In Search of Singularity

Poetry in Poland and China Since 1989

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In Search of Singularity introduces a new “compairative” methodology that seeks to understand how the interplay of paired texts creates meaning in new, transcultural contexts. Bringing the worlds of contemporary Polish and Chinese poetry since 1989 into conversation with one another, Joanna Krenz applies the concept of singularity to draw out resonances and intersections between these two discourses and shows how they have responded to intertwined historical and political trajectories and a new reality beyond the human. Drawing on developments such as AI poetry and ecopoetry, Krenz makes the case for a fresh approach to comparative poetry studies that takes into account new forms of poetic expression and probes into alternative grammars of understanding.
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Joanna Krenz, PhD (2018, Leiden University), is Assistant Professor of Chinese Language and Literature at Adam Mickiewicz University and currently on a two-year fellowship at University of Zurich. She widely publishes on and translates Chinese poetry and prose.
Acknowledgments

Introduction: Setting the Compairative Stage
 1 Mismatch? On Com-pair-ison and Directing as Method
 2 Singularity: A Few Words about the Structuring Principle
 3 Genesis: Two Stories
 4 The Making of This Book

1 Convergent Trajectories
 1 Worlds Apart: Polish and Chinese Poetry up to the Early Twentieth Century
 2 Coming Closer: From the Early Twentieth Century to the Mid-1980s
 3 June Fourth and the Polemical Decade of Transformation
 4 From Brotherhood in Socialism to Elective Affinities

2 Old Masters and Young Martyrs
 1 Unfinished Breakthroughs: A Bird’s-Eye View
 2 One Dawn, Two Evenings: Czesław Miłosz and Ai Qing
 3 Crossing the Ocean: Rafał Wojaczek and Haizi

3 Poets and Poetry on Stage
 1 Opening Up the Archives: Tadeusz Różewicz and Yu Jian
 2 Hyperpoetry and Hypermusic: Marcin Świetlicki and Cui Jian

4 Invisibility
 1 The Meaning of Invisibility
 2 At Home in the World: Wisława Szymborska and Wang Xiaoni
 3 Submerging: Krystyna Miłobędzka and Zhai Yongming

5 Making Names and Saving Names
 1 Initiations: Krzysztof Siwczyk and Yin Lichuan
 2 Solastalgia: Tomasz Różycki and Li Hao Saving Singularity of Names
 3 Singularity vs. Generation
 4 Toward Poetic Imaginations

6 Resetting Poetry
 1 Difficult Poetry?
 2 Play and Game
 3 Rhyme Your Crime: Andrzej Sosnowski Resets and Recites
 4 In the Magic Circle: Why Che Qianzi Is Not Virgil
 5 We Don’t Understand Understanding

7 Beyond Understanding
 1 Con-Versing with the World
 2 Augmented Poetry: Experiments with Technology
 3 Coming Home
Works Cited
Index
Academic and general audiences who recognize that all spheres of human intellectual, artistic, and existential activity jointly pursue answers to Big Questions, and who wish to partake in this pursuit equipped in good (Polish and Chinese) poetry.
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