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168 books match the query 'Poland' and 4 start with g

cover of Germany's Wild East: Constructing Poland as Colonial Space

Germany's Wild East

Constructing Poland as Colonial Space

Kristin Kopp

University of Michigan Press, 2012

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, representations of Poland and the Slavic East cast the region as a primitive, undeveloped, or empty space inhabited by a population destined to remain uncivilized without the aid of external intervention. These depictions often made direct reference to the American Wild West, portraying the eastern steppes as a boundless plain that needed to be wrested from the hands of unruly natives and spatially ordered into German-administrated units.

While conventional definitions locate colonial space overseas, Kristin Kopp argues that it was possible to understand both distant continents and adjacent Eastern Europe as parts of the same global periphery dependent upon Western European civilizing efforts. However, proximity to the source of aid translated to greater benefits for Eastern Europe than for more distant regions.

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cover of Gesta principum Polonorum: The Deeds of the Princes of the Poles

Gesta principum Polonorum

The Deeds of the Princes of the Poles

János M. Bak

Central European University Press, 2003

Written around 1112-1116, The Deeds of the Princes of the Poles is the oldest narrative source from Poland, formerly attributed to 'Gallus,' a French monk. The anonymous author tells the ancient history of Poland down to the reign of Boleslaw III. The chronicle contains valuable information on Poland's relations to her neighbors as well as the political ideas of his time.
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cover of Ghetto Kingdom: Tales of the Lodz Ghetto

Ghetto Kingdom

Tales of the Lodz Ghetto

Isaiah Spiegel

Northwestern University Press, 1998

Isaiah Spiegel was an inmate of the Lodz Ghetto from its inception in 1940 until its liquidation in 1944. While there, he wrote short stories depicting Jewish life in the ghetto and managed to hide them before he was deported to Auschwitz. After being freed, he returned to Lodz to retrieve and publish his stories.
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The stories examine the relationship between inmates and their families, their friends, their Christian former neighbors, the German soldiers, and, ultimately, the world of hopelessness and desperation that surrounded them. In using his creative powers to transform the suffering and death of his people into stories that preserve their memory, Spiegel succeeds in affirming the humanity and dignity the Germans were so intent on destroying.

Originally published as Malchut geto (Malkhes geto) in Yiddish.
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cover of Grotowski's Bridge Made of Memory: Embodied Memory, Witnessing and Transmission in the Grotowski Work

Grotowski's Bridge Made of Memory

Embodied Memory, Witnessing and Transmission in the Grotowski Work

Dominika Laster

Seagull Books, 2016

Considered one of the most influential theatre practitioners of the 20th century, Polish director Jerzy Grotowski revolutionized contemporary theatre in multiple ways. Perhaps best known for his notion of ‘poor theatre,’ Grotowski went beyond the confines of conventional theatre to systematically explore the possibilities of the human being in a performative context. In Grotowski’s Bridge Made of Memory, Dominika Laster analyzes core aspects of Grotowski’s work such as body-memory, vigilance, witnessing, verticality, and transmission, arguing that these performance praxes involve a deliberate blurring of the boundaries of the self and other.

This comprehensive study traces key thematic threads across Grotowski’s research, examining lesser-known aspects of his work such as performance compositions structured around African and Afro-Caribbean traditional songs and ritual movement as well as textual material from the Christian Gnostic tradition. As an active process of research and questioning conducted through the “body-being” of the performer, Grotowski’s work represents a practical realization of the often highly theoretical and abstract discussions of one of the field’s main preoccupations: embodied practice as a way of knowing.

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