Lecture (LEC)

• Above class open to graduates only
• Above class meets with SLAV-P 365 and HON-H 303.

Topic: Post-communist minorities

We Are Here! Minorities in the Post-Communist Reality When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, Europe¿for over four decades divided by the ¿iron curtain¿ between the Eastern Bloc controlled by the Soviet Union and the so-called ¿West¿¿unified. Together with this unification came the violent breakdown of previously homogenized communist societies. The suppressed minorities¿ethnic, gender, sexual, religious, etc.¿began to claim their voice in the new realities of post-communist countries. One of these countries was Poland, ethnically the most heterogenous European country before WWII and presumably the most homogenous one by the time communism collapsed. We will investigate the emergence of minorities in post-communist Poland. We will discuss the social and political construction of ¿otherness¿ and its cultural representations in the new capitalist order. We will talk about the Jewish revival on the territories where the Holocaust wiped out almost the entire Jewish population, German and Roma minorities, the intense struggle for visibility and civic rights by the LGBTQ communities, vibrant feminist movements, disabled communities, and animals and environment as a silent minority. We will watch several films and a Netflix series (¿Infamy¿), a queer novel, performance art, and much more. Keywords: minority, sexual, queer, LGBTQ, gay pride, ethnic, denominational, religious, feminism, dissent, disability, ecology, Roma, Jewish, German, emancipation, communist, postcommunist, All works in English. No prerequisites. No textbooks. All texts will be provided.