Lexington Books
Pages: 268
•
Trim: 6½ x 9¼
978-1-4985-0157-6 • Hardback • July 2015 • $115.00 • (£88.00)
978-1-4985-0158-3 • eBook • July 2015 • $109.00 • (£84.00)
Marta Marciniak received her PhD in American Studies from the University of Buffalo, The State University of New York.
Contents vii
Preface viii
Acknowledgements xii
Introduction xiii
Abbreviations xliii
Chapter 1: The most sensible way to be? The first two
decades of punk in Poland 1
Chapter 2: The Silesian scenes 43
Chapter 3: “Star Wars, or you can have everything”
– punk politics of everyday life 75
Chapter 4: “DIY till we die:” the economy and institutions
of punk 119
Chapter 5: “Dziewczyny w pogo:” women and ideas
about gender in punk 151
Epilogue 185
Appendix 201
Bibliography 205
Index 215
In this unique book, Marciniak provides a detailed exploration of the punk subculture in Poland and the US. Based on her dissertation work, the book compares and contrasts communities of the subculture in Poland’s Warsaw and Upper Silesia regions with their US counterparts in New York, Cleveland, and New Jersey. In the book's five chapters, she provides an ethnographic exploration of the oral history, subcultural practice, and socio-political environments of 1980s punk communities. Marciniak first explains the concepts of the DIY ethic, modernity, gentrification, and outsiderism as a foundation of how these communities arose. From these concepts, the author moves on to discuss influences and connections that Polish punk has to punk in Cleveland and New Jersey, considering political and nihilistic attitudes toward governmental ideologies. Of particular note is Marciniak’s concise unfolding of punk histories and their connections to prominent bands, lyrics, and cultural practices. She includes exhaustive notes, a list of interviewees, and an appendix of questions used during her fieldwork. Overall, this volume offers musicologists, punk aficionados, and anthropology students an insightful look at punk subcultural practice through a global and historical lens. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.
— Choice Reviews
An important contribution to Punk as a way of life and international movement. Marciniak identifies the essential elements of Punk, tracing their development in Poland from the pre-punk socio-political climate through the punk culture there today.
— Anne Cecil, Drexel University
Marta Marciniak’s Transnational Punk Communities in Poland: From Nihilism to Nothing Outside Punk captures the complexities and contradictions of punk on the local level, and the connections between punks transnationally. For those who read the occasional scene reports in Maximum Rocknroll from behind the Iron Curtain, this book documents the history of the formation of a worldwide community of ideas and ideals through punk scenes. Wide-ranging, alternately dense and lyrical, deeply personal and deeply researched, this beautifully written work demonstrates the connections between disparate punk histories from Cleveland and New York to Warsaw and Silesia and beyond with passion and tremendous insight.
— Dewar Macleod, William Paterson University