics vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 168-175, 2019.

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