Emotional and social geographies in Polish literature: Spaces of reflection and transformation, European and transatlantic perspectives

Goal: German-Polish and German-American encounters during educational exchange projects from the 1980s that include the period of the Cold War through the turn of the millennium established a sustained research interest not only of educational systems, theories and approaches to learning, but also in the various cultures, literatures, and societies of those involved. Researchers from Germany, Poland, and the United States utilized a trinational perspective successfully in a series of texts within these contexts (Broecher, 2015; Broecher et al., 2014; Broecher and Toczyski, 2021; Toczyski, Broecher and Painter, 2021). They now undertake a multi-perspective look at Polish literature, particularly works produced during Poland‘s historical development. Of particular interest are writings produced during the time of the partitions, including the country’s disappearance from the maps for more than a century, the occupation and colonization of the Polish people through neighboring countries, especially Prussia, and later Nazi Germany, Austria and Russia, and later the Soviet Union. Over the centuries, writers living in this area composed unique, powerful, resistant, political and also self-reflective literature. This literature, partly written in exile, offers a real wealth of topics of an emotional and social nature.

The initial phase of the project has been to conduct an inventory of the literature, including in-depth reading, structuring the material, and exploring novels and other narratives, autobiographical writings and secondary literature included in this period and locale. Following the classification of Karl Dedecius‘ Polish library (2011), the current research interest begins with following writers, but diversions from this course are anticipated as the research evolves. Authors under study include Adam Mickiewicz and Julius Słowacki, as representatives of romanticism; Józef Ignacy Kraszewski, Henryk Sienkiewicz and Władysław Stanisław Reymont as representatives of positivism; and Stefan Żeromski, Stanisław Przybyszewski and Wacław Berent as key figures of modernism. Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz or Witold Marian Gombrowicz are included as voices between the two world wars, and Jerzy Andrzejewski, Czesław Miłosz (who became a professor in Berkeley), Wisława Szymborska (a Nobel Prize-winning poet who wrote very powerful poems), Kazimierz Brandys or Wiesław Mysliwski. These writers, both after World War II through the end of the 20th century, include Andrzej Sapkowski, whose tales have inspired the creation of computer games and film series, up to contemporary literature, such as that from the pen of Michał Witkowski, a protagonist of the Polish gay movement, and Olga Tokarczuk, who was recently awarded the Nobel Prize for her life's work.

Following the intial review, the researchers will examine the emotional and social geographies, themes and explorations that evolve from this wide field of literature. The results of this analysis will be discussed in the triangle of German, American and Polish perspectives. The researchers‘ views will reflect ideas linked into the world of current educational thought, both in and outside schools, as well as those views connected to ideas found in contemporary culture, and those areas that deal with social change at the European and global level.

References

Broecher, J. (2015). How David P. Weikart’s HighScope Summer Camp for (Gifted) Teenagers became a sustainable model for my later work in special education and inclusive education. Gifted Education International, 31(3), 244-256, https://doi.org/10.1177/0261429414526655

Broecher, J., Davis, J. H., Matthews, K., Painter, J. F., and Pasour, K. (2014). How transatlantic workshops and field trips can make German-American university-partnerships an active learning space. Internationalisation of Higher Education, Vol. 2, 18-42

Broecher, J. and Toczyski, P. (2021). Europäische Lernräume: Pädagogischer Austausch zwischen Polen und Deutschland zur Zeit des Kalten Krieges. In J. Broecher, Anders lernen, arbeiten und leben. Für eine Transformation von Pädagogik und Gesellschaft (pp. 223-238, chapter 8). Bielefeld: transcript, https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839456514

Dedecius, K. (2011). Meine polnische Bibliothek. Literatur aus neun Jahrhunderten. Berlin, Leipzig: Insel

Toczyski, P. and Broecher, J. (2021). Niemiecko-polskie doświadczenie, spotkanie, kontakt i dialog w europeizacyjnej pedagogice Andrzeja Jaczewskiego i Karla-Josefa Klugego. Kwartalnik Pedagogiczny, 66(1), 124-152, https://doi.org/10.31338/2657-6007.kp.2021-1.7

Toczyski, P., Broecher, J. and Painter, J. F. (2021). Pioneers of German-Polish inclusive exchange: Jaczewski’s and Kluge’s Europeanization in education despite the Iron Curtain. Prospects: Comparative Journal of Curriculum, Learning, and Assessment; published online: 22 March 2021, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11125-021-09545-x

Date: 1 January 2021