Society and Culture in Postcommunist Poland

Timetable

Collegium Historicum Novum, Morasko Campus, ul. Uniwersytetu Poznanskiego 7

Module aim (aims)

Give knowledge about social and cultural aspects of living in post-communist Poland

Develop ability to critically asses different discourses about society in Poland

Develop skills to compare individual and group experiences across places, genders and generations

Provide a base to study and discuss selected aspects of post-communist realities in Poland at micro and macro levels

Give understanding of research agenda and scholarly literature concerning society and culture in post-communist Poland

Pre-requisites in terms of knowledge, skills and social competences (where relevant)

reading, writing and speaking skills in English

Syllabus

Memory and remembrance in post-communist Poland

Local memories and spaces of commemoration

New stratifications: poverty

Local economies of transformation

Religious identities and activities

Values and conflicts: religion, politics and health

Sexual minorities

Women – rights and health

Discourses and experiences of migration

Summary: continuities and rupture in post-communist Poland

Reading list

Bashko, Aliaksei. "Entrepreneurship and ethnic economy employment among Chinese and Vietnamese residents of Warsaw." International Migration online 1 June 2021

Galbraith, Marysia. 2000. "On the Road to Częstochowa: Rhetoric and Experience on a Polish Pilgrimage." Anthropological Quarterly 73 (2): 61-73.

Hall, Dorota.  2015. Antagonism in the Making: Religion and Homosexuality in Post-Communist Poland. In Religious and Sexual Nationalisms in Central and Eastern Europe: Gods, Gays, and Governments, ed. S. Sremac and R. R. Ganzevoort. Leiden: Brill, 74-92.

Kramer, Anne-Marie. 2007. ‘The Abortion Debate in Poland: Opinion Polls, Ideological Politics, Citizenship and the Erasure of Gender as a Category of Analysis’. In Living Gender after Communism, ed J. E. Johnson and J. C. Robinson. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 63-79

Kuźma, Inga. 2016: “The sense and the practices of living in a homeless shelter.” Studi di Nuevo Meridionalismo, R. II, nr 3, s. 223-235.

Pine, Frances. 2014. "Migration as Hope: Space, Time, and Imagining the Future." Current Anthropology 55(S9): S95-S104.

Radkowska-Walkowicz, Magdalena. 2017. "How the Political Becomes Private: In Vitro Fertilization and the Catholic Church in Poland." Journal of Religion and Health.  https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs10943-017-0480-3.pdf

Stacul, Jaro. 2014. "The Production of 'Local Culture' in Post-socialist Poland."  Anthropological Journal of European Cultures 23 (1): 21-39.

Witeska-Młynarczyk, Anna. 2016. Empowering Files: Secret Police Records and Life Narratives of Former Political Prisoners of the Communist Era in Poland. In Reclaiming the Personal: Oral History in Post-socialist Europe, ed. N. Khanenko-Friesen, G.Grinchenko, Toronto University Press.