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In Karolina Waclawiak's novel, How to Get into the Twin Palms (2012), the Polish American immigrant narrator changes her name from the "too-Polish" Zosia to Anya, in order to "pass" as Russian and gain access to the titular social club. This attempt to pass as Russian—imbued with personal hopes for a sense of belonging and power—alludes to a history of tensions across American ethno-racial lines, while at the same time illuminating significant differences among Europeans otherwise presumed to be simply White. Anya's attempts to pass center around her gendered and sexualized embodiment, a step that then allows her to define her relationships to the United States and Poland by questioning, developing, and leveraging her new name in exchange for a new ethno-racialized identity. The novel's thematic and formal preoccupation with naming and names thus reflects the ways in which immigrants negotiate the interconnectedness of identity's multiple manifestations and forge identities on their own terms. The privilege of the choice to pass within and among Slavic ethnicities distinguishes texts like Twin Palms as the ancestral inheritors of a US-immigrant literary tradition while also marking the Whiteness of their protagonists. Anya's particular imagination of US-immigrant-selfhood is predicated on ethno-racial differentiation and gendered embodiment determined both by an overidentification premised on erasure and by distinction within the twenty-first-century American racialized milieu. Waclawiak's narrative deploys different strategies at the level of naming in order to circle around the issue of race while simultaneously centering the differences within post-Soviet Slavic White ethnicity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term laus terrae (praise of the land) refers to a very positive description of the homeland which appears frequently at the beginning of medieval historiographic works. The paper analyzes the composition of such texts in the oldest known extensive Polish, Czech, and Hungarian chronicles. The three works in question give very similar descriptions of the homeland, which is presented as a wealthy land abounding in various natural resources, whose qualities are also underlined in a similar manner. The existence of those analogies is not surprising as the authors of those works were clearly influenced by the same literary motifs. Their choice to present the homeland as a locus amoenus (pleasant place) was of course related to their intention to emphasize the position of the country whose past they related as well as the power of the current and previous rulers of this territory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Digital media are used for creative purposes, however, in various geographical and cultural contexts, different platforms are used in various ways, and this affects the shape of the works and the popularity of particular forms of expression. Technical limitations of the platform are a challenge for digital artists, influencing the artistic shape of the work. In the article, we identify and discuss scene poetry, a genre of digital expression associated with the demoscene subculture. The demoscene brings together programmers and graphic artists who are affiliated with the platforms. Creators who identify themselves with the platforms aim to bypass limitations and push the boundaries as well as the capabilities of individual platforms. Demonstration programs (so-called demos) are used for this purpose, which is to present the graphic, music and coding effects achievable on a given piece of equipment. The ZX Spectrum is an 8-bit British computer, which is known for its many limitations compared to other 8-bit machines (Atari, Amstrad or Commodore 64). This computer was extensively cloned in countries behind the Iron Curtain in the 1980s and 1990s (especially in Russia, but also in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and others). Computer users not only created their own hardware models, but also a number of new forms of expression. One of them is the described scene poetry. The use of a large amount of text in demonstration programs on the ZX Spectrum computer is a phenomenon, and it is the result of its technical limitations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article (part I) presents the activities of artistic circles - architects - and their impact on the ways of using and arrangement of the living area. The way of using apartment is understood as: 1) The way of arranging basic living functions by inhabitants (sleeping, resting, preparing and eating meals, receiving guests, studying, personal hygiene); 2) The relationships between inhabitants and an apartment dependent on education, occupational structure, origin, life style, inherited cultural patterns, fashion as well as a group of physical characteristics and apartment attributes); 3) The rights of family members to use the apartment space, including the right to intimacy and having own private space, as well as the representative needs. The aim of this article is to show the evolution of design thinking in the field of functional and spatial layouts of apartments and indicating the main trends of these changes. The selected functional layouts of apartments (including the remarks of the author of the design), representative of the given period of time, have been analyzed with respect to social and political conditions. In summary, the most important tendencies, which may be observed in respect of discussed changes, have been indicated. These include: • expanding the living-room area of the apartment by designing a kitchen closer to the living-room or even combining a kitchen with a living-room; • the differentiated approach to the issues of creating sleeping areas due to the understanding of children's individual needs to have their own living space; • the concern to upgrade the quality of hygiene in an apartment - by creating separate restrooms and designing bathrooms with a space for a washing machine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The text presents an unknown poetic work written by Anna Skarbek-Sokołowska based on the memories of her daughter, Grażyna Lipińska, from her stay in the Soviet prison of inquiry in Minsk in 1940. An unsigned typescript of the poem is in the archive of the Polish Underground Movement Study Trust in London. The text of the poem is also unavailable in Poland. The work is rooted in the tradition of Polish literature, primarily romantic, but also launches the context of religious poetry and philosophical reflection. The authoress presents the original genesis and complicated history of the publication of the poem, pointing to its unusual artistry and the historical truth contained in it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On the example of plan and construction of The Fish Hatchery Centre in Łopuszna, near Nowy Targ, constructed during the Second World War, exact analysis was carried out concerning forms and regional stylistic of its buildings. During the occupation Polish architects generally were not able to operate freely. However, many of them used every opportunity to make good and valuable architecture and they succeeded in designing excellent buildings despite severe restrictions imposed by Germans. The Centre in Łopuszna and some other projects were significant constructions free from the influence of German architectural style. Polish architects consciously and consistently tried to design buildings according to the characteristic features of Polish architecture. In that way, on the basis of the appreciation of local culture, the great architecture was made, which certainly is a flagship example in Polish architecture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Symposium on the work of Teatr Pieśń Kozła (Song of the Goat Theatre), held at the Barbican Centre, London, on 20 November 2010. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article focuses on the possible external sources of the work of the artist from Kraków, Poland known simply as the "Master of the Holy Kinship". In particular the author wishes to consider how he used graphic object drawing and where he drew his inspiration and composition principles from. The article considers various scenes including one called "Gastmahl bei Herodes" and "Johannesalters," and concludes that a strong influence came from the group known as the Berner Nelkenmeister from Switzerland. Other influences were the artists Veit Stoss of Kraków and Martin Schongauer.

Copyright of Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis is the property of Klaipeda University, Institute of Baltic Region History & Archaeology and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article explores the modes used by poets of the bruLion generation to import Frank O'Hara poetics into Polish literature. Author Joanna Niżyńska analyzes the intergenerational impulses manifested in O'Hara's poetry in relation to the Romantic context in Poland's poetic tradition. She likewise claims that several poets engaged in dialectically related modes of revisionary reading of both domestic and foreign traditions while turning to O'Hara. It notes that O'Harism is interpreted as a sign of varied morphogenesis that is simultaneously an act of compensation for Romantic poetry.

The article presents a research on the reception of Tibet, China in Poland, its culture, geography, past and present ways of life, main features of Tibetan Buddhism, and crucial points of the country's history. The author believes that the popularity of Tibetan culture in the world is increasing, but not in Poland. Moreover, the presented opinions produce good examples of similarities and differences between the popular representations of Tibet in other Western countries and in Poland.

The paper deals with the contemporary state of semiotic ethnology in Poland (connected with New Polish Ethnology group), its internal and external influences, its specifics, subjects and its reaction to the other theoretical propositions. The "neotribe" of New Polish Ethnology was established by few younger scholars, ethnologists in the early 1980s, in an opposition to the dominant stream of positivistic ethnology. Today they have become classics of Polish anthropology, masters that have educated a new generation of their students, and lead some anthropological institutes. The most inspiring set of theories that influenced the group and its heirs was taken from Soviet semiotics of culture (Lotman, Uspensky, Toporov, Ivanov), and French structural-semiotics (Levi-Strauss, Barthes), but there are some individual differences also. On that basis they have developed a specific scope, aim and methods of interpretation with as its key terms myth and mythical thinking. They have explained many cultural events (relation we-others, body image, commercials, and anthropology itself) within the framework of mythical thinking, making it the most productive and attractive frame of interpretation within Polish humanities and social sciences. In the 1990s they had to face critical ethnography, deconstruction and postmodern anthropology and they did it with perfect flexibility that even strengthened their project, because the potential of reflexivity and self-consciousness lied within semiotics from its beginning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]