The Bad Child by Maria Janion, Hardcover, 9781517919672 | Buy online at The Nile
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The Bad Child

A Maria Janion Reader

Author: Maria Janion and Marta Figlerowicz   Series: Cultural Critique Books

The Bad Child
Hardcover
Pre order release date
1st January 2026
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Hardcover

PRODUCT INFORMATION

Description

Collected writings from a visionary thinker about the perilous edge between patriotism and fascism

How do nationalism and patriotism shape our understanding of identity, and when do they drift into dangerous territory? Marta Figlerowicz gathers a selection of writings from Maria Janion, one of Eastern Europe's most profound and original intellectuals, to explore this fine line. Between her birth in Vilnius in 1926 and her death in Warsaw in 2020, Janion witnessed some of the most consequential events of the turbulent twentieth century: the rise of authoritarian nationalism in Poland, German occupation during World War II, Soviet control, and Poland's uneasy integration into the West. As Western countries face their own nationalist resurgences, Janion's writing holds tools to help move through this historical condition.

The Bad Child offers sharp insights into how societies develop and assert their identities and histories-often at the cost of the people. Janion's reflections on fascism, popular culture, and national self-fashioning presciently name and critique regional dynamics that have most recently resulted in the war between Russia and Ukraine, and they broadly expose the illusions that cultures can promote and the dangerous slide from national pride to exclusionary right-wing politics. A queer woman and survivor of World War II, a leftist who resisted Soviet orthodoxy, Janion lends a uniquely disruptive voice to contemporary discussions of fascism, and her insights resonate far beyond her Eastern European roots.

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Critic Reviews

"The remarkable creativity, energy, and erudition of Maria Janion, one of Poland's most important left-wing feminist critics, shines forth in these essays carefully curated and translated by Marta Figlerowicz."--Sianne Ngai, University of Chicago

"Maria Janion's writing is foundational to so many currents of contemporary Central European thought--around nations and nationalism, gender and genre, everyday politics and the political writ large--that her invisibility in English has long struck those of us privileged to know her work as a tragedy, if not a crime. The Bad Child, however, suggests another possibility: that Janion has simply awaited an editor, translator, and scholar equal to the task of encompassing her. She has that, at last, in Marta Figlerowicz. This book belongs on the shelf of every humanist."--Benjamin Paloff, author of Worlds Apart: Genre and the Ethics of Representing Camps, Ghettos, and Besieged Cities

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About the Author

Maria Janion (19262020) was the greatest Polish leftist intellectual of her generation. The author of twenty-three books and hundreds of articles and essays, she mentored and inspired several generations of Eastern European scholars and political activists. During her life, Janion held appointments at several Polish academic institutions, including the University of Gdask and the Institute of Literary Studies in Warsaw.

Marta Figlerowicz is professor of comparative literature at Yale University. She is a Guggenheim Fellow and author of Flat Protagonists and Spaces of Feeling as well as more than a hundred articles, reviews, and essays. Her translations from Polish have appeared in PMLA and The Paris Review.

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Product Details

Publisher
University of Minnesota Press
Published
9th September 2025
Pages
296
ISBN
9781517919672

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