PAHA Board's Mid-Year Meeting at 6th World Congress of Polish Studies in Krakow, June 18, 2017

The Board of the Polish American Historical Association meets twice per year, with a mid-year meeting scheduled either independently of other events, or in association with an important conference. The Summer 2017 Mid-Year Board Meeting will take place in Krakow, Poland, on June 18, 2017, at the end of the Sixth World Congress of Polish Studies, organized jointly by Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences in America , Polska Akademia Umiejetnosci, and the University of Gdansk. The Congress is scheduled for June 16-18 at the  Polska Akademia Umiejętności at ul. Sławkowska 17 in Krakow, and includes presentations by nearly 200 scholars from various areas of the humanities and social sciences, including studies of Polish history, literature, art, music, institutions and individuals.  There will be a large number of panels with papers on Polish American topics. They include:

• Session 3 on Chicago Polonia
• Sessions 7 and 12 on Heroes and Anti-Heroes
• Session 13 on migration Studies (maybe)
• Session 17 on Polish Diaspora Communities
• Session 26 on Polish American support for Poland
• Session 21 on Australian immigration (Western Hemisphere!)
• Session 31 on Poles in American Civil War
• Session 35 on immigrant Social Identities
• Session 41 on Eastern Europeans in north America
• Sessions 46 and 52 on Post-Solidarity immigrants in the US and Canada respectively

Please see the full program in PDF format for more details about these sessions all held at the Polska Akademia Umiejętności at ul. Sławkowska 17 in Krakow.

The Conference Organizing Committee included three PAHA members:

• Chair — M. B. B. Biskupski (Central Connecticut State University, former President of PAHA)
• Vice Chair and Program Chair — James S. Pula (Purdue University Northwest, PAHA Treasurer and former editor of the Polish American Studies)
• Chair of Administration and Finance — Bożena Leven (The College of New Jersey)
• Committee Members: 
• Andrzej Białas (President, Polska Akademia Umiejętności),
• Arkadiusz Janicki (Director of the Institute of History, University of Gdańsk), 
• Anna Mazurkiewicz (President, Polish American Historical Association)

The Program also includes a thank-you note to individuals and institutions that organized two or more sessions at the Congress:

• Silvia G. Dapía (John Jay College, City University of New York)
• Christopher Garbowski (Marie Curie-Skłodowska University)
• Arkadiusz Janicki (University of Gdańsk)
• Anna Mazurkiewicz (University of Gdańsk)
• Anna Reczyńska (Jagiellonian University)
• Maja Trochimczyk (Moonrise Press)
• Centre POLONICUM (University of Warsaw)
• Polish American Historical Association
• The University of Gdańsk

SESSIONS WITH PARTICIPATION OF PAHA  MEMBERS:

FRIDAY, JUNE 16, 2017 (Polska Akademia Umiejętności, ul. Sławkowska 17, Krakow)

9:00-9:45 – OPENING CEREMONIES  

Chair: James S. Pula (Purdue University Northwest) 

Speakers: Andrzej Białas (President, Polska Akademia Umiejętności) – M. B. B. Biskupski

(President, Polish Institute of Arts & Sciences of America) – Arkadiusz Janicki (Director of the Institute of History, University of Gdańsk)

9:45-10:45 – PLENARY SESSION: “The Year of Kościuszko: How We Remember Him” —

Chair: Anna Mazurkiewicz (University of Gdańsk; President, Polish American Historical

Association) 

Speakers: Piotr Drąg (Jagiellonian University), “Tadeusz Kościuszko: How the National

Hero of Poland is Remembered in Poland in the Bicentenary Year of His Death” – James S. Pula (Purdue University Northwest), “Kościuszko in American Historical Memory”

11:00 -:12:30 Session 2: Tadeusz Kościuszko (Organized by the University of Gdańsk) — K. Lanckoroński

Hall Chair: James S. Pula (Purdue University Northwest)

Speakers: Anna Łysiak-Łątkowska (University of Gdańsk), “Tadeusz Kościuszko in the Eyes of the 18th Century French” — Arkadiusz Janicki (University of Gdańsk), “Kościuszko as a National Hero” — Barbara Klassa (University of Gdańsk) – “American Historiography on Kościuszko and Pułaski”

11:00 -:12:30 Session 3: The Chicago Polonia: From the Za Chlebem Migration to Today (Organized by the Polish American Historical Association) — Duża Aula Room

Chair: Dominic A. Pacyga (Columbia College -Chicago)

Speakers: Megan Geigner (U.S. Naval Academy), “Building the Kościuszko Statue in Chicago: Civic Performance and Chicago’s Polonia” — Marek Liszka (Jagiellonian University), “Polish Orava Highlanders at the Turn of the 20th and the 21st Century in the United States” — Mary Patrice Erdmans (Case Western Reserve University), “Residential Patterns of Polish Immigrants in Chicago in the 21st Century” 

13:30-15:00 Session 9: Polish Historians and Their Work — G. Labuda Hall

Chair: Marek Haltof (Northern Michigan University) 

Speakers: Neal Pease (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee), “Henryk Halkowski as Historian of Jewish Kraków” — Marek Kornat (Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University), "Polish Historians of Diplomacy in Exile (1945-1989)” — Andrzej T. Fretschel (University of Wisconsin-Madison), “Contagion: a Girardian Response to Jan T. Gross’s Neighbors” 

13:30-15:00 Session 10: The Many Faces of Literature Chair: Lynn Lubamersky (Boise State University) — K. Lanckoroński Hall 

Speakers: Thomas J. Napierkowski (University of Colorado-Colorado Springs), “The Literary and Social Achievement of Krysia: A Polish Girl’s Stolen Childhood During World War II” — Katarzyna Drąg (The Pontifical University of John Paul II in Kraków), “A Voyage to America in the Work  of Polish Writers and Journalists in the Nineteenth Century” — Marek Sroka (University  of Illinois), “Migrating Volumes: Jewish Immigrants from Kraków and Their Personal Book Collections, 1949-1950”

15:30-16:45 Session 12: Twentieth Century Polish Heroes and Anti-Heroes (Organized by the University of Gdańsk) — G. Labuda Hall Chair: Neal Pease (University of Wisconsin-

Milwaukee) Speakers: Magdalena Nowak (University of Gdańsk), “Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytskyi -

Ukrainian Hero - Polish Anti-Hero” — Anna Mazurkiewicz (University of Gdańsk), “Stanisław Mikołajczyk and Stefan Korboński: An American Feud” — Arnold Kłonczyński (University of Gdańsk), “Leaders of the Polish Diaspora in Sweden 1945-1989” 

15:30-16:45 Session 13: Migration Studies and the Choices Young Polish Scholars Make — Duża Aula Room Chair: Dorota Praszałowicz (Jagiellonian University)

Speakers: Michał Garapich (Roehampton University), “The Hidden Transcripts of Polonian Discourse. An Anthropological Take on Power and Class in Polish Migration” — Aleksandra Galasińska  (University of Wolverhampton), “Catching Up With Expats. Migrants’ Identity and (Social) Media”— Andrew Asher (Indiana University), “Engaging with Researchers in Practice: An Investigation of Polish Early-career Scholars’ Information Workflows” 

SATURDAY, JUNE 17 (Polska Akademia Umiejętności, ul. Sławkowska 17, Krakow)

9:10:30 Session 17: Polish Diaspora Communities — Duża Aula Room

Chair: Arnold Kłonczyński (University of Gdańsk) 

Speakers: Pien Versteegh (Avans University of Applied Sciences, the Netherlands), “Settling Down: Polish Communities in the Netherlands and Belgium (1890-1930)” — Stephen M. Leahy (Shantou University, China), “The Long Conservative Movement and the Myth of the White Ethnic Backlash in Milwaukee, 1958-1964” — Krzysztof Wasilewski (Zbigniew Herbert Regional and Municipal Public Library, Gorzów), “Polish Immigrants as Anarchists and Socialists in the U.S. Press in the Early 20th Century” 

10:45-12:15 Session 25: 120 lat Tansmana: O muzyce i życiu kompozytora-emigranta (1897-1986) —

Session is in Polish — Hall No. 26 

Chair: Maja Trochimczyk (Moonrise Press)

Speakers: Maja Trochimczyk (Moonrise Press), “Tansman ‘In Tempo Americano,’ 1941-1946” — Małgorzata Gamrat (University of Warsaw), “Tansman o Muzyce Polskiej - Analiza Pism Kompozytora” — Andrzej Wendland (Tansman Festival Łódź), “W poszukiwaniu Złotego Runa. Rzecz o zaginionej operze Aleksandra Tansmana”

13:15-14:45 Session 26: Polish America’s Support for Poland (Organized by the Polish American

Historical Association)—Duża Aula Room 

Chair: Stephen M. Leahy (Shantou University, China)

Speakers: Dominic Pacyga (Columbia College Chicago), “To Struggle for the Homeland: The Chicago Polonia in Two World Wars” — Robert Szymczak (Pennsylvania State University-Beaver), “The American Slav Congress in Perspective, 1941-1951” — Renata C. Vickrey (Central Connecticut State University), “World War I and Poland’s Independence: Efforts of Connecticut Polonia 

13:15-14:45 Session 28: Witold Gombrowicz (I) — K. Lanckoroński Hall

Chair: Silvia G. Dapía (John Jay College, City University of New York)

Speakers: Michał Markowski (University of Illinois at Chicago), “Transforming the Formless:

Gombrowicz and Modernism Revisited” — Magdalena Heydel (Jagiellonian University) – “‘Intermolecular Mockery and Derision, an Inbred Superlaugh.’ On English Translations of Gombrowicz’s Ferdydurke” — Piotr Świercz (Jesuit University Ignatianum) – “Polishness, Politics, and the Facilitated Life in Witold Gombrowicz’s Works”

13:15-14:45 Session 30: On Symphonies of Henryk Mikołaj Górecki (1933-2010) — G. Labuda Hall

Chair: Maja Trochimczyk (Moonrise Press) Speakers: Martina Homma (Bela Verlag, Cologne), “Gorecki’s Symphonies no. 1 and no. 2: On Expansion and Restriction in  Gorecki’s Personal Style” — Maja Trochimczyk (Moonrise Press), “Górecki Conducts Górecki: The Third Symphony in Los Angeles” — Andrzej Wendland (Tansman Festival Łódź), “Górecki’s Fourth Symphony ‘Tasman Epizody’ - The Phenomenon and Mystery”

15:00-16:30 Session 31: Polish Participants in the American Revolution and Civil War (Organized by the Polish American Historical Association) — Duża Aula Room

Chair: Piotr Derengowski (University of Gdańsk)

Speakers: Anthony Bajdek (Northeastern University, retired), “Revisiting the Subject of West Point and the Secular Sainthood of Tadeusz Kościuszko in the Early American Republic” — Tomasz Pudłocki (Jagiellonian University), “The Polish Delegation to the U.S. Pulaski Celebrations, 1929 – Honoring the Glorious Past or Mere Propaganda?” — Michał Krzysztof Mydłowski (University of Warsaw), “Krzyżanowski’s Civil War” 

15:16:30 Session 33: Witold Gombrowicz (II) — K. Lanckoroński Hall

Chair: Silvia G. Dapía (John Jay College, City University of New York)

Speakers: Jerzy Jarzębski (Jagiellonian University), “Gombrowicz and Politics” — Klementyna

Suchanow (Independent Scholar), “Gombrowicz and His Editorial Adventures in the European Context” — Piotr Seweryn Rosół (Independent Scholar) – “Becoming Gombrowicz: On the

Way of Trans-Subjectivity and Trans- Modernity”

15:00-16:30 Session 35: Immigrant Social Identities — G. Labuda Hall

Chair: Mary Patrice Erdmans (Case Western Reserve University)

Speakers: Anna Fiń (Pedagogical University of Kraków), Witold Nowak (University of Warsaw), Michał Nowosielski (University of Warsaw), “Social Participation of Polish Immigrants in the United States: Between Tradition and Contemporary Challenges” — Hubert Izienicki (Purdue University Northwest), “Which Identities Matter?: Cross- Cultural Analysis of Social Identities Among Polish Gay Men” — Beata Halicka (University of Adam Mickiewicz in Poznań), “Polish Immigrants in the USA as Actors of the Post-war Period: Construction of Identity

Session 38: Witold Gombrowicz (III): Polish Emigré Literature and Literary Criticism: Life of an Idea from ACLA 1994 to PIASA 2017 — K. Lanckoroński Hall 

Chair: Silvia G. Dapía (John Jay College, City University of New York)

Speakers: A roundtable discussion of the life of a conference paper, the life of its idea, and the currency of an idea featuring Katarzyna Jerzak (Pomeranian University, Słupsk), Marzena Grzegorczyk (Reverie Chase Productions), Paweł Kozłowski (Pomeranian University, Słupsk), Marcin Wołk (Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń)