PROFIL PRACOWNIKA: Olga Wesołowska

I am a PhD candidate in the Doctoral School of Humanities and an assistant at the Department of Film and Audiovisual Media at the University of Lodz. I hold a master degree in Cultural Studies (with a specialization in Film Studies) and German Philology (specializing in Translation and Interpretation). My doctoral research focuses on the representations of the post-war Jewish diaspora in contemporary German and Austrian cinema. I teach courses on various topics, including the cinematographies of German-speaking countries, film narration, and the poetics of non-fiction cinema. I am a memeber of Polish Society for Film and Media Studies.

Research and Academic Background:

• April-June 2023: Scholarship of the Republic of Austria (OeAD) for a research stay in Vienna, under the supervision of Prof. Klaus Davidowicz (University of Vienna)
• April-August 2022: GFPS Scholarship for a research semester at Justus Liebig University in Giessen, under the guidance of Prof. Ulrike Weckel and Dr. Julia Roos (Dubnow Institute, Leipzig)
• July 2019: Internship at the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in Cologne
• Summer Semester 2019: Erasmus+ scholarship at the University of Cologne
• August-September 2018: Internship at the German-Polish Institute in Darmstadt (Deutsches Polen-Institut)
• Summer Semester 2017: Erasmus+ scholarship at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich

• Contemporary German and Austrian cinema
• Non-fiction cinema
• Jewish life in Austria and Germany after 1945
• Memory studies
• Polish-German cultural relations

Publications:

Monographs:

• Searching for Identity in a Country (of Un)Memory: On the Documentary Work of Ruth Beckermann, Łódź 2022

Journal Articles:

• "The Fantasy of Reconciliation," Ekrany, 2024, Issue 4 (72)
• "Memory Theatre Put to the Test? ‘A Quite Ordinary Jew’ in Light of Y. Michal Bodemann’s Theory," Kwartalnik Filmowy, 2024, Issue 125
• "Murderers Among Us – Confrontations with the History of the National Socialist Underground in German Cinema," Universitatis Paedagogicae Cracoviensis. Studia de Arte et Educatione, 2023, vol. 18, Issue 376
• "Discovering Jewish Identity in Post-War Austria: The Example of the Film Hannas Schlafende Hunde by Andreas Gruber," Politeja. Journal of the Faculty of International and Political Studies at Jagiellonian University, 2023, vol. 20, Issue 3
• "Witnesses, Victims, Avengers... Jewish Heroes in German and Austrian Films about War Criminal Trials: The Cases of Murer: Anatomy of a Trial and Labyrinth of Lies," Universitatis Paedagogicae Cracoviensis. Studia de Arte et Educatione, 2021, vol. 16, Issue 363
• "Goodnight Mommy – Austrian Fears Behind the Mask of Genre Cinema," Polisemia. Scientific Journal of Literary Anthropology at Jagiellonian University, Issue 2/2018

Book Chapters:

• "Life After Life: Representations of Jews (Survivors and Subsequent Generations) in Contemporary German and Austrian Cinema – An Outline of the PhD Dissertation," in Free Your Mind: Reflections on Language, Literature, and Culture, Łódź 2022
• "Players from the Cursed League: The Ghettos of Contemporary Germany and Their Representations in the Works of Feridun Zaimoglu," in Migration in Language, Literature, and Culture, Łódź 2020

Conferences:

• 2024: Jewishness and Popular Culture in Germany and Poland (International Conference, speaker, member of the organizing committee)
• 2024: Deutsches Transnationales Kino (International Conference, speaker)
• 2023: IV Congress of Film and Media Studies (Poland, speaker)
• 2023: Poles, Germans, and Jews Across History: Language, History, Culture (National Student-Doctoral Scientific Conference, speaker)
• 2022: Faces of Postmemory 5 (International Conference, speaker)
• 2021: Austrian Studies Association Conference - National and Postnational Perspectives in/from/On Austria (International Conference, speaker)
• 2021: Wandering with Your Own, Foreign, and Enemy: History - Culture - Society (National Conference, speaker)
• 2020: DAAD Student Conference in German Studies – Community (International Conference, speaker)

Awards and Achievements:

• First Prize for Research Achievements, Rector of the University of Łódź for 4th-year PhD students (2024)
• Recognition for Doctoral Activity at the University of Łódź (2024)
• Special Award from the Austrian Embassy in Warsaw for the XXVI edition of the J. J. Lipski Competition (2021)
• First Prize in the XIV National Translation Competition for German-speaking Literatures: Austrian and Swiss (2022)