Moving Forward: New Perspectives on German-Polish Relations in Contemporary Europe

Abstract

Since the end of the Cold War and the reconfiguration of the map ofEurope, scholars across the disciplines have looked anew at the geopoliticaland geocultural dimensions of East Central Europe. Although geographicallyat the periphery of Eastern Europe, Germany and its changing discourseson the East have also become a subject of this reassessment inrecent years. Within this larger context, this special issue explores thefraught history of German-Polish border regions with a special focus oncontemporary literature and film.1 The contributions examine the representationof border regions in recent Polish and German literature (IreneSywenky, Claudia Winkler), filmic accounts of historical German and Polishlegacies within contemporary European contexts (Randall Halle, MeghanO’Dea), and the role of collective memory in contemporary German-Polishrelations (Karl Cordell). Bringing together scholars of Polish and Germanliterature and film, as well as political science, some of the contributionsalso ponder the advantages of regional and transnational approaches toissues that used to be discussed primarily within national parameters.