The Staszic Palace as Affective Heterotopia : New Category of Spatial Description

The book proposes a new category – heterotopia of affect – which builds upon Michel Foucault’s typology. The category refers to changes of the places that accumulate contents of ideological, historical, religious, and national character. The book tells the history of a very Polish edifice as well as its surrounding cultural milieu and the history-creating role of the scientific community. The author focuses on the Staszic Palace whose fate reveals how – at different times in history – it catalyzed activities in search of radical changes in the mental landscape of the Polish community.