Agata Zysiak
Biographic Data
| ID | 277402 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Agata Zysiak |
| GIVEN NAMES | Agata |
| FAMILY NAME | Zysiak |
| SIGNATURE | ZYSIAK A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Warsaw |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6058-3506 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 12 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 16 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Socialist culture, participation and expert knowledge in Poland and Romania in the long 1960s
During the long 1960s (mid-1950s to early 1970s), mass culture developed in Poland and Romania at the intersection of state policies in the field of socialist culture, ideas of democratic participation and the growing importance of expert social scientific knowledge for governance. By comparing studies that critically examined the outcomes of socialist cultural policies at the time, the article contributes an East–East perspective to the scholars…
"The Centenary of the "Polish Method: The Rise, Fall, and Revival of Memoir Competitions in Poland
The first memoir competition in Poland took place one hundred years ago. This landmark method of Polish sociology began in the interwar period, experienced a later state-socialist boom, and then Poland's impressive collection of memoirs was largely forgotten and almost destroyed in the 1990s. In this essay, I examine the development of memoir competitions in Poland and discussions around them as a method, giving particular attention to the politi…
Polish Sociology in a Mirror
Historicizing the asynchronous modernity in the Global East
In this paper, we aim to forge potentially generalizable insights into “Eastern” urbanity and its confrontation with modernity. We radically historicize analytical categories such as modernity and take them as vernacular categories of practice utilized by actors in a given space and time. Grounding our theorizing in findings from a larger research project on modern self-perceptions in an industrial city (Łódź in today’s central Poland), we descri…
Good” and “Bad” Workers and the Collapse of the Expected Life Course: The Postwar Working Class in Detroit (USA) and Łódź (Poland), 1940s–1980s
Two former industrial giants on opposite sides of the globe—the well-known and extensively studied city of Detroit (USA) and the lesser-known but regionally important city of Łódź (Poland)—developed in historically differing economic and political circumstances but have much in common. In both cases, postwar prosperity brought the working class to the center of the social imaginary, resulting in the emergence of a corporate welfare state on one s…
Stalinism and Revolution in Universities: Democratization of Higher Education from Above, 1947–1956
The first postwar decade in Poland saw a rebuilding of the whole country, including the school system and higher education. Higher education institutions were to mold a new intelligentsia, coming from a wider social background. Initial grassroots efforts to change the elite character of universities were eclipsed from 1947 by a reform introduced from above. On the one hand, the reform curtailed the autonomy of universities and increased censorshi…
How Communists Wanted to Remember Communism
Prezentowany tekst to esej recenzyjny na temat książki Historical Memory of Central and East European Communism (pod redakcją Agnieszki Mrozik i Stanislava Holubeca, Routledge 2018)
People will enter the downtown – the postwar ruralisation of the proletarian city of Łódź (1945–55)
This article deals with the postwar confrontation of the rural and the urban in Poland. It sheds light on a time of mass migration to the cities and the postwar reconstruction in Central Europe, heading towards state-socialism, and focuses on official discourses concerning peasants as new social and political subjects and the intelligentsia’s response to rural newcomers. A testing ground for these processes was the Polish city of Łódź, the bigges…
Hysteresis, academic biography, and political field in the People's Republic of Poland
I enter a debate about state-socialism elite’s reproduction and higher education to propose an implementation of Bourdieu’s hysteresis effect. I argue that the intelligentsia and the interwar university shaped biographical paths of academics stronger than the political factors, which are usually brought to the forefront by contemporary researchers. I analyse academic biographies shaped by the socialist university and reconstruct a model academic …
“Journalists Discovered Łódź Like Columbus”
This article examines Polish urban travelogue literature and reportage concerning the industrial city of Łódź in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Łódź, a rapidly growing textile production center, was one of the few places which paved the way to real industrial, capitalist modernization in the Russian-controlled Kingdom of Poland. It was inhabited by large non-Polish populations and came to be perceived as alien, hostile and eve…
Days of Labour: Topographies of Power in Modern Peripheral Capitalism. The Case of The Industrial City ofŁódź
The article investigates the city ofŁódź as an exceptional case of a settlement constitutive of different kinds and techniques of power typical of nineteenth century industrial capitalism. We considerFoucault's disciplinary power/biopower through the convergence of the paternalistic gaze of the factory owner, and theTsarist rule in theScheibler andGrohman industrial establishment and the nearby workers housing estate. The aim of this article is t…
Modernizing Science: Between a Liberal, Social, and Socialistic University – The Case of Poland and the University of Łódź (1945–1953)
Argument This paper examines the postwar reconstruction of the Polish academic system. It analyzes a debate that took place in the newly established university in the proletarian city of Łódź. The vision of the shape of the university was a bone of contention between the professors. This resulted in two contentious models of a university: “liberal” and “socialized.” Soon, universities were transformed into crucial institutions of the emerging com…
The desire for fullness. The fantasmatic logic of modernization discourses in the turn of the 19th century in Łódź
The tension inherent in the desire to be modern appeared with all its strength in the discourses surrounding an alien, rapidly developing industrial center in the middle of the rural Kingdom of Poland – the city of Łódź,. In this article, I attempt to reconstruct the logic of press and reportage discourses dealing with this new experience. The press, reportage, and literary discourses concerning the newly established locus of modernity – the city…
Introduction Toward a discursively oriented historical sociology of the modern
toward a discursively oriented historical sociology of the modern
Świątynia nauki, fundament demokracji czy fabryka specjalistów? Józef Chałasiński i powojenne spory o ideę uniwersytetu
First postwar years in the history of Poland was crucial time of doubts and hopes for building a new world and a new society. It is worth remembering, that in the first years it was not known how the history of Poland is going to be shaped and many intellectuals believed to have an unique chance to make a world better place. The interwar academic tradition was confronted with ideas of building a new type of university – the modernization dreams t…
Młyn biopolityki
City of Lodz is an exceptional case of industrialsettlement, a focal point of di}erent kinds and techniquesof power typical for nineteenth century industrial capi-talism. Disciplinary power parceling bodies, biopowerproviding with population stability, paternalistic gaze ofthe factory owner and monarchic sovereignty of the tsa-rist rule once met in the Scheibler and Grohman’s indu-strial establishment and nearby workers’ housing estate.{is periph…
Hysteresis, academic biography, and political field in the People's Republic of Poland
I enter a debate about state-socialism elite’s reproduction and higher education to propose an implementation of Bourdieu’s hysteresis effect. I argue that the intelligentsia and the interwar university shaped biographical paths of academics stronger than the political factors, which are usually brought to the forefront by contemporary researchers. I analyse academic biographies shaped by the socialist university and reconstruct a model academic …
Days of Labour: Topographies of Power in Modern Peripheral Capitalism. The Case of The Industrial City ofŁódź
The article investigates the city ofŁódź as an exceptional case of a settlement constitutive of different kinds and techniques of power typical of nineteenth century industrial capitalism. We considerFoucault's disciplinary power/biopower through the convergence of the paternalistic gaze of the factory owner, and theTsarist rule in theScheibler andGrohman industrial establishment and the nearby workers housing estate. The aim of this article is t…
The desire for fullness. The fantasmatic logic of modernization discourses in the turn of the 19th century in Łódź
The tension inherent in the desire to be modern appeared with all its strength in the discourses surrounding an alien, rapidly developing industrial center in the middle of the rural Kingdom of Poland – the city of Łódź,. In this article, I attempt to reconstruct the logic of press and reportage discourses dealing with this new experience. The press, reportage, and literary discourses concerning the newly established locus of modernity – the city…
Socialist culture, participation and expert knowledge in Poland and Romania in the long 1960s
During the long 1960s (mid-1950s to early 1970s), mass culture developed in Poland and Romania at the intersection of state policies in the field of socialist culture, ideas of democratic participation and the growing importance of expert social scientific knowledge for governance. By comparing studies that critically examined the outcomes of socialist cultural policies at the time, the article contributes an East–East perspective to the scholars…
Historicizing the asynchronous modernity in the Global East
In this paper, we aim to forge potentially generalizable insights into “Eastern” urbanity and its confrontation with modernity. We radically historicize analytical categories such as modernity and take them as vernacular categories of practice utilized by actors in a given space and time. Grounding our theorizing in findings from a larger research project on modern self-perceptions in an industrial city (Łódź in today’s central Poland), we descri…
Młyn biopolityki
City of Lodz is an exceptional case of industrialsettlement, a focal point of di}erent kinds and techniquesof power typical for nineteenth century industrial capi-talism. Disciplinary power parceling bodies, biopowerproviding with population stability, paternalistic gaze ofthe factory owner and monarchic sovereignty of the tsa-rist rule once met in the Scheibler and Grohman’s indu-strial establishment and nearby workers’ housing estate.{is periph…
Świątynia nauki, fundament demokracji czy fabryka specjalistów? Józef Chałasiński i powojenne spory o ideę uniwersytetu
First postwar years in the history of Poland was crucial time of doubts and hopes for building a new world and a new society. It is worth remembering, that in the first years it was not known how the history of Poland is going to be shaped and many intellectuals believed to have an unique chance to make a world better place. The interwar academic tradition was confronted with ideas of building a new type of university – the modernization dreams t…
The desire for fullness. The fantasmatic logic of modernization discourses in the turn of the 19th century in Łódź
The tension inherent in the desire to be modern appeared with all its strength in the discourses surrounding an alien, rapidly developing industrial center in the middle of the rural Kingdom of Poland – the city of Łódź,. In this article, I attempt to reconstruct the logic of press and reportage discourses dealing with this new experience. The press, reportage, and literary discourses concerning the newly established locus of modernity – the city…
Introduction Toward a discursively oriented historical sociology of the modern
toward a discursively oriented historical sociology of the modern
Modernizing Science: Between a Liberal, Social, and Socialistic University – The Case of Poland and the University of Łódź (1945–1953)
Argument This paper examines the postwar reconstruction of the Polish academic system. It analyzes a debate that took place in the newly established university in the proletarian city of Łódź. The vision of the shape of the university was a bone of contention between the professors. This resulted in two contentious models of a university: “liberal” and “socialized.” Soon, universities were transformed into crucial institutions of the emerging com…
“Journalists Discovered Łódź Like Columbus”
This article examines Polish urban travelogue literature and reportage concerning the industrial city of Łódź in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Łódź, a rapidly growing textile production center, was one of the few places which paved the way to real industrial, capitalist modernization in the Russian-controlled Kingdom of Poland. It was inhabited by large non-Polish populations and came to be perceived as alien, hostile and eve…
Days of Labour: Topographies of Power in Modern Peripheral Capitalism. The Case of The Industrial City ofŁódź
The article investigates the city ofŁódź as an exceptional case of a settlement constitutive of different kinds and techniques of power typical of nineteenth century industrial capitalism. We considerFoucault's disciplinary power/biopower through the convergence of the paternalistic gaze of the factory owner, and theTsarist rule in theScheibler andGrohman industrial establishment and the nearby workers housing estate. The aim of this article is t…
Stalinism and Revolution in Universities: Democratization of Higher Education from Above, 1947–1956
The first postwar decade in Poland saw a rebuilding of the whole country, including the school system and higher education. Higher education institutions were to mold a new intelligentsia, coming from a wider social background. Initial grassroots efforts to change the elite character of universities were eclipsed from 1947 by a reform introduced from above. On the one hand, the reform curtailed the autonomy of universities and increased censorshi…
How Communists Wanted to Remember Communism
Prezentowany tekst to esej recenzyjny na temat książki Historical Memory of Central and East European Communism (pod redakcją Agnieszki Mrozik i Stanislava Holubeca, Routledge 2018)
People will enter the downtown – the postwar ruralisation of the proletarian city of Łódź (1945–55)
This article deals with the postwar confrontation of the rural and the urban in Poland. It sheds light on a time of mass migration to the cities and the postwar reconstruction in Central Europe, heading towards state-socialism, and focuses on official discourses concerning peasants as new social and political subjects and the intelligentsia’s response to rural newcomers. A testing ground for these processes was the Polish city of Łódź, the bigges…
Hysteresis, academic biography, and political field in the People's Republic of Poland
I enter a debate about state-socialism elite’s reproduction and higher education to propose an implementation of Bourdieu’s hysteresis effect. I argue that the intelligentsia and the interwar university shaped biographical paths of academics stronger than the political factors, which are usually brought to the forefront by contemporary researchers. I analyse academic biographies shaped by the socialist university and reconstruct a model academic …
Historicizing the asynchronous modernity in the Global East
In this paper, we aim to forge potentially generalizable insights into “Eastern” urbanity and its confrontation with modernity. We radically historicize analytical categories such as modernity and take them as vernacular categories of practice utilized by actors in a given space and time. Grounding our theorizing in findings from a larger research project on modern self-perceptions in an industrial city (Łódź in today’s central Poland), we descri…
Good” and “Bad” Workers and the Collapse of the Expected Life Course: The Postwar Working Class in Detroit (USA) and Łódź (Poland), 1940s–1980s
Two former industrial giants on opposite sides of the globe—the well-known and extensively studied city of Detroit (USA) and the lesser-known but regionally important city of Łódź (Poland)—developed in historically differing economic and political circumstances but have much in common. In both cases, postwar prosperity brought the working class to the center of the social imaginary, resulting in the emergence of a corporate welfare state on one s…
Polish Sociology in a Mirror
Socialist culture, participation and expert knowledge in Poland and Romania in the long 1960s
During the long 1960s (mid-1950s to early 1970s), mass culture developed in Poland and Romania at the intersection of state policies in the field of socialist culture, ideas of democratic participation and the growing importance of expert social scientific knowledge for governance. By comparing studies that critically examined the outcomes of socialist cultural policies at the time, the article contributes an East–East perspective to the scholars…
"The Centenary of the "Polish Method: The Rise, Fall, and Revival of Memoir Competitions in Poland
The first memoir competition in Poland took place one hundred years ago. This landmark method of Polish sociology began in the interwar period, experienced a later state-socialist boom, and then Poland's impressive collection of memoirs was largely forgotten and almost destroyed in the 1990s. In this essay, I examine the development of memoir competitions in Poland and discussions around them as a method, giving particular attention to the politi…
Sociology (15 works) · Political science (13 works) · Law (12 works) · Politics (10 works) · Law (9 works) · Polish Historical and Cultural Studies (7 works) · Communism (6 works) · Capitalism (5 works) · Eastern European Communism and Reforms (5 works) · History (5 works)