Milewska Monika

Monika MILEWSKA, PhD - historian and anthropologist, essayist, poet, playwright. She graduated from the Faculty of History of the Warsaw University, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris and the Graduate School for Social Research at the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. In 2002-2008 she worked as an assistant professor at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. Since 2009 she has been working at the University of Gdańsk. She is a fellow of the American Academy in Rome and a member of the Association of Polish Writers. She won several scholarships, among others: A. Mellon Scholarship;  scholarship for the best young scientists awarded by the weekly „Polityka”; scholarship for the best young scientists awarded by the Foundation for Polish Science; scholarships of the French and Italian Governments; scholarships of the Minister of Culture; scholarships of the Baltic Centre for Writers and Translators in Visby and the International Writers' and Translators' Center of Rhodes.

Her scientific interests focus on anthropology of history, totalitarian ideologies and propaganda, sacralization of power and violence, great political myths, political folklore, the role of food in history. She has published two books of historical essays: Ocet i łzy. Terror Wielkiej Rewolucji Francuskiej jako doświadczenie traumatyczne (“Vinegar and Tears. The Terror of the French Revolution as a Traumatic Experience”) Gdansk, 2002 (nomination to NIKE, the most renowned literary prize in Poland) and Bogowie u władzy. Od Aleksandra Wielkiego do Kim Dzong Ila (“In the Power of Gods. From Alexander the Great to Kim Jong Il”), Gdańsk, 2012. Now she is preparing a book on ideological dimensions of food in communist Poland.