Dr Jakub Lipski, Professor at Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz from the Department of Literary Studies, and Dr Patrick Gill from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz are carrying out a project devoted to literary representations of the body in English-language Robinsonades, i.e. narratives about castaways inspired by Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe.<\/p>\n
The project, which received support from the National Science Centre’s Sonata programme, investigates lesser-known, often forgotten literary texts that feature surprising representations of corporeality. The results of the research are systematically disseminated at scientific conferences.<\/p>\n
The publications in the pipeline, a monograph and a special issue of a scientific journal, focus on the ideological and formal implications of these representations. They point, for example, to the relationship of the representation of hybrid characters to 18th-century racial discourse, as well as to the imperial and anti-imperial contexts of transformations in the creation of the character of Friday.<\/p>\n