Date Published:

Abstract:

The central problem of post-secular literary criticism is conversion, understood as a turn to various forms of spirituality beyond the traditional, canonical forms of religiosity. This article examines conversion threads in narratives that combine autobiographical and phantasmal selves. The analyzed texts reveal an interplay of fictionality and referentiality that leads to fundamental life changes for the selves. The paper comments on selected works by Franz Kafka, Samuel Beckett, Milan Kundera, J. M. Coetzee, Paul Auster, Annie Ernaux, and Andrzej Stasiuk. It also indicates analogies between literary conversions and the philosophical concepts of Michel Foucault and Peter Sloterdijk.

December 2024: Jacek Bielawa holds a PhD in Literary Studies from the University of Silesia (Katowice). His research interests focus on the intersections of life writing, Michel Foucault’s technologies of the self and Peter Sloterdijk’s anthropotechnics. His recent publications include articles on Polish autofiction in “Czas Kultury,” “Autobiografia,” and “Romanoslavica.” He is currently conducting a research project titled “Autofictional Conversions and the Central European Identity in the Works of Waldemar Bawołek, Marek Bieńczyk and Andrzej Stasiuk,” financed by the National Science Centre, Poland.