This Authoritarian Life

This Authoritarian Life explores how people experience, adapt to, and resist authoritarian politics in their everyday lives.

Each month, anthropologists Kristóf Szombati and Erdem Evren speak with guests from around the world to understand what authoritarianism looks like up close — and how it can be contested.

Group winner of the 2025 New Directions Award of the American Anthropological Association, TAL combines ethnographic insight with accessible storytelling to reveal the textures of life under authoritarian stress.

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Guest

Piotr Rudzki

Piotr Rudzki is a literary scholar and dramaturg who helped turn the Polski Theater in Wrocław into one of the country’s most daring public stages. His vision of a ‘global theater' that engages societal issues head on came directly into conflict with the vision promoted by conservative cultural elites. He was dismissed under political pressure in 2016 after the Law and Justice Party (PiS) won the parliamentary election. He went on to co-found the Polski Theater in the Underground as a cultural institution outside official frameworks. Piotr also works as the Head of the Department of Theory of Culture and Performing Arts at the University of Wrocław.

Guest appearance on:

Defund, Co-opt, Replace: How Authoritarians Reshape Culture (Frontlines) #3