second world–ness and transnational practices one agnieszka holland’s kobieta samotna (a woman alone) katarzyna marciniak If the world is currently structured by transnational economic links and cultural asymmetries, locating feminist practices within these structures becomes imperative. —Inderpal Grewal and Caren Kaplan, Introduction to Scattered Hegemonies: Postmodernity and Transnational Feminist Practices I start with a pedagogical experience that inspired this essay. In 2003, I taught a newly designed graduate seminar, “Transnational Feminist Practices”; 1 my students were intrigued by exploring this new field of transnational feminist cultural studies. The seminar combined the study of diasporic cinema and current discourses of transnationality in order to examine border and transcultural identities in the global contexts of exilic disloca- tion, patriarchal violence, and ethnic cleansing. For all my students, this was a fresh intellectual experience. As foundational texts for the seminar, RT4558_C001.indd 3 5/19/05 11:04:27 AM