The presentation is aiming to present an analysis of the DLC of video game Witcher 3, titled Hearts of stone. The DLC is a retelling of the traditional Polish legend, Pan Twardowski, a story which was also later used by the greatest Polish romantic poet Adam Mickiewicz. Moreover, the DLC uses a variety of specific Polish and Central European motives both in storytelling as well as visual aspects. As the game Witcher 3 was an internationally acclaimed work, it is definitely interesting to analyse intertextual plays with those local motives and narratives and the strategies their adaption for the global reception. This will allow to present mechanism of cultural self-representation of the Poles and how the narratives of local, Polish, meaning are being deployed in order to create a story directed to much wider audience. This topic is also an occasion for a wider reflection on the meaning of Central European cultural heritage and its role in creating contemporary, pop cultural narratives, or, in the language of postcolonial theory, an occasion to reflect on how the cultural periphery interacts with the centre.
Agata Czaja
Agata Czaja – Currently a PhD studies in the Institute for Slavic Studies at the University of Münster with the thesis title “Ideologien der polnischen Romantik aus postkolonialer Perspektive”, the aim of the thesis is to analyse Polish messianic ideologies with the use of the term ‘coloniality’. I completed B.A in applied linguistics at the University of Warsaw, then M.A in National and Transnational Studies at the University of Münster with the thesis “Poland in transformation: A postcolonial study”. The master thesis analysed the diaries of Gustaw Herling-Grudziński with the use of term hybridity coined by Homi K. Bhabha.