S. D. Chrostowska
Professor
Graduate Program in Social and Political Thought
Office: Founders College, 307A
Email: sylwiac@yorku.ca
Primary website: http://yorku.academia.edu/SDChrostowska
Media Requests Welcome
I joined the Department of Humanities in 2011. My published work spans modern political and critical social theory, esp. Frankfurt School; utopianism; history and theory of discursive and filmic genres; history of literary criticism; cultural memory and affect; visual art. Other interests: ignorance studies/agnotology, surrealism.
My current research concerns the history of modern critical thought from the end of the eighteenth to the end of the twentieth century in relation to political economy and emerging conceptions of value. My focus in this history is on social critique’s affective dimension, the structures of feeling intertwined with the development of critical concepts and values, and their expression in the critico-nostalgic and critico-utopian currents of German and French thought.
I teach courses in utopian thought and literature at both the undergraduate and graduate levels; in modernity's cultural moods of melancholy and nostalgia and their oft-intersecting histories; in the literature of transgression from the Middle Ages to the present; and in epistemologies of ignorance from Greek Antiquity to today.
Degrees
PhD, University of TorontoAppointments
Faculty of Graduate StudiesResearch Interests
A Cage for Every Child: Stories. Seattle: Sublunary, 2021.
Utopia in the Age of Survival: Between Myth and Politics. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2021.
Feux croisés: Propos pour l'histoire de la survie. Preface by Alexander Kluge. Trans. Joël Gayraud. Paris: Klincksieck, 2018. Critique de la Politique.
Political Uses of Utopia: New Marxist, Anarchist, and Radical Democratic Perspectives. Co-edited with James D. Ingram. New York: Columbia University Press, 2017. New Directions in Critical Theory.
MATCHES: A Light Book. Brooklyn, NY: Punctum, 2015. Second revised expanded edition, with foreword by Alexander Kluge, 2019.
Literature on Trial: The Emergence of Critical Discourse in Germany, Poland, and Russia, 1700-1800. University of Toronto Press, 2012.
“Kluge, iconoclaste.” In Wolfgang Asholt, Jean-Pierre Morel, and Vincent Pauval, eds., Alexander Kluge: Cartographie d’une œuvre plurielle. Colloque Cerisy, 2019. Paris: Éditions Hermann, 2022. 61-68.
“Destination: Origin—or, Utopia and Political Theology in Oldest Systematic Program of German Idealism.” In Kirill Chepurin and Alex Dubilet, eds., Nothing Absolute: German Idealism and the Question of Political Theology. New York, NY: Fordham University Press, 2021.
“Adorno’s Senses of Critique: Gesture, Suffering, Utopia.” In Re-reading Adorno for the 21st Century. London: Bloomsbury, 2021, forthcoming.
“Coda: Utopia, Alibi.” In Political Uses of Utopia. Ed. S.D. Chrostowska and James D. Ingram. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2018.
"A Passing Glance: Encounters with Deadness and Dying." Beauty and the Abject: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Eds. L. Boldt-Irons, C. Federici, and E. Virgulti. New York: Peter Lang, 2007. 59-84.
“Progressivement plus petit: D’une forme utopique de l’écriture.” Trans. Joël Gayraud. Po&sie 183-184 (2023): 153-169.
Chrostowska, Sylwia. “Adorno sur le seuil.” Des pays habitables: Naiveté—Utopie—Exuberance 6 (2022): 71-75.
"Progress: From Literature to History." Common Knowledge 27.2.
“Is There a Place for Utopia?” The Hedgehog Review 23.2 (2021): 75-83.
“A Room of One’s Own, in Miniature.” VOYZX Magazine 7.
"Serious, not all that serious: Utopia in contemporary critical theory.” Constellations 26 (2019): 330-343.
“L’Utopie dans la théorie critique contemporaine.” Trans. Perrine Chambon and Joël Gayraud. Prismes: Théorie critique 2 (2019): 71–109.
“Trajectory of a Dream.” The Hedgehog Review 21.2 (2019).
“Adorno et utopie: parcours et détours.” Trans. Élise Aru. Les Cahiers philosophiques 154 (2018): 95-116.
“The Flesh Is Not Sad: Returns of the Body in the Modern Utopian Tradition.” Diacritics 46.3 (2018): 4-30
“The Man without Identities.” The Hedgehog Review 21.2 (2018): 74-84.
"The Modern Beggar." The Hedgehog Review 21.1 (2018): 103-113.
"The Spring and the Reel: On Film and Revolution." boundary 2 44.2 (2017): 95-125.
“Begging for Utopia.” Full Stop Quarterly 5 (April 2017): 44-55.
"Shelf Lives: On Nostalgic Libraries." Public Culture 28.1 (2016): 9-21.
“La Réparation somatique: utopie, corps, politique.” Tumultes 47 (2016): 92-107, in French.
“Critical Longing: Some Remarks on Nostalgia’s Role in Critique.” Dandelion 7.1 (2016): 1-12
“Anti-Sisyphus: The Future Is Not What It Used to Be--A Photograph by Gilbert Garcin.” Photography and Culture 9.2 (2016): 1-4
"Criterion Creation: A Metaepistemological Problem in Perspective." Parrhesia: A Journal of Critical Philosophy 20 (2014): 87-101.
"Thought Woken by Memory: Adorno's Circuitous Path to Utopia." New German Critique 118 (Winter 2013): 93-117.
“A Collision of Gargoyles.” Evental Aesthetics 2.1 (2013): 10-20, special issue on pre-modern aesthetic practices.
"Angelus Novus, Angst of History." diacritics 40.1 (2010): 42-68.
"'Words tickle me, thoughts caress me': Gombrowicz on the Point of Interpretation." Orbis Litterarum 66.2 (2011): 121-147.
"Consumed by Nostalgia?" Sub-stance 39.2 (2010): 52-70.
"Notes for a History of the Political (Capital Events and Bodies Politic in the French Revolution)." Telos 147 (2009): 99-119. Special issue on Carl Schmitt and the event.
"Vis-à-vis the Glaneuse." Angelaki 12.2 (2007): 119-133.
"'A Case, an Affair, an Event' (The Dossier by Michel Foucault)." Clio: A Journal of Literature, History and the Philosophy of History 35.3 (2006): 329-349.
"Polish Literary Criticism Circa 1772: A Genre Perspective." Toronto Slavic Quarterly 14 (2005).
"Above Suspicion." Alphabet City 10: Suspect. Cambridge, MA/Toronto: MIT Press and Alphabet City Media, 2005. 240-244.
"Stanislaw Brzozowski, Philosopher of History, Myth, and Will." New Literary History 36.4 (2005): 521-542.
"'Masochistic Art of Fantasy': The Literary Works of Bruno Schulz in the Context of Modern Masochism." Russian Literature 55 (2004): 469-501.
“Les Gémeaux.” Alcheringa 1 (2019): 37.
“Red Is the Color of Attention.” Seattle: Sublunary Editions, 2019.
"The Writing on the Wall." Numéro Cinq. August 2017 (final issue).
"Deluge." Polish(ed): Poland Rooted in Canadian Fiction (Toronto: Guernica, 2018). Reprint.
"Opferlingen." Numéro Cinq, December 2016.
"Data on Alien Civilizations"; "Inventions of Potency." Colloquy 27 (2014): 105-108.
"The Thinking Head" - excerpts from Matches. BOMB Magazine, July 2015.
"Proof through the Night" - from MATCHES. 3:AM Magazine, July 2015.
"Bridges." Stand Magazine 12.1 (2014): 55-58.
"Burn"; "On Wasted Time"; "Shadows". The Coming Envelope 9 (2014): 8-15.
"The Third Circuit (Postface to Permission)." The New Quarterly 130 (April 2014): 53-60.
Seven and a Half Studies: "The Good, the Bad, and the Beyond"; "Notes of a Writer-Suicide"; "Homodomus"; "Midwife"; "Of Parables"; "No Outstanding Work"; "Called Literature"; "The Post-Book." Review of Contemporary Fiction 33.3 (2013). "Autofictions" issue.
“Pillars”; “Course of Cain”; “Gemini.” BOMB Magazine 129 (2014).
“Inedits.” (Critical fragments). Convolution: Journal for Critical Experiment 2 (2013): 1-7.
“Cave Hominem”; “The Great Indoors”; “Loose Pages from a Diary: on dog days in W., house”; “Funeral”; “Deluge.” The Review of Contemporary Fiction 33.1 (2013): 22-35.
"How to Avoid the Cardinal Sins (a nominalistic pamphlet).” 3:AM Magazine December 2013.
"The Raven." Wet Ink 24 (2011): 33.
"Saltos Morales." New Writing 8.2 (2011): 194-199.
"The Old Earth." Rampike 19.2 (2010): 71.
"Where Things Go to Die." New Writing: The International Journal for the Practice and Theory of Creative Writing 6.1 (2009): 35-39.
“Parable of the Cave, Redux”; “Sadness—après Van Gogh”; “Of an American Indian Prophet”; “Message to a Prophet, General Delivery”; “About My Library.” Exile: The Literary Quarterly 32.3 (2008): 74-79.
“Glass”; “Sonatina for Piano.” Janus Head: Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature, Continental Philosophy, Phenomenological Psychology, and the Arts 10.2 (2008): 625-626.
A Cage for Every Child: Stories. Forthcoming from Sublunary Editions, Spring 2021.
“‘Alors il s’est tourné vers moi.’ Entretien avec Alexander Kluge sur Theodor W. Adorno.” Interview by S.D. Chrostowska. Forthcoming in Critique.
Current Courses
| Term | Course Number | Section | Title | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Winter 2024 | AP/HUMA4185 6.0 | M | Modern Moods: Nostalgia and Melancholy | SEMR |
I joined the Department of Humanities in 2011. My published work spans modern political and critical social theory, esp. Frankfurt School; utopianism; history and theory of discursive and filmic genres; history of literary criticism; cultural memory and affect; visual art. Other interests: ignorance studies/agnotology, surrealism.
My current research concerns the history of modern critical thought from the end of the eighteenth to the end of the twentieth century in relation to political economy and emerging conceptions of value. My focus in this history is on social critique’s affective dimension, the structures of feeling intertwined with the development of critical concepts and values, and their expression in the critico-nostalgic and critico-utopian currents of German and French thought.
I teach courses in utopian thought and literature at both the undergraduate and graduate levels; in modernity's cultural moods of melancholy and nostalgia and their oft-intersecting histories; in the literature of transgression from the Middle Ages to the present; and in epistemologies of ignorance from Greek Antiquity to today.
Degrees
PhD, University of TorontoAppointments
Faculty of Graduate StudiesResearch Interests
All Publications
“Kluge, iconoclaste.” In Wolfgang Asholt, Jean-Pierre Morel, and Vincent Pauval, eds., Alexander Kluge: Cartographie d’une œuvre plurielle. Colloque Cerisy, 2019. Paris: Éditions Hermann, 2022. 61-68.
“Destination: Origin—or, Utopia and Political Theology in Oldest Systematic Program of German Idealism.” In Kirill Chepurin and Alex Dubilet, eds., Nothing Absolute: German Idealism and the Question of Political Theology. New York, NY: Fordham University Press, 2021.
“Adorno’s Senses of Critique: Gesture, Suffering, Utopia.” In Re-reading Adorno for the 21st Century. London: Bloomsbury, 2021, forthcoming.
“Coda: Utopia, Alibi.” In Political Uses of Utopia. Ed. S.D. Chrostowska and James D. Ingram. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2018.
"A Passing Glance: Encounters with Deadness and Dying." Beauty and the Abject: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Eds. L. Boldt-Irons, C. Federici, and E. Virgulti. New York: Peter Lang, 2007. 59-84.
A Cage for Every Child: Stories. Seattle: Sublunary, 2021.
Utopia in the Age of Survival: Between Myth and Politics. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2021.
Feux croisés: Propos pour l'histoire de la survie. Preface by Alexander Kluge. Trans. Joël Gayraud. Paris: Klincksieck, 2018. Critique de la Politique.
Political Uses of Utopia: New Marxist, Anarchist, and Radical Democratic Perspectives. Co-edited with James D. Ingram. New York: Columbia University Press, 2017. New Directions in Critical Theory.
MATCHES: A Light Book. Brooklyn, NY: Punctum, 2015. Second revised expanded edition, with foreword by Alexander Kluge, 2019.
Literature on Trial: The Emergence of Critical Discourse in Germany, Poland, and Russia, 1700-1800. University of Toronto Press, 2012.
“Progressivement plus petit: D’une forme utopique de l’écriture.” Trans. Joël Gayraud. Po&sie 183-184 (2023): 153-169.
Chrostowska, Sylwia. “Adorno sur le seuil.” Des pays habitables: Naiveté—Utopie—Exuberance 6 (2022): 71-75.
"Progress: From Literature to History." Common Knowledge 27.2.
“Is There a Place for Utopia?” The Hedgehog Review 23.2 (2021): 75-83.
“A Room of One’s Own, in Miniature.” VOYZX Magazine 7.
"Serious, not all that serious: Utopia in contemporary critical theory.” Constellations 26 (2019): 330-343.
“L’Utopie dans la théorie critique contemporaine.” Trans. Perrine Chambon and Joël Gayraud. Prismes: Théorie critique 2 (2019): 71–109.
“Trajectory of a Dream.” The Hedgehog Review 21.2 (2019).
“Adorno et utopie: parcours et détours.” Trans. Élise Aru. Les Cahiers philosophiques 154 (2018): 95-116.
“The Flesh Is Not Sad: Returns of the Body in the Modern Utopian Tradition.” Diacritics 46.3 (2018): 4-30
“The Man without Identities.” The Hedgehog Review 21.2 (2018): 74-84.
"The Modern Beggar." The Hedgehog Review 21.1 (2018): 103-113.
"The Spring and the Reel: On Film and Revolution." boundary 2 44.2 (2017): 95-125.
“Begging for Utopia.” Full Stop Quarterly 5 (April 2017): 44-55.
"Shelf Lives: On Nostalgic Libraries." Public Culture 28.1 (2016): 9-21.
“La Réparation somatique: utopie, corps, politique.” Tumultes 47 (2016): 92-107, in French.
“Critical Longing: Some Remarks on Nostalgia’s Role in Critique.” Dandelion 7.1 (2016): 1-12
“Anti-Sisyphus: The Future Is Not What It Used to Be--A Photograph by Gilbert Garcin.” Photography and Culture 9.2 (2016): 1-4
"Criterion Creation: A Metaepistemological Problem in Perspective." Parrhesia: A Journal of Critical Philosophy 20 (2014): 87-101.
"Thought Woken by Memory: Adorno's Circuitous Path to Utopia." New German Critique 118 (Winter 2013): 93-117.
“A Collision of Gargoyles.” Evental Aesthetics 2.1 (2013): 10-20, special issue on pre-modern aesthetic practices.
"Angelus Novus, Angst of History." diacritics 40.1 (2010): 42-68.
"'Words tickle me, thoughts caress me': Gombrowicz on the Point of Interpretation." Orbis Litterarum 66.2 (2011): 121-147.
"Consumed by Nostalgia?" Sub-stance 39.2 (2010): 52-70.
"Notes for a History of the Political (Capital Events and Bodies Politic in the French Revolution)." Telos 147 (2009): 99-119. Special issue on Carl Schmitt and the event.
"Vis-à-vis the Glaneuse." Angelaki 12.2 (2007): 119-133.
"'A Case, an Affair, an Event' (The Dossier by Michel Foucault)." Clio: A Journal of Literature, History and the Philosophy of History 35.3 (2006): 329-349.
"Polish Literary Criticism Circa 1772: A Genre Perspective." Toronto Slavic Quarterly 14 (2005).
"Above Suspicion." Alphabet City 10: Suspect. Cambridge, MA/Toronto: MIT Press and Alphabet City Media, 2005. 240-244.
"Stanislaw Brzozowski, Philosopher of History, Myth, and Will." New Literary History 36.4 (2005): 521-542.
"'Masochistic Art of Fantasy': The Literary Works of Bruno Schulz in the Context of Modern Masochism." Russian Literature 55 (2004): 469-501.
“Les Gémeaux.” Alcheringa 1 (2019): 37.
“Red Is the Color of Attention.” Seattle: Sublunary Editions, 2019.
"The Writing on the Wall." Numéro Cinq. August 2017 (final issue).
"Deluge." Polish(ed): Poland Rooted in Canadian Fiction (Toronto: Guernica, 2018). Reprint.
"Opferlingen." Numéro Cinq, December 2016.
"Data on Alien Civilizations"; "Inventions of Potency." Colloquy 27 (2014): 105-108.
"The Thinking Head" - excerpts from Matches. BOMB Magazine, July 2015.
"Proof through the Night" - from MATCHES. 3:AM Magazine, July 2015.
"Bridges." Stand Magazine 12.1 (2014): 55-58.
"Burn"; "On Wasted Time"; "Shadows". The Coming Envelope 9 (2014): 8-15.
"The Third Circuit (Postface to Permission)." The New Quarterly 130 (April 2014): 53-60.
Seven and a Half Studies: "The Good, the Bad, and the Beyond"; "Notes of a Writer-Suicide"; "Homodomus"; "Midwife"; "Of Parables"; "No Outstanding Work"; "Called Literature"; "The Post-Book." Review of Contemporary Fiction 33.3 (2013). "Autofictions" issue.
“Pillars”; “Course of Cain”; “Gemini.” BOMB Magazine 129 (2014).
“Inedits.” (Critical fragments). Convolution: Journal for Critical Experiment 2 (2013): 1-7.
“Cave Hominem”; “The Great Indoors”; “Loose Pages from a Diary: on dog days in W., house”; “Funeral”; “Deluge.” The Review of Contemporary Fiction 33.1 (2013): 22-35.
"How to Avoid the Cardinal Sins (a nominalistic pamphlet).” 3:AM Magazine December 2013.
"The Raven." Wet Ink 24 (2011): 33.
"Saltos Morales." New Writing 8.2 (2011): 194-199.
"The Old Earth." Rampike 19.2 (2010): 71.
"Where Things Go to Die." New Writing: The International Journal for the Practice and Theory of Creative Writing 6.1 (2009): 35-39.
“Parable of the Cave, Redux”; “Sadness—après Van Gogh”; “Of an American Indian Prophet”; “Message to a Prophet, General Delivery”; “About My Library.” Exile: The Literary Quarterly 32.3 (2008): 74-79.
“Glass”; “Sonatina for Piano.” Janus Head: Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature, Continental Philosophy, Phenomenological Psychology, and the Arts 10.2 (2008): 625-626.
A Cage for Every Child: Stories. Forthcoming from Sublunary Editions, Spring 2021.
“‘Alors il s’est tourné vers moi.’ Entretien avec Alexander Kluge sur Theodor W. Adorno.” Interview by S.D. Chrostowska. Forthcoming in Critique.
Current Courses
| Term | Course Number | Section | Title | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Winter 2024 | AP/HUMA4185 6.0 | M | Modern Moods: Nostalgia and Melancholy | SEMR |
