Coming Out in Poland

Coming out of the closet, a concept originating in American culture and consistent with the paradigm of conversion, has been embraced by many Polish LGBT+ activists. However, literary coming-out narratives have played a relatively minor role in Polish homoerotic writings while a prominent American g...

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Main Author: Tomasz Basiuk
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: European Association for American Studies 2019-01-01
Series:European Journal of American Studies
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/ejas/13519
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author Tomasz Basiuk
author_facet Tomasz Basiuk
author_sort Tomasz Basiuk
collection DOAJ
description Coming out of the closet, a concept originating in American culture and consistent with the paradigm of conversion, has been embraced by many Polish LGBT+ activists. However, literary coming-out narratives have played a relatively minor role in Polish homoerotic writings while a prominent American gay coming-out novel has not had significant resonance after it was published in Polish translation, suggesting that neither the coming-out story nor the rhetorical act of coming out has been adopted without reservation. Moreover, a contemporary call for Polish lesbian women and gay men to come out in order to promote marriage equality seems more directly aligned with the present-day U.S. political context than with any broadly accepted local activist position on the question of same-sex marriage. Given the absence of consensus about the meaning and the goal of coming out, or even its appropriateness, verbal coming out cannot function as performative speech in the Polish context, where it is better understood as periperformative speech (Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick).
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spelling doaj-art-06cc1739cf7e4b65923288ee63ff44812025-01-06T09:08:52ZengEuropean Association for American StudiesEuropean Journal of American Studies1991-93362019-01-0113310.4000/ejas.13519Coming Out in PolandTomasz BasiukComing out of the closet, a concept originating in American culture and consistent with the paradigm of conversion, has been embraced by many Polish LGBT+ activists. However, literary coming-out narratives have played a relatively minor role in Polish homoerotic writings while a prominent American gay coming-out novel has not had significant resonance after it was published in Polish translation, suggesting that neither the coming-out story nor the rhetorical act of coming out has been adopted without reservation. Moreover, a contemporary call for Polish lesbian women and gay men to come out in order to promote marriage equality seems more directly aligned with the present-day U.S. political context than with any broadly accepted local activist position on the question of same-sex marriage. Given the absence of consensus about the meaning and the goal of coming out, or even its appropriateness, verbal coming out cannot function as performative speech in the Polish context, where it is better understood as periperformative speech (Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick).https://journals.openedition.org/ejas/13519coming out; conversion; parrhesia; periperformative; marital equality; testimony
spellingShingle Tomasz Basiuk
Coming Out in Poland
European Journal of American Studies
coming out; conversion; parrhesia; periperformative; marital equality; testimony
title Coming Out in Poland
title_full Coming Out in Poland
title_fullStr Coming Out in Poland
title_full_unstemmed Coming Out in Poland
title_short Coming Out in Poland
title_sort coming out in poland
topic coming out; conversion; parrhesia; periperformative; marital equality; testimony
url https://journals.openedition.org/ejas/13519
work_keys_str_mv AT tomaszbasiuk comingoutinpoland