Maria Korusiewicz

The present article is an attempt to describe the cultural determinants of the categoryof tragicality, the determinants considered in relation to the very generally conceived cultural systems of the West and East (particularly the Anglo-European tradition, on the one hand, and the Japanese and Chinese ones, on the other, as the most characteristic for the discussed problem). The particular parts of the article concentrate on various differences in approaching the notions of transcendence, individualism, natural and normative law. Summing up, the author makes a list of the features conditioning, in a given culture, the development of a tragic consciousness that influences the formation of a specific vision of the universe.

In the present article, another of the author's studies on Girard, she analyses the mechanism of the scapegoat (scapegoating), which not only underlies sacrificial rituals, but also provides the foundations of the civilising function of the sacred, making it possible to organise the life of a given community, and to channel the most destructive type of violence and transform it into a factor that strengthens the communal ties. This happens at the cost of a substitutive victim selected on the basis sacrificial signs and stereotypes, that is accusations of having broken a taboo. The aim of the ritual then is not so much to establish a contact with the godhead, but rather to construct and sustain the social life of a given group, particularly if the community in question has not developed an objective legal system that could prevent outbreaks of violence disrupting its integrity. The article concludes with an attempt to systematise René Girard’s views on the basis of the mechanism of the scapegoating in the development of cultural forms.

This paper asks whether there are grounds for viewing Girard’s work as a tragic vision, and explores the criteria and contexts that might figure in such an investigation. Mimetic anthropology is built on references to the tragic perspective, but its tragic aspect is complex and diaphanous in respect of its structuring and dynamics. Its framework is difficult to explore without engaging with contemporary Christian theological thought—something that significantly affects its implications. As for the latter, the transformative potential of Girard’s tragic anthropology, directly engendered by its critical approach to its own theses, tends to shatter the stability of its assumptions. Therefore, from the earliest interpretations of ancient tragic drama, through the pitfalls of the notion of sacrifice and the dialogue with the philosophy of existence and dramatic theology, all the way to the so‑called apocalyptic phase in Girard’s thought, we can observe shifting relationships between the broadening areas of human failure on the one hand, and the elusive horizon of hope on the other. Within this vision, the last strategy of hope seems to lie in the decision of the individual as a witness to a man‑made apocalypse—and/or the apocalypse itself.

The paper discusses the aesthetic aspects of place‑making practices in the urban environment of Western metropoles that are struggling with the progressive undifferentiation of their space and the weakening of communal and personal bonds. The paper starts by describing the general characteristics of an urban environment as distinct from the traditional vision of a city as a well‑structured entity, and in relation to formal and informal aesthetics and participatory design ideas. The author then focuses on two contrary but complementary tactics for translating a space into a positively evaluated p l a ce: by dome ticating it through introducing nature into an urbanscape; and by accentuating its alienness with the example of the urban exploration movement. The growing popularity of the latter is presented in relation to the discourses related to the decline of cities and the romantic endeavours for reaching into the realm of the unknown or the uncanny in order to rediscover and enrich the unique identity of a place. The paper ends with conclusions that present the necessity for the cultivation of a multidimensional aesthetic awareness and an aesthetic engagement as a crucial issue in the complex task of endowing places with a density of meaning.