Class and Cultural Narratives. The Upper Silesia Case
Class and Cultural Narratives. The Upper Silesia Case

Author(s): Paweł Ćwikła, Monika Gnieciak, Kazimiera Wódz
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Applied Linguistics
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego
Summary/Abstract: The Silesian Voivodship exemplifies a region where the industrial past has left a permanent mark on spatial forms, social relations, institutions, patterns of culture as well as collective identifications and individual biographies (Wódz, 2013: 7). At the same time, the geographical location of Upper Silesia has determined its cultural character – in its over thousand years long history it belonged to various political, civilizational, economic, social and cultural orders: Polish, Czech, Prussian or German (Geisler, 2009: 67). Hence, Upper Silesia is a typical example of a borderland, where different ethnic groups and distinct cultural traditions intermingle (Wódz, K., Wódz, J., 2006: 12). Add to this the peculiarity of settling Upper Silesia in the time of the Polish People’s Republic, unification related to the dynamics of the national culture of every day and popular culture or ― in broader terms ― globalisation and the dissemination of definite patters and lifestyles that accompany it. All of these contribute to the validity of the question of the region’s contemporary cultural identity. (...)

• Details
• Contents