Ph.D., assistant professor at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IBL PAN)
Center for Cultural and Literary Studies of Communism
Orcid number: 0000-0003-4095-2834
Research focus:
discourse analysis, especially cultural and literary contexts of the Communism in Poland, cultural research and contemporary literature, memory studies, the Holocaust studies
Contact details:
katarzyna.chmielewska@ibl.waw.pl
Short biography:
Katarzyna Chmielewska Ph.D. studied at the Faculties of Polish Studies and of Philosophy and Sociology of the Warsaw University. 1999, she defended her MA dissertation prepared under the supervision of Professor Maria Janion, Ph.D.. The thesis The Critique of Reception Theory was awarded the second prize in the Jan Józef Lipski MA dissertation competition on June 25, 2000. In 1999, she began Ph.D. studies at the Social Sciences School at the Philosophy and Sociology Institute (IFiS) of the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN). Since 2008, she has been working at the Institute of Literary Research at PAN (IBL PAN) first on the research team “Literature and Contexts" now in Department of Contemporary Literature and Social Communication (in a position of assistant professor). On January 19, 2010, she defended her Ph.D. dissertation The crisis of the literary subject: Witold Gombrowicz's Diaries and essay works written under the supervision of Professor Michał Głowiński, Ph.D., for which she received the award of the Emigration Archive of the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, funded by the Chancellery of the Polish Senate. Co-founder of the Center for Cultural and Literary Studies of Communism at IBL PAN. Editor of the series Communism. Ideas – Discourses – Practices.
Publications:
Books:
[Co-author and scientific editor] Reassessing Communism. Concepts, Culture, and Society in Poland, 1944–1989, CEU Press 2021
[Co-author and scientific editor] Communism – Ideas and Practices in Poland 1944–1989, The Publishing House IBL PAN 2018
[Co-author and scientific editor] Monuments of memory. Places of Oblivoin, The Publishing House IBL PAN 2017
[Co-author and scientific editor] Year 66. Communist Poland on the turn, The Publishing House IBL PAN 2015
[Co-author and scientific editor] Communist Poland - afterlife, The Publishing House IBL PAN 2012
[Co-author and scientific editor] Literature and socialism, The Publishing House IBL PAN 2012
[Co-author and scientific editor] Narrating Communist Poland, The Publishing House IBL PAN 2011
Strategies of the subject: Witold Gombrowicz's Diary, The Publishing House IBL PAN 2010
[Co-author] Short readings for workers of art, Warsaw 2009
[Co-author] Disappearing. A user's manual, Warsaw 2009
[Co-author] Decorum and form. How to tell the story of the Shoah? ed. M. Głowiński, K. Chmielewska, K. Makaruk, A. Molisak, T. Żukowski, Cracow 2005.
Key dissertations and articles:
- Two Schools of Thought on the Holocaust: Snyder vs Bauman, Studia Litteraria et Historica 2022 nr 17, s. 1 – 19 DOI: https://doi.org/10.11649/slh.2840
- Dialogue of Memories and the Class Perspective. In: Breaking the Frame. New School of Polish-Jewish Studies. Hamburg: Peter Lang Verlag 2022
- Lud w perspektywie, perspektywa ludu [The people in perspective, the perspective of the people], Teksty Drugie nr. 5 2021, s. 293 – 309 DOI: 10.18318/td.2021.5.17
- Awans chłopów – obrazy w kulturze [Advancement of peasants - images in culture]. In: Ciągłość i zmiana Sto lat rozwoju polskiej wsi. T. 3 Warszawa: Scholar 2021. S. 49 - 69 DOI 10.53098/978-83-66470-85-9
- Pamięć wielokierunkowa i agoniczna a polityka pamięci [Multidirectional and agonistic memory and the politics of memory], Zagłada Żydów. Studia i materiały Nr 17 (2021), strony: 420-434 DOI: 10.32927/zzsim.886
- After the Catastrophe. Polish Reactions to the Shoah in the 1940s and after 2010. Illustrated by the Examples of Kazimierz Wyka, Marcin Zaremba, and Andrzej Leder. W: The Afterlife of the Shoah in Central and Eastern European Cultures: Concepts, Problems, and the Aesthetics of Postcatastrophic Narration. London: Routledge 2021 DOI: 10.4324/9781003050544-9
- Constructing the Figure of the Polish Shoah Witness. In: The Holocaust Bystander in Polish Culture, 1942–2015: The Story of Innocence. London: Palgrave 2021, 41-78. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-66408-4
- Alternative Narratives of the 1940s Versus the Politics of Memory. In: The Holocaust Bystander in Polish Culture, 1942–2015: The Story of Innocence. London: Palgrave 2021, 79-116. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-66408-4.
- Introduction: Communism Studies in Central and Eastern Europe: A New Approach
- Katarzyna Chmielewska, Agnieszka Mrozik, and Grzegorz Wołowiec. W: Reassessing Communism. Concepts, Culture, and Society in Poland, 1944–1989, CEU Press 2021.
- Legitimation of Communism: To Build and to Demolish. W: Reassessing Communism. Concepts, Culture, and Society in Poland, 1944–1989, CEU Press 2021.
- Maria Janionová (1926–2020): transgrese. In: Česká literatura no 68 (5) 2020, 632-634.
- Play for Gombrowicz, In: Teksty Drugie 2019 no 5, 201-207.
- The Intelligentsia and the Holocaust. Dispersing the Image, Studia Litteraria et Historica no7 2018.
- Jew as a Disappearing and secret Code. "Recovered Territories" Literature. In: “Recovered Territories. In search of new narratives, eds. E. Kledzik, M. Michalski, M. Praczyk, Poznań 2018.
- Life as If or a serious Diagnosis. Polish witness to the Holocaust. In: The 1940s. The beginnings of the Polish narrative about the Holocaust, eds. M. Hopfinger, T. Żukowski, Warsaw 2018.
- Constructing the Figure of the Polish Shoah Witness. In: A tale of innocence. Category of the Holocaust witness in Polish culture (1942–2015), eds. M. Hopfinger, T. Żukowski, Warsaw 2018
- Alternative narratives to the memory policy. 1940s. In: A tale of innocence. Category of the Holocaust witness in Polish culture (1942–2015), eds. M. Hopfinger, T. Żukowski, Warsaw 2018.
- New perspectives on studies of communism in post-war Central and Eastern Europe (with A. Mrozik, G. Wołowiec). In: Communism – Ideas and Practices in Poland 1944–1989, eds. K. Chmielewska, A. Mrozik, G. Wołowiec, Warsaw 2018.
- Legitimization of communism. To build and to demolish. In: Communism – Ideas and Practices in Poland 1944–1989, eds. K. Chmielewska, A. Mrozik, G. Wołowiec, Warsaw 2018.
- Az értelmiség és a parasztok. Antiszemitizmus a soá idején Lengyelországban (tanulmány) w: Múlt és Jövő, Nr 1 2018, ss. 66- 73.
- Two memories, w: Estranged, eds. N. Romik, J. Kuszarska, Warsaw 2018.
- Der polnische Zeuge. Traumabildung, Symetrien und feindliche Ubernahme des (jüdischen) Traumas. In: Nach dem Holocaust. Medien postakatastrophischer Vergegenwärtigung in Polen und Deutschland, eds. A. Tippner, Anna Artwińska, Frankfurt am Main, 2017.
- Die Annäherung an die Katastrophe: Paweł Pawikowski Ida und Władysław Pasikowskis Pokłosie. In: Nach dem Holocaust. Medien postakatastrophischer Vergegenwärtigung in Polen und Deutschland, eds. A. Tippner, Anna Artwińska, Frankfurt am Main, 2017.
- Memoria, política histórica y habitus histórico-identitario. In: Memoria encarnada, género y silencios en España y América Latina. Siglo XXI, ed. Katarzyna Dürst, Aranzazu Calderón Puerta, Padilla Libros Editores y Libreros, Sevilla 2017.
- Marxismus bez marxismu. Poznámky k literární vědě a humanistice v současném Polsku, Česká literatura 2017 no. 6.
- Historical narratives about communism, In: Debates after 1989. Literatur in proces of communication. Towards a new synthesis 2, ed. M. Hopfinger, T. Żukowski, Warsaw 2017.
- The man-monument. Institucionalization and takeover of the heroes. Exemple Marek Edelman. In: Monuments of memory. Places of Oblivoin , eds. K. Chmielewska, A. Molisak, Warsaw 2017.
- Contemporary Historical Discourse on Polish Communism in a Narratological Perspective, Teksty Drugie 2016 no. 1.
- Practical exercises in historical politics. Historical narratives of the 60s in Poland, in: Year 1966. Communist Poland on the turn, eds. K. Chmielewska, T. Żukowski, G. Wołowiec. Warsaw 2014
- The trauma of March '68. Epilogue. [with Tomasz Żukowski], in: Year 1966. Communist Poland on the turn, eds. K. Chmielewska, T. Żukowski, G. Wołowiec. Warsaw 2014
- Inventing identity, in: Identity at the time of the Turn, eds. A. Werner, T. Żukowski, Warsaw 2013.
- Communism in the perspective of contemporary historiography. An essay, in: Communist Poland - afterlife, eds. K. Chmielewska, A. Mrozik, G. Wołowiec, Warsaw 2012.
- Yes and no. Meanders of Polish postcolonial and post-dependence discourse, in: After partition period, after war, after Communist Poland: Polish post-dependence discourse in the past and today, ed. H. Gosk, Poznań 2013.
- Marxism ante portas in: Literature and socialism, Warsaw 2012.
- The nihilism of modernity, Teksty Drugie vol. 3/2012.
- The hydra of remembrances. Historical memory decomposed, in: Narrating Communist Poland, Warsaw 2011.
- Propheta in patria sua, Teksty Drugie vol. 1/2, 2011.
- No choice but to have fun, in: Short readings for workers of art. Warsaw 2009.
- Beyond the boundaries of genre? Witold Gombrowicz's "Diary", Nauka 2008 vol. 2.
- Directly into violence. Analysis of the language of the Wprost [Directly] weekly in January-March 2005 (with Tomasz Żukowski), in: Media and power, ed. P. Żuk, Warsaw 2006.
- The nation with the Squire and the Parson. The political and social thought of Adam Michnik (with Tomasz Żukowski), in: Media and power, ed. P. Żuk, Warsaw 2006.
- Literariness as an obstacle, literariness as an opportunity for expression, in: Decorum and form. How to tell the story of the Shoah?, ed. M. Głowiński, K. Chmielewska, K. Makaruk, A. Molisak, T. Żukowski, Cracow 2005.
- A failure of the novel? Selected strategies of writing about the Shoah, in: Decorum and form. How to tell the story of the Shoah?, ed. M. Głowiński, K. Chmielewska, K. Makaruk, A. Molisak, T. Żukowski, Cracow 2005.
- The subject as an aesthetic utopia. Friedrich Schiller's “Letters on the aesthetic education of man" and Witold Gombrowicz's “Diary", Pamiętnik Literacki 2004, issue 4.
- Das Über - Subjekt, der Dandy und die Negativität Das Problem eines Subjekts im "Tagebuch" von Witold Gombrowicz, in: Problem des Subjektes, Bremen 2004.
- Das Subjekt als Problem der ästhetischen Utopie, in: Problem des Subjektes, Bremen 2004.
- Assumptions and aporias of the reception theory, Pamiętnik Literacki 2001, issue 4.
- How is poetics (of the essay) possible, Teksty Drugie 2001, issues 3-4.
Translations:
- Ricarda Bethke, Pathos, necessarily. “Uprising" of the listener: a mass for Brecht on the 50th anniversary of death, Le Monde Diplomatique, vol. 9 200
- Lionel Richard, Jew Süß, Le Monde Diplomatique, vol. 5 2006..
- Götz Aly, Do not blame the German Nation, Le Monde Diplomatique, vol. 2 2006.
- Wilhelm Weischedel's book, Backstairs way to philosophy, PWN 2002.
- Rolf Fieguth, On the literary meaning of the meaningless. Polish motifs in Thomas Mann's “Death in Venice", in: “Poetry in a critical phase", Rolf Fieguth, Świat Literacki, Warsaw 2001.
- Rolf Fieguth, Poetological motifs in Sebastian Grabowiecki's poetical cycle Priestly rhymes (1590), in: “Poetry in a critical phase", Rolf Fieguth, Świat Literacki,
Scientific and organizational activities, research projects:
Member of scientific network "New Exploratory Phase in Research on East European Cultures of Dissent", Researcher in the COST Action CA16213, member of the “Memory of Dissent" working group. Collaboration planned for 2017 - 2021.
Coordinator of the joint project of IBL PAN and Ústav pro českou literaturu: "Marxist Literary Research in Polish People's Republic and Czechoslovak Republic and their contexts. 1944 - 1956". Realization planned for 2017 - 2018.
Grant NPRH nr 11H 12 0108 81, project realized by the Center for Cultural and Literary Studies of Communism at IBL PAN led by Professor Michał Głowiński, Ph.D.; the grant “Communism – the history of the term in Poland in 1944-1989. Interpretations and usage: literature, culture, society" awarded in 2012. Realization planned for 2013-2018; the grant secretary.
Grant number NPRH0049, project realized under the supervision of Professor Maryla Hopfinger, Ph.D., at the Institute of Literary Research “In the face of the Shoah – towards demythicizing the categories of description" in 2013-2018.
Grant number N N103 450240, project realized by the research team Literature and Contexts of IBL PAN under the supervision of Professor Michał Głowiński, Ph.D., the grant “Narrating Communist Poland", author of one of the studies under the project; co-editor; project completed, realized on May 20, 2011 – May 19, 2013.
Grant number NN 103 22 5538, project realized under the supervision of Professor Andrzej Werner, Ph.D. at the Institute of Literary Research “Game for identity in Poland at the time of the Turn", author of one of the studies under the project; project completed, realized in 2010-2012.
www.researchgate.net/profile/Katarzyna-Chmielewska
ibl.academia.edu/KatarzynaChmielewska