Krystian Piotrowski
I am a PhD candidate at the Doctoral School in the Humanities of the Jagiellonian University and a teaching assistant at the Institute of English Studies. I specialise in twentieth-century British literature, with a focus on avant-garde/experimental fiction and literary theory. Before beginning my doctorate, I graduated with honours with a BA from the Jagiellonian University and an MA from the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg, both in English Literature and Linguistics.
My doctoral project, The Affective Vanguard: Affectivity and Somaticity in Twentieth-Century British Literature, is a first-of-its-kind conceptualisation of a novel affective poetics and a literary convention of “affectography” – as analysed on the example of the collective oeuvre of B. S. Johnson, Alan Burns, Ann Quin, and Anna Kavan.
Throughout my doctoral studies, I have successfully completed over twenty courses, workshops, and seminars that have built upon my previous knowledge as much as they have enhanced my critical thinking. My academic journey has been greatly enriched by an extended double internship at the Institute of English Studies, where I took my first steps as a budding educator. I have published six articles and book chapters, co-edited five volumes of The Monograph of the Jagiellonian University PhD Students’ Association, gave fourteen conference talks both nationally and abroad, participated in two grant projects, and (co-)organised fifteen research events. I further honed my abilities during the London Doctoral Summer School, two editions of the Doctoral Symposium of the European Society for the Study of English, and face-to-face consultations with world-class specialists in the field of British avant-garde literature. I have received six awards for academic merit.
I am passionate about literature, academia, and education. Ever an inquisitive learner myself, I constantly look for opportunities to grow and flourish. I heartily welcome the chance to connect with like-minded individuals to explore potential collaborations or share work opportunities that align with my skills and aspirations.
Supervisors: dr hab. Robert Kusek, prof. UJ
Address: Department of Comparative Studies in Literature and Culture
Institute of English Studies of the Jagiellonian University
31-120 Kraków, al. Mickiewicza 9A, room 118
My doctoral project, The Affective Vanguard: Affectivity and Somaticity in Twentieth-Century British Literature, is a first-of-its-kind conceptualisation of a novel affective poetics and a literary convention of “affectography” – as analysed on the example of the collective oeuvre of B. S. Johnson, Alan Burns, Ann Quin, and Anna Kavan.
Throughout my doctoral studies, I have successfully completed over twenty courses, workshops, and seminars that have built upon my previous knowledge as much as they have enhanced my critical thinking. My academic journey has been greatly enriched by an extended double internship at the Institute of English Studies, where I took my first steps as a budding educator. I have published six articles and book chapters, co-edited five volumes of The Monograph of the Jagiellonian University PhD Students’ Association, gave fourteen conference talks both nationally and abroad, participated in two grant projects, and (co-)organised fifteen research events. I further honed my abilities during the London Doctoral Summer School, two editions of the Doctoral Symposium of the European Society for the Study of English, and face-to-face consultations with world-class specialists in the field of British avant-garde literature. I have received six awards for academic merit.
I am passionate about literature, academia, and education. Ever an inquisitive learner myself, I constantly look for opportunities to grow and flourish. I heartily welcome the chance to connect with like-minded individuals to explore potential collaborations or share work opportunities that align with my skills and aspirations.
Supervisors: dr hab. Robert Kusek, prof. UJ
Address: Department of Comparative Studies in Literature and Culture
Institute of English Studies of the Jagiellonian University
31-120 Kraków, al. Mickiewicza 9A, room 118
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Published Papers by Krystian Piotrowski
Book Chapters by Krystian Piotrowski
Co-edited Volumes by Krystian Piotrowski
Conference Presentations by Krystian Piotrowski
At the moment, the project, already past its conceptual phase, probes into the complexities of the affect–body dynamics, repurposing the findings of the “socio-cultural school” of affect theory (Deleuze, Guattari, Massumi) with a view towards their complementary synthetisation with so-called “somatheory” – an original body of research theorising human corporeal constitution. Once hybridised into one coherent methodological apparatus, this meta-theoretical paradigm shall be employed in an analysis of what I provisionally refer to as “affective realism.”
As a convention of highly veristic representation of reality, realism – as if by definition – foregrounds the importance of mimetic exactitude. In its focus on a direct, objective, and authentic portrayal of life and human experience, it is essentially based on the principle of verisimilitude, any violation of which might render a given text non- or even anti-realist. Following F. Jameson’s astute observations on the topic penned in The Antinomies of Realism, I postulate that this complex notion might be reinterpreted and recontextualised so as to encompass the whole gamut of sensations the modern subject may experience on a daily basis which nonetheless defy simple verbalisation. This, in turn, is the very basis of what I provisionally refer to as “affective realism,” i.e. a modified convention of representation and a new hermeneutic tool in its own right which – by accounting for one’s somatic and sensory responses – is far better suited to an accurate portrayal of liminal (and otherwise problematic or ontologically unstable) events and experiences. In this sense, it, too, forms a bridge between modernity and postmodernity, being one of their common denominators.
To this end, I shall systematise a new autonomous thematic poetics which will be analysed throughout the entirety of the dissertation in a two-fold manner: additively, where original hermeneutic re-readings and an appraisal of the corpus of chosen works – based on and complemented by the whole gamut of modern interdisciplinary theories – will account for the texts’ specificity; and synthetically, in a way that will unify and consolidate theoretical propositions into one coherent methodological paradigm. Envisaged as common denominators bonding the group together, affectivity and corporeality shall be subsequently analysed as key notions of paramount importance to experimental writing of that period, and as such will be thus systematised as prolegomena to an affective poetics, solidly grounded, as postulated, in corporeal narratology and somaesthetics.
At the moment, the project, already past its conceptual phase, probes into the complexities of the affect–body dynamics, repurposing the findings of the “socio-cultural school” of affect theory (Deleuze, Guattari, Massumi) with a view towards their complementary synthetisation with so-called “somatheory” – an original body of research theorising human corporeal constitution. Once hybridised into one coherent methodological apparatus, this meta-theoretical paradigm shall be employed in an analysis of what I provisionally refer to as “affective realism.”
As a convention of highly veristic representation of reality, realism – as if by definition – foregrounds the importance of mimetic exactitude. In its focus on a direct, objective, and authentic portrayal of life and human experience, it is essentially based on the principle of verisimilitude, any violation of which might render a given text non- or even anti-realist. Following F. Jameson’s astute observations on the topic penned in The Antinomies of Realism, I postulate that this complex notion might be reinterpreted and recontextualised so as to encompass the whole gamut of sensations the modern subject may experience on a daily basis which nonetheless defy simple verbalisation. This, in turn, is the very basis of what I provisionally refer to as “affective realism,” i.e. a modified convention of representation and a new hermeneutic tool in its own right which – by accounting for one’s somatic and sensory responses – is far better suited to an accurate portrayal of liminal (and otherwise problematic or ontologically unstable) events and experiences. In this sense, it, too, forms a bridge between modernity and postmodernity, being one of their common denominators.
To this end, I shall systematise a new autonomous thematic poetics which will be analysed throughout the entirety of the dissertation in a two-fold manner: additively, where original hermeneutic re-readings and an appraisal of the corpus of chosen works – based on and complemented by the whole gamut of modern interdisciplinary theories – will account for the texts’ specificity; and synthetically, in a way that will unify and consolidate theoretical propositions into one coherent methodological paradigm. Envisaged as common denominators bonding the group together, affectivity and corporeality shall be subsequently analysed as key notions of paramount importance to experimental writing of that period, and as such will be thus systematised as prolegomena to an affective poetics, solidly grounded, as postulated, in corporeal narratology and somaesthetics.
The paper problematises her œuvre, with a special emphasis laid on the dialectics of memory and trauma – both of utmost importance to the author in question. It identifies, interprets, and comments upon Kavan’s main artistic preoccupations, writerly techniques, recurrent themes, and rich symbolism. An attempt at a conceptualisation of her heroines, veritable femmes fragiles mistreated, misunderstood, and misguided by people around them, may be conducive to a better apprehension of Anna Kavan herself – a figure of a myth, as much present among respectable society as in the shadows of a metropolitan demi-monde, shrouded from sight by a façade of fiction – permanently hidden somewhere in her personal memoryscape.