Foucault in Warsaw
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- 10,99 €
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- 10,99 €
Publisher Description
In 1958, Michel Foucault arrived in Poland to work on his thesis—a work that eventually came to be published as The History of Madness. While he was there, he became involved with a number of members of the gay community, including a certain "Jurek," who eventually led the secret police directly to Foucault’s hotel room, causing his subsequent exit from Poland. That boy’s motivations and true identity were hidden among secret police documents for decades, until Remigiusz Ryziński stumbled upon the right report and uncovered the truth about the whole situation.
Nominated for the Nike Literary Award, Foucault in Warsaw reconstructs a vibrant, engaging picture of gay life in Poland under communism—from the joys found in secret nightclubs, to the fears of not knowing who was a secret informant.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Ryziński, a lecturer on gender and queer theory, debuts with a brisk and intriguing account of the months French philosopher Michel Foucault spent in Poland before he was expelled from the country for "immoral conduct." Arriving in October 1958 to serve as director of the Centre for French Culture at the University of Warsaw, Foucault befriended a group of young gay men that included informants for the country's secret police. Ryziński describes how some of these men were pressured into becoming informants, and examines records from the "homosexual dossiers" maintained by Poland's intelligence services. Foucault, a "caring, open, and energetic person with a sunny disposition," knew that he was being surveilled, but dismissed the threat, and used the situation as inspiration to work on his doctoral thesis, which was published as History of Madness. Ryziński maps the terrain of gay life in 1950s Warsaw ("The bathrooms were the clubs of that era," according to one drag queen), and discusses the links Foucault drew between madness and homosexuality as "categor of social exclusion." The admirably taut translation by Bye brings the hunt through Warsaw's archives to life. Readers will welcome this vivid and empathetic excavation of an historical footnote.
