{"id":118,"date":"2015-08-31T11:24:54","date_gmt":"2015-08-31T15:24:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/faculty\/profile\/jakub-j-kazecki\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T16:07:51","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T21:07:51","slug":"jakub-j-kazecki","status":"publish","type":"faculty-profile","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/faculty\/profile\/jakub-j-kazecki\/","title":{"rendered":"Jakub J. Kazecki"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pronouns: he\/him\/his<\/strong>\"A<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Jakub Kazecki joined Bates College as an Assistant Professor of German in 2012. Prior to his current position at Bates, Professor Kazecki held academic appointments teaching German language and culture at Central Connecticut State University in New Britain, Connecticut (2008-2012) and at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario (2006-2008). He also served as a Sessional Lecturer in German at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver (2004-2006).<\/p>\n

Prof. Kazecki earned his Ph.D. in Germanic Studies from the Department of Central, Eastern and Northern European Studies at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver in 2007. Before completing his Ph.D., he studied at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and at Adam-Mickiewicz-University in Pozna\u0144, Poland.<\/p>\n

Since Fall 2023, he has been serving as the chair of German and Russian Studies.<\/a><\/p>\n

Prof. Kazecki\u2019s scholarly career is dedicated to German Studies, European Studies, Film Studies, and Border Studies, concentrating on 20th-century German literature, the interplay of humor and violence in visual media, and the changing portrayal of German-Polish relations in literature and film. His foundational research focused on World War I military literature and the intersection of humor with serious literary genres, culminating in his monograph, Laughter in the Trenches: Humour and Front Experience in German First World War Narratives<\/em> (2012). Extending his inquiry into humor, Prof. Kazecki co-edited the collections Border Visions: Identity and Diaspora in Film<\/em> (2013, with Karen A. Ritzenhoff and Cynthia J. Miller) and Heroism and Gender in War Films<\/em> (2014, with Karen A. Ritzenhoff).<\/p>\n

His current research area examines images of German-Polish relationships through the lens of Border Studies. He published several articles utilizing a postcolonial lens to analyze the Orientalist gaze applied to Poland in German cinema and television after 1989. His main research project is the the upcoming monograph, Framing Neighbors: Poland in German Cinema after 1989<\/em>, which analyzes the depictions of Poland in German film, documenting the evolution from colonially coded spaces to sites of creative hybridity.<\/p>\n

Selected Publications:<\/h3>\n

\u201cFrom Polski Crash<\/em> to Meine Polnische Jungfrau<\/em>: Orientalizing Poland in the German Cinema of the 1990s.\u201d Colloquia Germanica<\/em> 57, no. 4 (December 2024): 415\u201336. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.24053\/CG-2024-0020<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre the Polish Housekeepers \u2018Willig Und Billig\u2019? The Image of Polish Migrant Women Workers in German TV Productions of the 2010s.\u201d Herder-Institut and Copernico: History and Cultural Heritage in Eastern Europe, 2024. https:\/\/www.copernico.eu\/en\/link\/66bb429ec654c8.63337586<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThrough an Orientalist Lens: Colonial Renderings of Poland in German Cinema after 1989.\u201d In Edinburgh German Yearbook 15: Tracing German Visions of Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century<\/em>, edited by Jenny Watson, Michel Mallet, and Hanna Schumacher, 133\u201354. Boydell & Brewer, 2022. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.2307\/j.ctv2j04szc.8<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Ich bin ein Betweener\u2019: The Concept of the Existential Migrant in Steffen M\u00f6ller\u2019s Travel Narratives about Poland.\u201d Canadian Slavonic Papers<\/em> 61, no. 1 (January 2019): 81\u201398. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1080\/00085006.2018.1557452.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Mimicry of The Lizard Man<\/em>: Dariusz Muszer\u2019s Narratives of Migration in the (Post-)Colonial Context.\u201d In Postcolonial Slavic Literatures After Communism<\/em>, edited by Klavdia Smola and Dirk Uffelmann, 433-451. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2016.<\/p>\n

\u201cWar Memoir as Entertainment: Walter Bloem\u2019s Vormarsch<\/em> (1916).\u201d In Humor, Entertainment, and Popular Culture during World War I<\/em>, edited by Cl\u00e9mentine Tholas-Disset and Karen A. Ritzenhoff. 91-105. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Functions of Humor and Laughter in Narrating Trauma in German Literature of the First World War.\u201d In The Unspeakable: Narratives of Trauma<\/em>, edited by Magda Stroinska, Vikki Cecchetto, and Kate Szymanski. 43-55. Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, and New York: Peter Lang, 2014.<\/p>\n

Courses Taught at Bates College:<\/h3>\n

GER 101, Introduction to German Language and Culture I
\nGER 102, Introduction to German Language and Culture II
\nGER 202, Intermediate German Language and Culture II
\nGER 233, Advanced German Language and Culture I
\nGER 234, Advanced German Language and Culture II \/ Long Read: Advanced German Language and Culture
\nGER 251, The Age of Revolution: The German Enlightenment, Classicism, and Romantic Rebellion, 1750-1830
\nGER 252, Tracing the Autobiographical: Personal Narratives in the 20th-Century German Literature
\nGER 253, Contemporary German Cultures
\nGER 262, The Split Screen: Reconstructing National Identities in West and East German Cinema
\nGER 264, World War One in German Culture
\nGER 341, Landscapes and Cityscapes in German Media
\nGER 350, Margins and Migrations
\nGER s26, The Split Screen: Reconstructing National Identities in West and East German Cinema
\nGR\/EU s21, Weimar and Berlin: German Culture in European Context
\nEU\/GR 220, Remembering War: The Great War, Memory, and Remembrance in Europe
\nEU\/GR 254, Berlin and Vienna, 1900\u20131914
\nBSAG 009, Mapping the City: The Urban Landscape as Text (Fall Semester Abroad in Berlin Program)
\nFYS 423, Humor and Laughter in Literature and Visual Media
\nTHEA\/EUS s33, Central European Theater and Film (co-taught with Katalin Vecsey<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":331,"featured_media":7695,"template":"","class_list":["post-118","faculty-profile","type-faculty-profile","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","expertise-20th-century-german-literature-and-film","expertise-discourses-of-masculinity-in-german-literature","expertise-film-studies","expertise-german-studies","expertise-humor","expertise-images-of-german-polish-relationships-in-literature-film-and-visual-arts","expertise-laughter-and-comedy-in-literature-film-and-visual-arts","expertise-laughter-and-comedys-relation-to-violence","expertise-media","expertise-specific-german-film-after-1945","expertise-specific-literature-in-the-weimar-republic-1919-1933","what-i-teach-german-and-european-cinema-after-1945","what-i-teach-german-language","what-i-teach-humor-and-laughter-in-culture","what-i-teach-literary-and-film-analysis","what-i-teach-memory-of-the-first-world-war-in-europe","what-i-teach-specific-german-culture-1900-1914","what-i-teach-specific-german-literature-and-culture-in-the-weimar-republic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/faculty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/faculty-profile\/118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/faculty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/faculty-profile"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/faculty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/faculty-profile"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/faculty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/331"}],"version-history":[{"count":31,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/faculty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/faculty-profile\/118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7700,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/faculty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/faculty-profile\/118\/revisions\/7700"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/faculty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/faculty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}