Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen
Austria
fellow
Jacob Mikanowski
Discipline(s)
History of ideas
Humanities
Literature
Theme(s)
Cultural Studies
Stay dates
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Research Project
Czesław Miłosz, ‘Kultura,’ and Ketman: Dissimulation and Dissidence Across the Polish Diaspora
Czesław Miłosz’s 1953 book The Captive Mind made Ketman—a term originally derived from Islamic law, describing the duty of believers to conceal their true beliefs when threatened with persecution—a byword for the myriad strategies of self-effacement used by the inhabitants of the Soviet bloc. However, Miłosz did not come to this era-defining idea alone; a whole web of interlocutors and correspondents in the Polish diaspora helped him to formulate the concept, while a related network of readers, publishers, and government agencies spread his work across Cold War Europe. At the Institute, Jacob Mikanowski plans to extend his previous work on the publication and reception history of The Captive Mind by focusing on three distinct areas: the dissemination of The Captive Mind across the Iron Curtain through covert means; the use of ideological disguise by citizens of the Polish People’s Republic; and finally, the role of Kultura and its editors in inspiring Miłosz’s work and its reception among the journal’s readers.
Research Interests:
Jacob Mikanowski is a freelance journalist and writer based in Portland, OR. My academic training is in the history of Eastern Europe—I’ve completed doctoral work in European History at the University of California, Berkeley—but for over a decade, I worked as a critic and a science journalist. I write about art, books, movies, ancient history, anthropology, and - occasionally - food. I especially like to work on stories about the intersection of science and the humanities, photography, and people who are helplessly obsessed with whatever they're doing.
For the past few years, I’ve been working on single project which combines all my interests: Goodbye, Eastern Europe: An Intimate History of a Divided Land - a book-length history of Eastern Europe, covering culture, politics, religion and ideology (essentially, everything which made Eastern Europe, Eastern Europe over the past 2000 years).