Obce, zrujnowane ciała: melancholia a współczesna proza kobieca

Abstract

The paper constitutes a brief overview of the history of melancholy, with a particular focus given to the presence and the role of women in melancholy discourses. It also includes a discussion of the book Melancholic Migrating Bodies in Contemporary Polish Women’s Writing (2015), in which the author Urszula Chowaniec examines the contemporary Polish women’s fiction, in particular the motifs of nomadic, melancholic and „ruined” bodies. Moreover, Judith Butler’s concept of gender melancholy is also invoked as an alternative discourse of melancholy and femininity.

Keywords

• melancholy
• body
• post-1989 women’s prose
• gender melancholy