"Music Videos and Activism: The Polish Case (and What Beyoncé Has to Do With It)"

Around 2010, with the development of platforms such as YouTube and Vevo, the music video industry experienced a remarkable revival. This unique genre, relatively free from producers' demands, gave many artists space for liberal artistic experimentation and for expressing blatant statements about pressing social and political issues. Beyoncé's music videos, for example - made by directors such as Mark Romanek, Jonas Åkerlund, and Melina Matsoukas - quickly was perceived as commentary on black communities and as advocating for black women's rights. In Poland, where popular artists and celebrities have never enjoyed much authority, as they were seen as representatives of "low culture", music videos became a platform for more democratic artistic expression. This talk will explore the ways in which music videos enter public debates on relevant Polish issues - surviving in the era of capitalism, the roles women must play in it, and the rise of nationalism.

Paulina Duda is a visiting Polish Instructor in Slavic and Eurasian Studies at Duke University and a lecturer at Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology in Warsaw. She received her PhD degree from University of Michigan (2017), and her MA from University College London.