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Canonicity and (In)visibility of Polish American Literature

100%

Caputa S.

Polonia Journal

2015

issue 1-2

203-224

According to Thomas Gladsky, Polish American literature was not of the main interest to scholars and “the New World culture and Old Country heritage of approximately fifteen million Americans of Polish descent are [probably] among multicultural America’s best kept secrets”. In this context, the question arises whether literature produced by the descendants of Poles in the United States is not worthy of scholarly attention only because literary works, which are labelled as ‘Polish American,’ lack sufficient artistic expression, or maybe they still remain unappreciated because canon, in the popular understanding of the word, on the one hand, seems to constitute the sphere of dynamic interactions between art and literature and, on the other hand, between discourses of politics and economy. Taking into consideration the polysystem theory, advocated by Itamar Even--Zohar, the author of the present paper addresses the question of visibility of Polish American literature in the context of the history of American ethnic literature(s) and the possibility of moving its position from the peripheries/margins to the centre.

Według Thomasa Gladsky’ego, literatura polsko-amerykańska nie była głównym obszarem zainteresowań dla badaczy, a „kultura Nowego Świata wraz z dziedzictwem Starego Świata w przybliżeniu piętnastu milionów Amerykanów pochodzenia polskiego jest jednym z najbardziej strzeżonych sekretów wielokulturowej Ameryki” . W tym kontekście pojawia się pytanie czy literatura tworzona przez potomków Polaków w Stanach Zjednoczonych nie jest warta zainteresowania środowisk naukowych tylko dlatego, że dzieła literackie skategoryzowane jako „polsko-amerykańskie” cechuje ograniczony potencjał interpretacyjny, czy też dzieła te pozostają niedocenione dlatego, że kanon, w ogólnym rozumieniu tego słowa, z jednej strony jest obszarem dynamicznych interakcji literatury i sztuki, a z drugiej strony wiąże się z dyskursami polityki i ekonomii. Opierając się na teorii polisystemowej propagowanej przez Itamara Evena-Zohara autorka stara się wyjaśnić na czym polega fenomen (nie)widzialności literatury polsko-amerykańskiej w kontekście historii amerykańskich literatur etnicznych i analizuje możliwość znalezienia miejsca dla literatury polsko-amerykańskiej w centrum kanonu literatury amerykańskiej.

(Post)communist homelessness? Identity and belonging in Dagmara Dominczyk’s The Lullaby of Polish Girls

100%

Caputa S.

Studia Migracyjne - Przegląd Polonijny

2018

vol. 44

issue 4 (170)

45–58

Dagmara Dominczyk’s The Lullaby of Polish Girls mirrors her own experience as a Polish émigré of the early 1980s and touches upon the myriad stages of exile. Similarly to other American writers of Polish descent (e.g. Leslie Pietrzyk, Karolina Waclawiak or Anthony Bukoski), the writer’s debut novel explores the problematic questions of immigrant’s assimilation, desire for acceptance or one’s ties to the home country. But above all, Grażyna Kozaczka notices that “[the literary work] offers an additional option opened to Polish American fiction writers”, because the main character of the book, Anna Baran, is able to embrace both: Polish and American culture and claims two homelands as her own. Whether the protagonist is completely free from immigrant-homelessness or not, seems to be a thought-provoking matter as it seems that Dominczyk’s protagonist is engrossed in the yearning desire to return to the country of her forefathers; i.e. to Poland in general and Kielce in particular. However, the city of her birth and simultaneously the place where she spent her summer holidays, which is aptly described by the author of the novel in the moment of transition (as communist Poland of the late 1980s alters into a democratic country) belongs to the sphere of her memory and a real return to the past time is not possible. Therefore, the aim of the present paper is to shed some light upon the issues of identity, questions of belonging and nostalgic allegiance in Dominczyk’s novel The Lullaby of Polish Girls.

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Canonicity and (In)visibility of Polish American Literature

(Post)communist homelessness? Identity and belonging in Dagmara Dominczyk’s The Lullaby of Polish Girls