Introduction

The introduction sketches the two components of the book’s topic—Polish mid-socialist culture and the notion of transgressive humanism in culture and the arts. After introducing the question of humanism for the second half of the 20th century, the period of mid-socialist Poland is characterised and the relevant events of March 1968 summarised. Attention is also given to the cultural and intellectual crises of this liminal period as a background to the emergence of transgressive humanist phenomena. The premises of transgressive humanism are presented along its characteristic aspects developed from literary scholar Maria Janion’s work. The materials analysed in the book are pointed out and the features of this fragmentised cultural-artistic phenomenon contextualised in the field of “post-humanist” studies.