Time in literature and language (Annales Universitatis Mariae Curie-Skłodowska)

Time in literature and language

The year 2022 is for "Annales UMCS. Sec. FF" an exceptional year – we celebrate the 40th anniversary of the journal's existence, which naturally makes us reflect on the past, present and future. Therefore, as the leading topic of the articles published in both issues of the 2022 volume, we would like to propose time. Reflection on time permeates literature, linguistic research, and plays an important role in culture. The feeling of time, its relativity, and, at the same time the impossibility of freeing oneself from the limitations of temporality is an important part of the discussions on the human condition, its place and meaning in the world, which have been conducted for centuries.  

An excellent researcher, Ryszard Przybylski, discussing philosophical reflections concerning the nature of our relation with time, which is the source of modern, reflective consciousness, noted at the end of the twentieth century: "Humanity cannot be separated from historicity" (Winter Fairy Tale. Essays on old age, Warsaw 1998, p. 12). In this context, we are interested in whether the understanding of time and temporality of human existence, but also the ways of conceptualizing and narrativizing time and history, still remain in the sphere of influence of existing cultural images, linguistic mechanisms or theoretical-philosophical approaches. Or do the traces of "temporality" manifested in language and literature reveal a different view of the relationship between humanity and historicity than those we know? Therefore, we are interested in methodological approaches and detailed studies that try to discuss new or hitherto indescribable experiences of time, history or memory.

Years ago, Małgorzata Czermińska pointed out that time is one of the most contentious issues in literary research, because "it can refer either to a philosophical concept that can be read from a work, or to a construction category, depending on the semantic properties of the linguistic message, which has a certain extension. The philosophical idea of time, expressed in the work, and the temporal structure of this work define two spheres of the problem, which require as much precise distinction as well as those connected by close, though often hidden, bonds" (Pamiętnik Literacki 1969, No. 4). Bearing in mind this internal diversity of the problem, we propose as a starting point an open catalogue of themes for discussion: 

- transience (vanitas), 

- memory and forgetfulness, 

- experiencing history, 

- post-memory and literature, 

- designed worlds, 

- futurology, 

- the time structure of the work and the idea of time, 

- metaphorical approaches to time in Polish and foreign languages 

- time category in specialized language 

- ways of conceptualizing/expressing time in Polish and foreign languages 

- the image of time in colloquial and scientific languages, 

- lexical, morphological and syntactic exponents of the category of time, 

- metaphorization of time,  

- time coding in language. 

We want to start a discussion on issues related to time in literary and utilitarian texts (e.g. Internet communication), as well as in language in synchronic and diachronic perspective. We will also be interested in ways of researching, commenting, valuing phenomena related to time.  

We invite you to send texts devoted to broadly understood issues related to time.  

Call deadline 1: 28 February 2022 (planned publication June-July) 

Call deadline 2: 30 April 2022 (planned publication (November-December) 

We accept texts in congress English, French, Spanish, Russian, German, Italian and Polish.