Text Matters: A Journal of Literature, Theory and Culture, No. 1 (2011)

Dorota Filipczak

The first issue of Text Matters, published in 2011 and supervised by its editor-in-chief, Professor Dorota Filipczak, consists of two main sections. The first one, entitled "Women and Authority," contains thirteen texts exploring, in its editor's words, "the relationship between women and authority, vested in literary and philosophical texts." The authors come from different backgrounds: philosophy, theology, literature, while their articles concern the works of authors as varied as Michele Le Doeuff, Jane Urquhart, Laurence Sterne, Michele Roberts, Iris Murdoch, Virginia Woolf, Ian McEwan, Muriel Spark, Denise Levertov, Mary Dorcey, Carol Shields, Sylvia Plath, and Janet Frame. One of the analyses is devoted to the male/female relations in selected late medieval and early modern English texts. In the second section, named "Word/Image/Sound," there are six scholarly articles that cover the following topics: the oeuvre of Rudy Wiebe, close connections between artistry and religion, the postcolonial aspects of Michael Haneke's Hidden, the use of Ulster dialects in the poetry of Tom Paulin and Michael Longley, the role of dance in Brian Friel's Molly Sweeney, and, finally, the depiction of ambiguity and paradox in Ian McEwan's Saturday. Additionally, the volume includes an overview of book tributes to Professor Andrzej Kopcewicz, a look at the current state of American newspapers, a review of The Body (edited by Ilona Dobosiewicz and Jacek Gutorow), as well as two conversations: between Jared Thomas and Teresa Podemska-Abt, and Pamela Sue Anderson and Alison Jasper.