at the crossroad of languages, discourses and legacies
West Europe is a hub. Its literature is a complex, multilingual body of writings created at the crossroad of diverse origins and European modernity. It is rich in transcontinental, "hyphened" identifications: not only those of multicultural France of the 1980s and 1990s, but also such as - just to give an example - the Catalan-Amazigh inscription of Najat El Hachmi. On the other hand, Juan Goytisolo is a Spanish-speaking writer from Barcelone who decided to move to Marrakesh and who wrote novels that present at the same time a corrosive vision of European modernity and testify of Islamic inspiration, such as Reivindicación del Conde don Julián or Las virtudes of pájaro solitario. West European and Euro-Mediterranean literature builds up its own spiritually, not unfrequently by the return not only to Christian, but also to Islamic legacies. It often implies a privileged vision of mystical Islam, or Sufism, treated as a pacifist counterweight to aggressive, political understanding of Islam.
On the oher hand, who reads metropolitan literature these days? To read European books is to delve in normalcy. No wonder that my interest in majoritarian French literary expression has been lesser than my studies concerning Maghreb or Sub-Saharan African literatures. Books written by rich people living in safety have an air of normalcy, lacking tragedies, intense moral conflicts; they seem dull, at least as referred to the current standards of pathos. On the other hand, my attempts at delving into French modernity have often tested of nostalgia, bringing me back to my modest intellectual beginnings, when I was a student of Romance philology at Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin, eastern Poland; my Master dissertation spoke of Conrad Detrez, sort of dissident Belgian writer. Still, the francophone European section is the least developed of all the research fields I have ever cultivated. For many years, I published on French literature episodically. I suppose this situation will change one day. I'm not immune to the appeal of older French literature; I do appreciate such writers as Flaubert and Zola. But to publish learned papers on them appeared too conformist throughout my Polish years. Just because other people used to do this.
It is only recently that I started to feel again the nostalgia of my remote French studies; perhaps I could return to those conformist topics, see them from a new angle, give them the freshness of my adventures in the world. This is why, hesitantly, I include this page in my Research&Projects section, with the feeling of reopening a debate, and a hope of engaging new interlocutors and academic contexts around the world.
Euro-Mediterranean writing requires a specific denomination and a specific analytical treatment, because it cannot be reduced to the traditional fields of national literatures or literatures defined by a given linguistic expression. It exists in parallel to such realities, as a literature that is eminently transnational and also eminently translatable. I think perhaps the Turkish example shows most clearly how such a sphere of Euro-Mediterranean writing coexists with much more traditional and locatable literary space. Obviously, there still exists a Turkish literature, defined by its national dimension, i.e. the identitary significance it has for a given community, by the continuity of traditional forms, repertory of images, topics. In this literature, poetry is a major form in which this continuity, as well as the celebration of the Turkish language finds a fulfilment. But in parallel, there exists a Euro-Mediterranean literature in Turkish, in which the major form is the novel, a foreign genre that becomes a vehicle of quite different interrogations, imaginary and topics that have more to do with the rupture introduced by the modernity than with the continuity of Turkish tradition (Orhan Pamuk would be the must obvious example of such a Euro-Mediterranean writer). Characteristically, this literature is far more translatable, has a greater international projection, but surprisingly a lesser status in Turkey itself. Of course, both spheres are mutually non-exclusive and may enter into a synergistic development.
As I already suggested, what defines the Euro-Mediterranean writing is a specific field of ideas and critical interrogations that result from the encounter (or clash) of the cultural systems based on tradition, represented by the Islamic southern coast of the Mediterranean and the great rupture introduced by European modernity. It is on purpose that I avoid speaking about the clash of East and West and I chose to accentuate rather this South-North geography that has less conflictive connotations; on the other hand, the Mediterranean set of coordinates is something different and alternative in relation to the Euro-Atlantic positioning of Europe inside the traditional concept of the West, that I personally consider obsolete and in general not serving well the European cause.
The common denominator that consists in the criticism of modernity is the reason why this literature is trans-national, trans-local and in many dimensions also trans-lingual (i.e. it engages into a fight against linguistic frontiers, terminologies and translatability of discourses). What is very important to say is that the phenomenon is essentially bi-directional, it implies not only the questioning of Islamic cultures and societies in confrontation with the modernity, but also the other way around, the questioning of modern societies in confrontation with the challenge coming from the South, that in some of my former writings I used to call the Intrusive Spirit of the Desert. One of its characteristics is that it brings back into the debate the religious factor, the problem of transcendence that the secularised modernity was believed to have solved. Friedrich Nietzsche had announced the death of God. Meanwhile, God is coming back from the Desert, a symbolic location that shapes – first of all – the European mind.
What is worth putting in the limelight is the pre-modern – post-modern continuity that the Euro-Mediterranean literature constantly strives to establish. Fatéma Mernissi used the 14th century legacy of Ibn Qayyim al-Jawzīya and his Rawḍat al-muḥibbīn to heal the modern crisis of eroticism. Abdelwahab Meddeb brought about Sufi terminology of spiritual progress to try to heal the modern concept of revolution in his Printemps de Tunis. Such texts fill the cracks and fissures of the modern project, in all its crucial aspects, such as political, bodily and sexual liberation. On the other hand, Maghrebian contribution seems to introduce a creative interference with French Cartesian legacy, establishing, through double displacement, a novel dimension resulting from the superposition of raison / aql that transcends both the Islamic philosophical heritage and European modernity.
This is why I claim that Euro-Mediterranean literature should not be read exclusively with a focus on such phenomena as the globalisation or the dissolution of social links caused by migrations. It should be put in a larger perspective of intellectual history, not only with retrospective outlook permitting to explain all the allusions to the Islamic past, but also with a prospective and proactive spirit that fosters the fulfilment and final overcoming of the modernity. I dare say that this kind of writing announces a new period, a new era that will be radically different from the modern formation. On the other hand, the search for what I call the extra-cultural becoming of man, in which the potential of mystical experience may be contemplated not as something coming from the past, but as a real, still open possibility of human development remains a transformative power. To use the Hegelian term, the Wahrnehmung of the mystical that many Euro-Mediterranean writers bring about is open to the advent of a certain kind of post-human that the modernity didn't dare to predict.
On the oher hand, who reads metropolitan literature these days? To read European books is to delve in normalcy. No wonder that my interest in majoritarian French literary expression has been lesser than my studies concerning Maghreb or Sub-Saharan African literatures. Books written by rich people living in safety have an air of normalcy, lacking tragedies, intense moral conflicts; they seem dull, at least as referred to the current standards of pathos. On the other hand, my attempts at delving into French modernity have often tested of nostalgia, bringing me back to my modest intellectual beginnings, when I was a student of Romance philology at Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin, eastern Poland; my Master dissertation spoke of Conrad Detrez, sort of dissident Belgian writer. Still, the francophone European section is the least developed of all the research fields I have ever cultivated. For many years, I published on French literature episodically. I suppose this situation will change one day. I'm not immune to the appeal of older French literature; I do appreciate such writers as Flaubert and Zola. But to publish learned papers on them appeared too conformist throughout my Polish years. Just because other people used to do this.
It is only recently that I started to feel again the nostalgia of my remote French studies; perhaps I could return to those conformist topics, see them from a new angle, give them the freshness of my adventures in the world. This is why, hesitantly, I include this page in my Research&Projects section, with the feeling of reopening a debate, and a hope of engaging new interlocutors and academic contexts around the world.
Euro-Mediterranean writing requires a specific denomination and a specific analytical treatment, because it cannot be reduced to the traditional fields of national literatures or literatures defined by a given linguistic expression. It exists in parallel to such realities, as a literature that is eminently transnational and also eminently translatable. I think perhaps the Turkish example shows most clearly how such a sphere of Euro-Mediterranean writing coexists with much more traditional and locatable literary space. Obviously, there still exists a Turkish literature, defined by its national dimension, i.e. the identitary significance it has for a given community, by the continuity of traditional forms, repertory of images, topics. In this literature, poetry is a major form in which this continuity, as well as the celebration of the Turkish language finds a fulfilment. But in parallel, there exists a Euro-Mediterranean literature in Turkish, in which the major form is the novel, a foreign genre that becomes a vehicle of quite different interrogations, imaginary and topics that have more to do with the rupture introduced by the modernity than with the continuity of Turkish tradition (Orhan Pamuk would be the must obvious example of such a Euro-Mediterranean writer). Characteristically, this literature is far more translatable, has a greater international projection, but surprisingly a lesser status in Turkey itself. Of course, both spheres are mutually non-exclusive and may enter into a synergistic development.
As I already suggested, what defines the Euro-Mediterranean writing is a specific field of ideas and critical interrogations that result from the encounter (or clash) of the cultural systems based on tradition, represented by the Islamic southern coast of the Mediterranean and the great rupture introduced by European modernity. It is on purpose that I avoid speaking about the clash of East and West and I chose to accentuate rather this South-North geography that has less conflictive connotations; on the other hand, the Mediterranean set of coordinates is something different and alternative in relation to the Euro-Atlantic positioning of Europe inside the traditional concept of the West, that I personally consider obsolete and in general not serving well the European cause.
The common denominator that consists in the criticism of modernity is the reason why this literature is trans-national, trans-local and in many dimensions also trans-lingual (i.e. it engages into a fight against linguistic frontiers, terminologies and translatability of discourses). What is very important to say is that the phenomenon is essentially bi-directional, it implies not only the questioning of Islamic cultures and societies in confrontation with the modernity, but also the other way around, the questioning of modern societies in confrontation with the challenge coming from the South, that in some of my former writings I used to call the Intrusive Spirit of the Desert. One of its characteristics is that it brings back into the debate the religious factor, the problem of transcendence that the secularised modernity was believed to have solved. Friedrich Nietzsche had announced the death of God. Meanwhile, God is coming back from the Desert, a symbolic location that shapes – first of all – the European mind.
What is worth putting in the limelight is the pre-modern – post-modern continuity that the Euro-Mediterranean literature constantly strives to establish. Fatéma Mernissi used the 14th century legacy of Ibn Qayyim al-Jawzīya and his Rawḍat al-muḥibbīn to heal the modern crisis of eroticism. Abdelwahab Meddeb brought about Sufi terminology of spiritual progress to try to heal the modern concept of revolution in his Printemps de Tunis. Such texts fill the cracks and fissures of the modern project, in all its crucial aspects, such as political, bodily and sexual liberation. On the other hand, Maghrebian contribution seems to introduce a creative interference with French Cartesian legacy, establishing, through double displacement, a novel dimension resulting from the superposition of raison / aql that transcends both the Islamic philosophical heritage and European modernity.
This is why I claim that Euro-Mediterranean literature should not be read exclusively with a focus on such phenomena as the globalisation or the dissolution of social links caused by migrations. It should be put in a larger perspective of intellectual history, not only with retrospective outlook permitting to explain all the allusions to the Islamic past, but also with a prospective and proactive spirit that fosters the fulfilment and final overcoming of the modernity. I dare say that this kind of writing announces a new period, a new era that will be radically different from the modern formation. On the other hand, the search for what I call the extra-cultural becoming of man, in which the potential of mystical experience may be contemplated not as something coming from the past, but as a real, still open possibility of human development remains a transformative power. To use the Hegelian term, the Wahrnehmung of the mystical that many Euro-Mediterranean writers bring about is open to the advent of a certain kind of post-human that the modernity didn't dare to predict.
selected essays
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„Literatury mniejsze: poszukiwanie synergii przez rozplenienie napięć. Rozważania śródziemnomorskie” [„Minor literatures: in search of synergy through the dissemination of tensions. Mediterranean considerations”], Śląskie Studia Polonistyczne, 1 (17)/2021, p. 1-13. ISSN 2084-0772, e-ISSN 2353-0928
www.journals.us.edu.pl/index.php/SSP/article/view/11670/9125 In this article, the term “minor literatures”, coined by Deleuze and Guattari, finds its application in studies of contemporary Mediterranean writing. The author of the article combines this term with the notion of transculture. On the basis of examples from texts by authors such as Juan Goytisolo, Driss Chraïbi, Edmond Amran El Maleh, Najat El Hachmi, and Fouad Laroui, the author shows how literature created by migrating minorities introduces a dimension of synergy to a world marked by intercultural tensions, creating a new sense of community in individuals who radically deconstruct their identities. 
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“Khouribga a sprawa polska. Zwycięstwo życia nad kulturą w pisarstwie Fouada Larouiego” [„Khouribga and the Polish Cause. The victory of life over culture in Fouad Laroui's work”], Teksty Drugie, no 4/2018, p. 297-309. ISSN 0867-0633; DOI: 10.18318/td.2018.4.18
www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=708188 https://journals.openedition.org/td/11538 Beginning with a presentation of Fouad Laroui’s novella Les noces fabuleuses du Polonais, the author outlines its potential in Polish post-colonial studies understood as an analysis of Poles’ participation in the Eastern Bloc’s neo-colonial project. She essentially proposes a threefold reading drawing on post-colonial theory, gender and transcultural studies. Juxtaposing the novella with the novel L’insoumise de la Porte de Flandre the author is able to describe Laroui’s message in more depth. The writer not only tackles Morocco’s neocolonial experience, characterized by the arrival of Polish ‘contractual’ specialists. Above all he invites readers to destabilize their identity and to liberate themselves from the corset of mental automatisms – a corset acquired whenever culturally transmitted paradigms are treated as an absolute. “„Literatury mniejsze” w perspektywie studiów afro-europejskich. Od niderlandzkiej inskrypcji Kronik abisyńskich Mosesa Isegawy do rewindykacji katalońskości przez Najat El Hachmi” [“Minor literatures in the perspective of Afro-European studies. From the Dutch inscription of Abyssinian Chronicles by Moses Isegawa to the Catalan vindication of Najat El Hachmi”], Niewłasne lektury. Od pisarstwa w języku wyuczonym do wielości kultur czytania, Ewa Łukaszyk, Krystyna Wierzbicka-Trwoga (eds.), Warszawa, DiG, 2018, p. 69-80. ISBN 978-83-2860-032-4 "Restytucja Śródziemnomorza. Poszukiwanie transkulturowej ciągłości w pisarstwie Amina Maaloufa" ["Restitution of the Mediterranean. The search for transcultural continuity in the writings by Amin Maalouf"], Kultura - Historia - Globalizacja, nr 18/2015, p. 165-177. ISSN 1898-7265
http://www.khg.uni.wroc.pl/files/13%20KHG_18%20Lukaszyk%20t.pdf Reprinted in volume: Historia – Kultura – Globalizacja, vol. VII, Adam Nobis, Piotr Badyna, Piotr J. Fereński (eds.), Wrocław, GAJT, 2016, p. 695-710. ISBN 978-83-62584-80-2 The article presents the problem of continuity between Europe and the southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean, that constitute, as Edward Said claims, Europe’s alter ego. Cultural continuity of the region is especially important not only for the European, but also for the immigrant writers and intellectuals. In spite of all the conflicts, both parts are interested in a synergistic vision of the Mediterranean, going beyond the concept of multicultural society. The novelistic and essayist work of Amin Maalouf, a French speaking Lebanese writer, contributes to the search for harmony beyond the multicultural paradigm. In his vision of the Mediterranean history, he tries not only to give a balanced insight into such events as the crusades, but also to show some precedents of the transcultural condition, that are to be found in the migrant intellectual figures from the past, such as Leo the African or an Italian antiquary Balthazar, established in the Levant.
“Le ruban de Möbius. Pour un modèle topologique de la continuité créatrice dans le monde méditerranéen” [“The Möbius strip. Towards a topological model of creative continuity in the Mediterranean world”], Prace Komisji Neofilologicznej Polskiej Akademii Umiejętności, vol. XIV, 2016, p. 71-81. ISSN 1731-8491
The article deals with the problem of creative continuity in the Mediterranean region, often seen rather as the discontinuous space of the Huntingtonian “clash of civilizations”. As counter-examples of such a vision, numerous writers who deliberately sought for a double, oscillating identity are mentioned: Driss Chraïbi, Edmond Amran El Maleh, Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio, Juan Goytisolo, Abdelwahab Meddeb. The main aim of this essay is to propose a “geometrical” way of conceptualizing the paradoxical character of the Mediterranean continuity, using the topological model of the Möbius strip, previously brought into the domain of humanities by Slavoj Žižek, together with other tools created in the context of post-modern philosophy and cultural criticism, such as the Derridean notion of khōra.
“Désert: une métaphore absolue de J.M.G. Le Clézio. Entre l'exotisme et l'écriture de la solidarité” [“Desert: an absolute metaphor of J.M.G. Le Clézio. Between exoticism and solidarity writing”], Le Maroc dans l'oeuvre de J.M.G. Le Clézio, Claude Cavallero et Ijjou Cheikh Moussa (eds.), Rabat, Publications de la Faculté des Lettres et des Sciences Humaines de Rabat, 2014, p. 115-125; [Série: Colloques et Séminaires, n°177]. ISBN 978-9981-59298-8
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"'Calentando los huesos en las tumbas'. El cuerpo post-orgiástico y el ocaso del mundo mediterráneo en Makbara de Juan Goytisolo" ["'Keeping the bones warm in the graves'. The post-orgiastic body and the decline of the Mediterranean world in Makbara by Juan Goytisolo"], Studia Romanica Posnaniensia, vol. XL, nr 2/2013, p. 51-61. ISBN 978-83-232-2597-3 ISSN 0137-2475, eISSN 2084-4158
https://repozytorium.amu.edu.pl/jspui/bitstream/10593/8504/1/04%20SRP%2040%282%29%20-%20Ewa%20%C5%81ukaszyk.pdf The key issue of the analysis, concentrated on the dystopia by Juan Goytisolo, Makbara, is the condition of human sexual body which, in terms proposed by Baudrillard, can be qualifi ed as post-orgiastic. While an asexual, aseptic social system is created in the modern, civilized Europe, Morocco seems to be the last refuge not only for the marginalized sexuality, but also for the romantic dreams about marriage. Nonetheless, the Moroccan promise of authentic eroticism acquires a necrophilic flavour of “love at the cemetery”. In the conclusion, Goytisolo is shown as the advocate of a dying, spectral culture, victim of unceasing, manifold exploitation and unable to counterbalance the European symbolic and economic predominance in the Mediterranean.
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"Labels and dignities. Designating the otherness in post-colonial Mediterranean", Romanica Cracoviensia, nr 12/2012, p. 300-313. ISSN 1732-8705; ISBN 978-83-233-3479-8 e-ISSN 1689-002
L’article est une tentative de lecture des romans de l’écrivain marocain Driss Chaïbi, tels que Les Boucs (1955), dont l’expression littéraire est particulièrement crue et violente. Cette intransigeance devient compréhensible dans le contexte des discours manipulatoires, remplis d’euphémismes, contre lesquelles Chraïbi se propose d’écrire. Le but de cette entreprise d’écriture, but qu’on peut retrouver aussi chez d’autres auteurs marocains, est la découverte soit d’une appellation adéquate d’une identité, soit d’une représentation adéquate de ses dimensions cachées. De cette manière, la littérature créée au Maroc et dans le contexte des immigrants nord-africains, choisissant la langue française comme son moyen d’expression, essaye de vaincre de multiples conditionnements, liés autant aux traditions locales, au passé colonial et, de l’autre côté, au « fardeau de l’avenir », constitué par la modernité.
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„O butach tańczącego derwisza i prawie człowieka do wyboru religii w świetle «sufickiej» opowiastki Erica-Emmanuela Schmitta” [“On the dancing dervish's shoes and the human right to choose a religion in context of the 'Sufi' novel by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt”], Przegląd Religioznawczy, nr 3 (233) 2009, p. 45-58. ISSN 1230-4379
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