Close
Description
This module introduces students to the multiplicity of representations of Polish Jewry in Polish culture and serves as a broad survey to how Jews and Polish Jews were perceived over the centuries. As such, it complements modules that focus exclusively on the Holocaust or on the history of European Jewry. The module aims to present Polish Jews within the complexity of Poland鈥檚 multi-ethnic past and not as an isolated phenomenon in itself. It focuses on literature written only in the Polish language (both in Poland and abroad) by Polish and Polish-Jewish writers. The module employs not only historical perspectives but also looks at the presence and then the absence of Polish Jewry through such concepts as cultural trauma. We will analyze various representations of Polish Jewry in literary works but also in art (paintings) and films that focus on various aspects of Polish-Jewish relationships and interactions, such as the attitude towards 鈥渢he Poles of the Mosaic faith鈥�, the acceptance of Frankists into the ranks of Polish nobility, the suspicions towards the Jews, the economic antagonism, and anti-Semitism. An essential part of the module focuses on the representations of the Holocaust and WWII in modern Polish literature as well as the revival of interest in Jewishness and Polish Jews in democratic Poland after 1989.
Module deliveries for 2024/25 academic year
Last updated
This module description was last updated on 19th August 2024.
听