Book Launch of Cross Purposes 

June 6, 2023, 18:00

The Center for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage and the Institute for European Ethnology of the Humboldt University in Berlin cordially invite you to a book launch of: Cross Purposes: Catholicism andthe Political Imagination in Poland by Magdalena Waligórska (Cambridge
University Press, 2023) to take place on June 6, at 18:00 CEST.
Please,  join us for a discussion with the author, chaired by Prof. Magdalena Buchczyk (HU Berlin), with comments by: Prof. Felix Ackermann (Fernuniversität Hagen) and Dr. Karolina Wigura (FU Berlin). The
discussion will be followed by a small reception.

The event takes place at the CARMAH Center for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage, Mohrenstr. 40-41, 10117 Berlin, Room 408.

Link: https://www.carmah.berlin/events/48173/

About Cross Purposes:

No other symbol is as omnipresent in Poland as the cross. This multi-layered and contradictory icon features prominently in public spaces and state institutions. It is anchored in the country’s visual history,
inspires protest culture, and dominates urban and rural landscapes. The cross recalls Poland’s historic struggles for independence and anti-Communist dissent, but it also encapsulates the country’s current
position in Europe as a self-avowed bulwark of Christianity and a champion of conservative values. It is both a national symbol – defining the boundaries of Polishness in opposition to a changing constellation of the country’s Others – and a key object of contestation in the creative arts and political culture. Despite its long history, the cross has never been systematically studied as a political symbol in its capacity to mobilize for action and solidify power structures. Cross Purposes is the first cultural history of the cross in modern Poland, deconstructing this key symbol and exploring how it has been deployed in different political battles.

-- 
PD Dr. Magdalena Waligórska

Institut für Europäische Ethnologie
Center for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Anton-Wilhelm-Amo-Str.41
10117 Berlin

NEW PUBLICATION:
Cross Purposes: Catholicism and the Political Imagination in Poland (CUP, 2023)

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cross-purposes/72E707A0DE6E82457D62EFE5E0D1A2B0

Cross Purposes is the first cultural history of the cross in modern Poland, deconstructing this key symbol and exploring how it has been deployed in different political battles. Historians of Eastern Europe will find in it a compelling cultural history of Poland’s major political upheavals.

Magdalena Waligórska is a cultural historian and sociologist. Her fields of interest include contemporary Polish and Belarusian history, nationalism and national symbols, Jewish heritage, Jewish/non-Jewish relations, and memory studies. She is currently leading a research group at the Department of European Ethnology of the Humboldt University in Berlin. She has published extensively on nationalism, Jewish culture, and Jewish-non-Jewish relations in journals including East European Politics and Societies, Holocaust Studies, East European Jewish Affairs and POLIN. Her first book, Klezmer’s Afterlife: An Ethnography of the Jewish Music Revival in Poland and Germany, was published 2013.