Being Poland


Book Description

Being Poland offers a unique analysis of the cultural developments that took place in Poland after World War One, a period marked by Poland's return to independence. Conceived to address the lack of critical scholarship on Poland's cultural restoration, Being Poland illuminates the continuities, paradoxes, and contradictions of Poland's modern and contemporary cultural practices, and challenges the narrative typically prescribed to Polish literature and film. Reflecting the radical changes, rifts, and restorations that swept through Poland in this period, Polish literature and film reveal a multitude of perspectives. Addressing romantic perceptions of the Polish immigrant, the politics of post-war cinema, poetry, and mass media, Being Poland is a comprehensive reference work written with the intention of exposing an international audience to the explosion of Polish literature and film that emerged in the twentieth century.




Common Culture and the Ideology of Difference in Medieval and Contemporary Poland


Book Description

Teresa Pac provides a much-needed contribution to the discussion on shared culture as foundational to societal survival. Through the examination of common culture as a process in medieval Kraków, Poznań, and Lublin, Pac challenges the ideology of difference—institutional, religious, ethnic, and nationalistic. Similarly, Pac maintains, twenty-first century Polish leaders utilize anachronistic approaches in the invention of Polish Catholic identity to counteract the country’s increasing ethnic and religious diversity. As in the medieval period, contemporary Polish political and social elites subscribe to the European Union’s ideology of difference, legitimized by a European Christian heritage, and its intended basis for discrimination against non-Christians and non-white individuals under the auspices of democratic values and minority rights, among which Muslims are a significant target.




Poland and Spain in Contemporary World


Book Description

In the present collection, individual authors address both the question of relations between Poland and Spain and issues related to the role of both countries in international relations, especially in European politics. This initiative is a valuable one, particularly since the literature on this subject, both Polish and international especially – pays little attention to these two countries (and in particular relations between them). This is all the more surprising as both are among the six largest countries of Europe. A further major strength of this publication is its pairing of several texts that though on similar subjects, view those subjects from different perspectives. This pairing approach is taken on the topics of security policy, economic crisis, Polish refugees in Spain and Spanish refugees in Poland and the foreign policies of both countries. The articles themselves are concise, factual, devoid of digression and edited in accordance with the principles of academic literature. This book should be an interesting read for political scientists, scholars of European studies, international relations analysts, as well as students of Iberian studies.




Poland


Book Description




Cultural History in Europe


Book Description

What is the current state of discussion in Cultural History? Which European institutions engage exclusively in Cultural History and which topics do they address? And how will Cultural History develop in the future? These and other questions are raised by European scholars in the discussion of Institutions, Themes and Perspectives of Cultural History in this volume. It provides a profound overview of contemporary developments in Scandinavia, Finland, Great Britain, Latvia, Poland, Hungary, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Italy and Spain.




Society and Culture


Book Description




Poland in the Modern World


Book Description

Poland in the Modern World presents a history of the country from the late nineteenth century to the present, incorporating new perspectives from social and cultural history and positioning it in a broad global context Challenges traditional accounts Poland that tend to focus on national, political history, emphasizing the country's 'exceptionalism'. Presents a lively, multi-dimensional story, balancing coverage of high politics with discussion of social, cultural and economic changes, and their effects on individuals’ daily lives. Explores both the regional diversity within Poland and the country’s place within Europe and the wider world. Provides a new interpretive framework for understanding key historical events in Poland’s modern history, including the experiences of World War II and the postwar communist era.







Poland


Book Description