Halina Filipowicz - Böcker

This is the first comprehensive examination of the works of contemporary Polish playwright Tadeusz Rozewicz. Halina Filipowicz applies a theoretical perspective to more than a dozen plays and situates the important postwar dramatist on the borders of modernism and postmodernism, arguing that in his laboratory of impure forms he reworks the conventions and dramatic ideas of the past into a theatrical language responsive to our times. Filipowicz makes use of biographical and historical information, comparative frameworks, the lessons of deconstruction, and feminist inquiry to assess the writer's passionate and complex reactions to modern civilization. Written over a thirty-year period, Rozewicz's oeuvre includes thirteen plays, nine minidramas, and four works that transgress established categories of drama. Rozewicz's plays, such as The Card Index and White Marriage, have been staged in the United States and many are available in English. This six-chapter volume, which also contains a chronology of the writer's life and work and a calendar of premieres, draws on personal interviews with Rozewicz as well as on unpublished or forgotten plays.The first chapter presents an overview of Rozewicz's innovative dramaturgy in terms of both context and method and discovers a dramatist whose only consistency is his refusal to be faithful to any one of the temporary formulae of a playwright's craft. The following five chapters group the plays thematically and offer critical approaches to interpreting and understanding them. This groundbreaking study will be relevant to students and scholars in Slavic literatures, theatre and drama, comparative drama, comparative literature, and dramatic theory and criticism.

As narrow, nationalist views of patriotic allegiance have become widespread and are routinely invoked to justify everything from flag-waving triumphalism to xenophobic bigotry, the concept of a nonnationalist patriotism has vanished from public conversation. Taking Liberties is a study of what may be called patriotism without borders: a nonnational form of loyalty compatible with the universal principles and practices of democracy and human rights, respectful of ethnic and cultural diversity, and, overall, open-minded and inclusive.Moving beyond a traditional study of Polish dramatic literature, Halina Filipowicz turns to the plays themselves and to archival materials, ranging from parliamentary speeches to polemical pamphlets and verse broadsides, to explore the cultural phenomenon of transgressive patriotism and its implications for society in the twenty-first century.In addition to recovering lost or forgotten materials, the author builds an innovative conceptual and methodological framework to make sense of those materials. The result is not only a significant contribution to the debate over the meaning and practice of patriotism, but a masterful intellectual history.

As narrow, nationalist views of patriotic allegiance have become widespread and are routinely invoked to justify everything from flag-waving triumphalism to xenophobic bigotry, the concept of a nonnationalist patriotism has vanished from public conversation. Taking Liberties is a study of what may be called patriotism without borders: a nonnational form of loyalty compatible with the universal principles and practices of democracy and human rights, respectful of ethnic and cultural diversity, and, overall, open-minded and inclusive.Moving beyond a traditional study of Polish dramatic literature, Halina Filipowicz turns to the plays themselves and to archival materials, ranging from parliamentary speeches to polemical pamphlets and verse broadsides, to explore the cultural phenomenon of transgressive patriotism and its implications for society in the twenty-first century.In addition to recovering lost or forgotten materials, the author builds an innovative conceptual and methodological framework to make sense of those materials. The result is not only a significant contribution to the debate over the meaning and practice of patriotism, but a masterful intellectual history.

Pole/Jew brings together a group of scholars-about half of them Jewish, about half of them ethnic Poles-from the United States, Poland, the United Kingdom, and Canada and enlists their diverse methodological and generational perspectives to push debates over Polish-Jewish relations beyond entrenched and reductive positions. At the core of the volume are the following questions:–What impact has the Holocaust had on Polish history and Polish literature?–How has the Holocaust affected Polish-Jewish-and Polish-identity?–What future is there for relations between Poland’s small Jewish minority and the country’s overwhelming ethnic Polish majority? Between Poland and Israel? Between Jews of the diaspora and ethnic Poles abroad?–Which research areas have yet to be addressed or revisited and reexamined?–Are there ways to move beyond the reductive notion of 1989 (i.e., the fall of the communist regime in Poland) as wall and fulcrum?By addressing these compelling questions, this volume offers fresh perspectives and encourages a nuanced understanding of Polish-Jewish relations.Contributors:M. B. B. BiskupskiRobert BlobaumJohn J. BukowczykPatrice M. DabrowskiHalina FilipowiczAgnieszka JeżykBożena KarwowskaKamil KijekKate KoryckiElżbieta KossewskaGrażyna J. KozaczkaStanisław KrajewskiAdam LipszycWiktor MarzecAlina MolisakStanisław ObirekBenjamin PaloffAntony PolonskyBrian Porter-SzűcsPiotr PuchalskiRoma SendykaDariusz StolaKatarzyna ZechenterJoshua D. ZimmermanGeneviève ZubrzyckiSławomir Jacek Żurek

Pole/Jew brings together a group of scholars-about half of them Jewish, about half of them ethnic Poles-from the United States, Poland, the United Kingdom, and Canada and enlists their diverse methodological and generational perspectives to push debates over Polish-Jewish relations beyond entrenched and reductive positions. At the core of the volume are the following questions:–What impact has the Holocaust had on Polish history and Polish literature?–How has the Holocaust affected Polish-Jewish-and Polish-identity?–What future is there for relations between Poland’s small Jewish minority and the country’s overwhelming ethnic Polish majority? Between Poland and Israel? Between Jews of the diaspora and ethnic Poles abroad?–Which research areas have yet to be addressed or revisited and reexamined?–Are there ways to move beyond the reductive notion of 1989 (i.e., the fall of the communist regime in Poland) as wall and fulcrum?By addressing these compelling questions, this volume offers fresh perspectives and encourages a nuanced understanding of Polish-Jewish relations.Contributors:M. B. B. BiskupskiRobert BlobaumJohn J. BukowczykPatrice M. DabrowskiHalina FilipowiczAgnieszka JeżykBożena KarwowskaKamil KijekKate KoryckiElżbieta KossewskaGrażyna J. KozaczkaStanisław KrajewskiAdam LipszycWiktor MarzecAlina MolisakStanisław ObirekBenjamin PaloffAntony PolonskyBrian Porter-SzűcsPiotr PuchalskiRoma SendykaDariusz StolaKatarzyna ZechenterJoshua D. ZimmermanGeneviève ZubrzyckiSławomir Jacek Żurek

Both dramatic and musical theater are part of the tradition that has made Austria - especially Vienna - and the old Habsburg lands synonymous with high culture in Central Europe. Many works, often controversial originally but now considered as classics, are still performed regularly in Vienna, Prague, Budapest, or Krakow. This volume not only offers an excellent overview of the theatrical history of the region, it is also an innovative, cross-disciplinary attempt to analyse the inner workings and dynamics of theater through a discussion of the interplay between society, the audience, and performing artists.