Genetic criticism and anthropology of the creative process : exercises in imagination

Bibliogr. s. 844-845

This article is based on the assumption, formulated in the introduction, that genetic criticism (i.e. literary study and editorial practice aimed at reconstructing the creative process behind the available texts, records, etc.) has the potential for inventiveness, innovation, and establishing its creative presence in the field of contemporary humanities. These prospects are not threatened by the recent technological breakthroughs which seriously affect the textual process itself. Consequently, the main thesis put forward in the article asserts that genetic criticism can constitute - under certain conditions - an effective and interesting form of practicing the "anthropology of the creative process", postulated by Ryszard Nycz as a "full-fledged branch of literary studies". To demonstrate in practice the anthropological potential of creative genetic criticism the article outlines three analytical and interpretative strategies and objectives that it affords. The first consists in deploying the tools of genetic criticism to explore the somatic dimension of the text-making process; the second expands the study of drafts and other pre-text materials so to expose the network-relational character of creativity, "playing out" in interactions between human and non-human actors as well as other actants involved in the text-making; the third is concerned with bridges between critical genetic studies and sociology or the study of cultural politics of affect and emotion.