Marta Wójtowicz

Profile

I joined the School of Languages, Cultures and Societies in 2024 as a full-time PhD student, funded by the AHRC White Rose College of Arts & Humanities (WRoCAH).

I hold a BA (Hons) in Media and Cultural Studies from Lancaster University (First Class Honours) and an MA in Visual Culture from Durham University (Distinction). My academic journey has been shaped by a strong interest in the intersections of media, identity and cultural geopolitics, particularly in relation to Eastern Europe and Slavicness in digital culture. My master’s dissertation, The European Semi-Periphery Laughs Back: Analysing Representations of Eastern European Masculinities and Femininities from Euro-Orientalism to Self-Euro-Orientalism, laid the groundwork for my current research.

In my PhD, I examine how ‘Slavicness’ is performed and self-performed within digital cultures, with particular attention to its playful manifestations. The word ‘Slavic’ was once primarily a linguistic category. Yet in digital cultures, it appears to function differently, carrying an array of meanings signified through a specific meme aesthetic. If it is related to the region of Eastern Europe, a predominantly white part of the world, does it carry an ethnonationalistic undertone? If it remains, in some ways, a linguistic category, does it also encompass Russian speakers in Central Asia? Through its associations with the categories ‘postcommunist’ and ‘postsocialist’, does ‘Slavic’ inherently carry political connotations? While I will address these questions, my main goal is not to investigate who is deemed ‘Slavic’ or where to geographically locate ‘Slavdom’, but rather to examine how ‘Slavicness’ – the more nebulous term describing the quality of being ‘Slavic’ - is playfully performed in digital cultures. Overall, through its title, this thesis invites questions about the gaze and, by extension, about power. Who is showing whom what, and through what lens, is a complicated matter with multiple layers, which this thesis aims to unpack and understand, giving special attention to issues of ethnicity, class and gender.

Research interests

• Popular culture
• Visual culture
• Postcolonial theory, including postcolonial perspectives on Eastern Europe
• Race, ethnicity, gender and class
• Ethnic humour, irony and stereotypes

Qualifications

• MA Visual Culture, Durham University (2021)
• BA (Hons) Media and Cultural Studies, Lancaster University (2020)

Research groups and institutes

• Centre for World Cinemas and Digital Cultures