From pop hits to novel adaptations – lecture on cultural approaches to the city of Łódź

The culturally diverse city of Łódź is the focus of a border talk on Wednesday, 24 September at 6 p.m. in the Senate Hall of the European University Viadrina, Große Scharrnstraße 59. In her lecture entitled "Theo, wir fahr'n nach Lodz - Annäherungen an eine Stadt" (Theo, we're going to Lodz – Approaches to a city), theater scholar Prof. Dr. Karolina Prykowska-Michalak from the University of Łódź will talk about famous and lesser-known cultural approaches to her city. The joint event of the Karl Dedecius Foundation at the Viadrina and the Oekumenisches Europa-Centrum Frankfurt (Oder) (OeC) will be moderated by Dr. Gero Lietz (European University Viadrina).

Łódź/Lodz has many faces; many stories have been told about this city. The subject of these stories is always the rapid development of the city into a metropolis of the textile industry in the 19th century. The speaker will recall a number of texts, starting with the hit song "Theo, wir fahr'n nach Lodz" (Theo, we're going to Lodz), which is particularly famous in Germany, and its history, through to the novel "Das gelobte Land" (The Promised Land) by the Polish Nobel Prize winner Władysław Reymont. Andrzej Wajda's film adaptation of the same name was made exactly 50 years ago.

Karolina Prykowska-Michalak is a professor at the University of Łódź in Poland, where she has been teaching for 20 years. Her area of expertise is theater studies from an interdisciplinary and intercultural perspective. From 2020 to 2022, she was a guest lecturer at the Center for Interdisciplinary Polish Studies at the European University Viadrina.

The German-language event is open to all interested parties and admission is free. 

The event also serves as a prelude to a study trip to Łódź, which the Karl Dedecius Foundation is organizing from 1 to 5 October 2025. Further information on the Karl Dedecius Foundation: www.europa-uni.de/kds