8 December (Monday) | 6:00 PM | Juliusz Słowacki Theatre – Mirror Hall
FREE ADMISSION

Who is the “barbarian” today? And why does this ancient, unsettling, yet fascinating figure return with such force in a world that proclaims openness while still drawing borders, labels, and stigmas?

We invite you to a conversation exploring how contemporary culture constructs otherness, how the economy of stigma operates, and what our desire to “tame” difference really reveals. We will also ask whether it is still possible to think about community — one in which difference does not inspire fear but expands our imagination.

The discussion draws on the ideas of Barthes, Levinas, Arendt, and Paul B. Preciado — thinkers who encourage us to move beyond rigid categories and beyond a world of exhausted definitions.

Speakers

• Bartosz Szydłowski — theatre director, Artistic Director of Łaźnia Nowa Theatre and the Divine Comedy Festival
• Prof. Monika Płatek — legal scholar, human rights advocate, expert on exclusion and criminal justice
• Mery Spolsky — singer-songwriter, composer, LGBTQ+ ally
• Cveta Dimitrova — philosopher and psychotherapist

Moderation: Prof. Remigiusz Ryziński, philosopher, writer, and cultural theorist.

This meeting is an invitation to reflect on what feels foreign, familiar, or uncomfortable — and on the possibility that each of us may be more (or other) than the world’s prevailing order would have us believe.

Free admission. Join us.