Imagined identities
Imagined communities, called thus by Benedict Anderson, revealed the principle of nation-building, namely inculcating an image of a translocal community to which people belong. They also bring to light the creative character of imagination, which was able to connect the abstract categories of nation, state and homeland with some specific area. At the same time they put in motion an identity narrative, necessary to unite the nation, which, after all, is a kind of “narrated community”, to borrow a phrase from Maria Janion.
In today’s fluid times a human being is looking for a place and a place is looking for a human being; people want to feel at home in a space but spaces influence entire communities. This creates the need to imagine certain possible multilayered identities – for a place, for people, for a collective. For some new kind of individuality.
In the issue
Simona Škrabec, Claudio Magris, Joanna Ugniewska, Maria Dąbrowska-Partyka, Radu Pavel Gheo, Marta Bucholc, Ewa Chojecka, Żanna Komar, Beata Nykiel about imagining which generates a story of a place, a people, a community
Robert Traba speaks about the need of constant refreshing the cannon and about controversies, which are a treasure
Joanna Sanetra-Szeliga and Mihaela Carpea objectively and subjectively about the European Capital of Culture Sibiu 2007
Katarzyna Jagodzińska about former bunkers now hosting modern art
Żanna Komar, Beata Nykiel, Helena Postawka share their impressions from exhibitions they saw and books they read in Warsaw, Germany and Russia
Łukasz Galusek about Max Fabiani and the Karst
