Anna Caroline Müller
Biographic Data
| ID | 5802673 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Anna Caroline Müller |
| GIVEN NAMES | Anna Caroline |
| FAMILY NAME | Müller |
| SIGNATURE | MÜLLER A C |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Michigan–Dearborn |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8450-944X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 3 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 23 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2015 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Imagining the World from Behind the Iron Curtain
The colorful cover of Malgorzata Fidelis's Imagining the World from Behind the Iron Curtain: Youth and the Global Sixties in Poland entices the reader into a fascinating world of Polish youth of the long 1960s. The photo depicts two young women dressed in fashionable clothing holding flowers and posing in front of the Pałac Kultury (Palace of Culture) in Warsaw. They look joyous and optimistic, suggesting that Polish youth was forward looking, re…
Wheels of Change
Wheels of Change: Feminist Transgressions in Polish Culture and Society is a volume that brings together a select group of Polish historians and literary specialists to explore examples of Polish women's transgressions, beginning in the eighteenth century and continuing through to the present. The book emerged from discussions sparked by the 2017 ASEEES panel titled “Feminist Transgression in Polish Culture.” The concept of transgression serves a…
Life on the Margins
This article examines a group of Polish, Jewish, and Polish Jewish women who volunteered in the auxiliary forces of the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War. They traveled to Spain from various west European states, such as Belgium and France, and from Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Palestine. Although only a small percentage of these women traveled directly from Poland, in official documents they were categorized as Polish regardless of …
Communist Poland
Communist Poland: A Jewish Woman's Experience is an annotated memoir by Sara Nomberg-Przytyk, a Polish Jewish woman who, as the editors of the book state in the introduction, in just a few years, went “from a prisoner of Auschwitz to one of the most powerful female journalists in Poland” (p. 1). The memoir under discussion is her last book and covers the author's life from the moment of her liberation from a camp in Germany in 1945 to her decisio…
The Holocaust Bystander in Polish Culture, 1942–2015
The Holocaust Bystander in Polish Culture, 1942–2015: The Story of Innocence stems from a seminar that had gathered literary scholars at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences from 2013 to 2017 to debate the “indifferent witness to the Holocaust” (p. v).1 The book has an introduction and seven chapters written by literature specialists Katarzyna Chmielewska, Tomasz Żukowski, Aránzazu Calderón Puerta, and Anna Zawadzk…
Transgression, Struggle, and Scandal
This article analyzes the lives of a handful of women, who, after years of involvement in various military conflicts (from World War I to World War II), were sentenced to long prison sentences. Particularly, it explores the lives of Anna Neuman, Irena Tomalakwa, Elżbieta Zawacka, and Emilia Malessa from the perspective of the concept “postawa” which most of them acquired in the early years of their life while soldiering (postawa as a concept rela…
Comics and Nation
One item on display in the section of concentration camps at the Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk, Poland, is a nativity scene created by a group of Polish women confined in the Ravensbrück camp. Next to the traditional nativity figures are a series of Disney characters. At first, the juxtaposition of these figures seems puzzling, but with a deeper understanding of Polish culture historically, it becomes clear that children and adults of …
A Pole, a Jew, a Mother, a Communist
In this article, using the example of Tonia Lechtman, a Polish Jew, a Communist, and a mother, I look at the process of identity shifting. Throughout her life, Tonia Lechtman lived in multiple countries—Poland (1918–1935), Palestine (1935–1937), France (1937–1942), Switzerland (1942–1946), Poland (1946–1971), and Israel (1971–1996)—and in most of those places, she lived on the margins of society while either committed to working for the cause she…
Gender, Pleasure, and Violence
Poles of certain generations undeniably remember the popularity that Sztuka kochania [The art of love] by Michalina Wisłocka enjoyed. Between 1978 and 1995, the book had three editions and supposedly sold seven million copies.1 As Agnieszka Kościańska, an anthropologist and scholar of Polish sexual discourse, claims, this number is most likely slightly inflated, but it does not diminish the book's incredible popularity. In 2017, Poles, especially…
Writing Władysław Gomułka’s Life
This article looks at a select number of biographies of Władysław Gomułka—an important postwar Polish politician, who because of his long presence in politics is often perceived as the de facto Polish postwar leader. He served in multiple roles: parliamentary deputy, deputy prime minister, minister, member of the Council of State, and the First Secretary of the communist party. I argue that for historians who take up the task of writing his biogr…
Tancerka i Zagłada. Historia Poli Nireńskiej [The dancer and the Holocaust. The history of Pola Nireńska]
The Polish American Historical Association in the Twenty-First Century
Research Article| October 01 2021 The Polish American Historical Association in the Twenty-First Century Anna Müller Anna Müller Anna Müller is an associate professor and the Frank and Mary Padzieski Endowed Professor in Polish/Polish American/Eastern European Studies in the Department of Social Sciences at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. She is the author of If the Walls Could Speak: Inside a Women’s Prison in Communist Poland. From 2010–13…
Husbands Who Do Not Beat,” or on Gender and Sexuality in Polish American Studies
Neighbors and Ghosts
This essay argues for the centrality of Polish-Jewish relations for Polish history. I look at a handful of texts (including history and literature) that show the continued nature of autobiographical elements in the exploration of the Polish and Jewish past and the violence that defined it. The conversations about a difficult past play a crucial role not only in the process of understanding the impact/importance of the past for the present, but th…
Eastern Europe Unmapped
Prawa człowieka w polityce demokracji zachodnich wobec Polski w latach 1975–1981
Child Survivors of the Holocaust
The Return
In this article, while focusing on non-Jewish female prisoners who returned to Poland soon after the war, I examine the place of female support and friendship in the years immediately following the Second World War. It is based on a collection of letters that Joanna Muszkowska Penson and a group of her friends began exchanging soon after their departure from Ravensbrück, in the span of seven months from May to December 1945. Oral interviews with …
Russian History Through the Senses
Emergency drills for agricultural drought response
Drills are an important element of disaster management, helping to increase preparedness and reduce the risk of real‐time failure. Yet, they are not applied systematically to slow‐onset disasters such as a drought, which causes damage that is not instantly apparent and thus does not solicit immediate action. This case study evaluates how drills inform institutional responses to slow‐onset disasters. It spotlights Guatemala, a country where drough…
War, Dialogue, and Overcoming the Past
Research Article| August 01 2017 War, Dialogue, and Overcoming the Past: The Second World War Museum in Gdańsk, Poland Anna Muller, Anna Muller Anna Muller is assistant professor of history at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. From 2010 to 2013, she worked a curator at the Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk, Poland. Her book on the life of women in prison cells in postwar Poland, titled If the Walls Could Speak, will appear in October 20…
In the Unlikeliest of Places
A Polish Doctor in the Nazi Camps
Many of us—historians, sociologists, and writers—have been touched by extraordinary people whose lives we feel compelled to document. Yet we are often hesitant to embark on projects that are deeply...
A Polish Doctor in the Nazi Camps
Many of us—historians, sociologists, and writers—have been touched by extraordinary people whose lives we feel compelled to document. Yet we are often hesitant to embark on projects that are deeply...
War, Dialogue, and Overcoming the Past
Research Article| August 01 2017 War, Dialogue, and Overcoming the Past: The Second World War Museum in Gdańsk, Poland Anna Muller, Anna Muller Anna Muller is assistant professor of history at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. From 2010 to 2013, she worked a curator at the Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk, Poland. Her book on the life of women in prison cells in postwar Poland, titled If the Walls Could Speak, will appear in October 20…
In the Unlikeliest of Places
Russian History Through the Senses
Emergency drills for agricultural drought response
Drills are an important element of disaster management, helping to increase preparedness and reduce the risk of real‐time failure. Yet, they are not applied systematically to slow‐onset disasters such as a drought, which causes damage that is not instantly apparent and thus does not solicit immediate action. This case study evaluates how drills inform institutional responses to slow‐onset disasters. It spotlights Guatemala, a country where drough…
Eastern Europe Unmapped
Prawa człowieka w polityce demokracji zachodnich wobec Polski w latach 1975–1981
Child Survivors of the Holocaust
The Return
In this article, while focusing on non-Jewish female prisoners who returned to Poland soon after the war, I examine the place of female support and friendship in the years immediately following the Second World War. It is based on a collection of letters that Joanna Muszkowska Penson and a group of her friends began exchanging soon after their departure from Ravensbrück, in the span of seven months from May to December 1945. Oral interviews with …
Writing Władysław Gomułka’s Life
This article looks at a select number of biographies of Władysław Gomułka—an important postwar Polish politician, who because of his long presence in politics is often perceived as the de facto Polish postwar leader. He served in multiple roles: parliamentary deputy, deputy prime minister, minister, member of the Council of State, and the First Secretary of the communist party. I argue that for historians who take up the task of writing his biogr…
Tancerka i Zagłada. Historia Poli Nireńskiej [The dancer and the Holocaust. The history of Pola Nireńska]
The Polish American Historical Association in the Twenty-First Century
Research Article| October 01 2021 The Polish American Historical Association in the Twenty-First Century Anna Müller Anna Müller Anna Müller is an associate professor and the Frank and Mary Padzieski Endowed Professor in Polish/Polish American/Eastern European Studies in the Department of Social Sciences at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. She is the author of If the Walls Could Speak: Inside a Women’s Prison in Communist Poland. From 2010–13…
Husbands Who Do Not Beat,” or on Gender and Sexuality in Polish American Studies
Neighbors and Ghosts
This essay argues for the centrality of Polish-Jewish relations for Polish history. I look at a handful of texts (including history and literature) that show the continued nature of autobiographical elements in the exploration of the Polish and Jewish past and the violence that defined it. The conversations about a difficult past play a crucial role not only in the process of understanding the impact/importance of the past for the present, but th…
A Pole, a Jew, a Mother, a Communist
In this article, using the example of Tonia Lechtman, a Polish Jew, a Communist, and a mother, I look at the process of identity shifting. Throughout her life, Tonia Lechtman lived in multiple countries—Poland (1918–1935), Palestine (1935–1937), France (1937–1942), Switzerland (1942–1946), Poland (1946–1971), and Israel (1971–1996)—and in most of those places, she lived on the margins of society while either committed to working for the cause she…
Gender, Pleasure, and Violence
Poles of certain generations undeniably remember the popularity that Sztuka kochania [The art of love] by Michalina Wisłocka enjoyed. Between 1978 and 1995, the book had three editions and supposedly sold seven million copies.1 As Agnieszka Kościańska, an anthropologist and scholar of Polish sexual discourse, claims, this number is most likely slightly inflated, but it does not diminish the book's incredible popularity. In 2017, Poles, especially…
Life on the Margins
This article examines a group of Polish, Jewish, and Polish Jewish women who volunteered in the auxiliary forces of the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War. They traveled to Spain from various west European states, such as Belgium and France, and from Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Palestine. Although only a small percentage of these women traveled directly from Poland, in official documents they were categorized as Polish regardless of …
Communist Poland
Communist Poland: A Jewish Woman's Experience is an annotated memoir by Sara Nomberg-Przytyk, a Polish Jewish woman who, as the editors of the book state in the introduction, in just a few years, went “from a prisoner of Auschwitz to one of the most powerful female journalists in Poland” (p. 1). The memoir under discussion is her last book and covers the author's life from the moment of her liberation from a camp in Germany in 1945 to her decisio…
The Holocaust Bystander in Polish Culture, 1942–2015
The Holocaust Bystander in Polish Culture, 1942–2015: The Story of Innocence stems from a seminar that had gathered literary scholars at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences from 2013 to 2017 to debate the “indifferent witness to the Holocaust” (p. v).1 The book has an introduction and seven chapters written by literature specialists Katarzyna Chmielewska, Tomasz Żukowski, Aránzazu Calderón Puerta, and Anna Zawadzk…
Transgression, Struggle, and Scandal
This article analyzes the lives of a handful of women, who, after years of involvement in various military conflicts (from World War I to World War II), were sentenced to long prison sentences. Particularly, it explores the lives of Anna Neuman, Irena Tomalakwa, Elżbieta Zawacka, and Emilia Malessa from the perspective of the concept “postawa” which most of them acquired in the early years of their life while soldiering (postawa as a concept rela…
Comics and Nation
One item on display in the section of concentration camps at the Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk, Poland, is a nativity scene created by a group of Polish women confined in the Ravensbrück camp. Next to the traditional nativity figures are a series of Disney characters. At first, the juxtaposition of these figures seems puzzling, but with a deeper understanding of Polish culture historically, it becomes clear that children and adults of …
Imagining the World from Behind the Iron Curtain
The colorful cover of Malgorzata Fidelis's Imagining the World from Behind the Iron Curtain: Youth and the Global Sixties in Poland entices the reader into a fascinating world of Polish youth of the long 1960s. The photo depicts two young women dressed in fashionable clothing holding flowers and posing in front of the Pałac Kultury (Palace of Culture) in Warsaw. They look joyous and optimistic, suggesting that Polish youth was forward looking, re…
Wheels of Change
Wheels of Change: Feminist Transgressions in Polish Culture and Society is a volume that brings together a select group of Polish historians and literary specialists to explore examples of Polish women's transgressions, beginning in the eighteenth century and continuing through to the present. The book emerged from discussions sparked by the 2017 ASEEES panel titled “Feminist Transgression in Polish Culture.” The concept of transgression serves a…
Political science (15 works) · History (14 works) · Law (11 works) · Sociology (11 works) · Polish Historical and Cultural Studies (10 works) · Polish-Jewish Holocaust Memory Studies (10 works) · Gender Studies (7 works) · Art (6 works) · Archaeology (5 works) · Eastern European Communism and Reforms (5 works)