“The next issue of LiteRacje will concern the phenomenon of the anthropology of curiosity. We understand this as a meta-concept which despite many attempts of analysis still evades expression within the categories of universal human experience. We would like to ponder the notion of curiosity understood in a variety of ways. On the one hand we see it as one of the basic natural and adaptive functions of the human being, on the other as transgressive curiosity. The latter can be sought as cognitive combat with the essence of being where one strives to capture the mystery in order to find out what is on the other side of the mirror; to find the answer to the question of what remains veiled.

In the first part of the volume we would like to focus on the origins of the phenomenon of curiosity. Since when can we discuss a certain space of meeting between man and signs of reality and the shift of the model of cultural representation? Was it curiosity that triggered this meeting and this change? Was it motivation which can be clasped in an “untiring, unlimited and useless” longing for knowledge as says the English proverb? Or maybe it was  “an unbearable curiosity experienced whilst observing a bug touched with a stick” ? – as Gombrowicz said.

In the second part attention will be cast on symptoms of curiosity both from the visible and invisible spheres. There will be space for the private and the public, for adventures of the body and the soul, for curiosity labeled as healthy and sick; noble and not noble. The point is to make use of panoramic- and micro-perspectives when pinning up this ephemeral category. We will consider curiosity in its cultural and natural context; equipped with devices such as the telescope and the microscope we are bound to make a difference.

Finally we will end up with poetry, prose and drama pieces. We encourage you also to send us graphics, comic-booklets, sketches possessing a seducing quality, and involving the spectator in a subtle game of chance, competition and bewilderment. We would like to transgress something, above all we are interested in a meeting. A meeting outside the walls each one of us carries inside, outside the curtain concealing things and forcing us to perceive our thoughts on things rather than things themselves. We invite you, curiosity-seekers.

All Humanists are welcome to send their works. We are waiting for your papers hoping to build an interesting spectrum of the “Anthropology of Curiosity” issue of LiteRacje.    

Deadline: August 31st 2009

literacje@gmail.com

Instructions for authors:

Font: Times New Roman 12; space 1,5; footnotes: down on each page; bibliography: at the end of the text; maximum 15 pages. Please write a short biographic note and an abstract of your text (ca. 8 sentences).

Leading editor of the issue: Dorota Sobstel”

From Grzegorz Wroblewski