The historical and cultural relationship between Poland and Germany has been one of the most important and complex in Europe. This is particularly true after the Yalta settlement and the end of World War Two, a period which saw the expulsion of the German population from what is now western Poland, the partition of Germany into East and West, and the introduction of communism in Poland and East German, the eventual reunification of Germany and the end of communism in 1989, and Poland’s “return to Europe” when it joined the European Union in 2004. Despite the importance of this relationship, the disciplinary divide in the United States that designated Poland as part of “Eastern Europe” and Germany of “Western Europe” has meant that the Polish–German relationship has rarely received the scholarly attention it deserves. This interdisciplinary conference is the first of its kind on this side of the Atlantic in the post-1989 period to focus on Polish–German relations and to specifically examine the crucial issue of competing memories of the traumatic events of World War II and its aftermath.

Polish - German Post / Memory: Aesthetics, Ethics, Politics addresses the public discussion of this history by defining its contours over the course of the postwar period. The conference brings together scholars of literature, film, performance, material culture, cultural studies, politics, ethics, to share in this exploration of the culture of memory and the memory of culture.