Sunday, March 16, 2014

The Fifth World Congress of Polish Studies, Warsaw, June 20-23, 2014

Lazienki Palace, Warsaw

Join us in Warsaw! The Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences, in cooperation with the University of Warsaw, will host the Fifth World Congress on Polish Studies, June 20-23, 2014. The expansive program includes a plenary session dedicated to Jan Karski and 48 other sessions featuring 206 participants from fifteen nations. Sessions include topics in art, business, diaspora studies, film, history, literature, science, and other subjects. The conference sessions are scheduled for June 21-23, with the opening day on June 20 including various optional cultural events including a tour of the Stare Miasto (Old Town) and visits to the Copernicus Science Center, the Royal Castle, the Wilanow Museum, and the new Museum of the History of Polish Jews. There will be an opening reception on June 21 and a concluding banquet on the evening of June 23.

The Polish Institute of Arts & Sciences has arranged a discounted air fare with LOT Polish Airlines for those attending the conference, as well as a discounted room rate at the Victoria-Sofitel Hotel close to the university campus. For further information, or to register for the conference, visit the PIASA web site at http://www.piasa.org/.The early conference registration fee will be $25 US which will cover refreshment breaks on June 21, 22, and 23; lunch on June 21, 22, and 23; the opening reception on the evening of June 21; and other incidentals. You may register at the PIASA web site by going to http://www.piasa.org/ and clicking on the registration button. Early registration will end April 30. After that date the registration fee will be $40 US, or $50 US for those registering on site at the event. We are looking forward to a very exciting time in Warsaw!

St. Anne's Church from the back and Warsaw's trams.

 Congress Schedule

The most recent version of the Program in PDF: 
http://www.piasa.org/pdf/Warsaw%20Congress%20Program.pdf

Friday, June 20 - Cultural Events.
The following cultural events have been arranged for those who are interested in a relaxing experience following their travel and before the beginning of the conference session.

10:00 - 12:30. Choose one of three options: 1. Guided Tour of the Stare Miasto (Old Town); 2. Tour of the Copernicus Science Center; 3. Tour of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews (9:30 by bus)

14:00 - 17:00 [2:00 pm-5:00 pm]. Choose one of two options: 1. Tour the Royal Castle, or
2. Tour of the Wilanow Museum (1:30 p.m. by bus)

NEW: 17:00 [5:00 p.m.] Special Film Screening -Kosciuszko: A Man Ahead of His Time
Chair – Renata Vickrey (Central Connecticut State University); Discussants:
Alex Storozynski (Kosciuszko Foundation) and Eve Krzyzanowski

The Old Town (Stare Miasto).


Saturday, June 21 - 9:00 -11:30 am
Opening Ceremonies, Room - Aula Hall in the Old Library, Main Campus
Moderator M. B. B. Biskupski, President, The Polish Institute of Arts & Sciences of America

Plenary Session - An Appreciation of Jan Karski
Chair - M. B. B. Biskupski (Central Connecticut State University)
1. Robert Kostro (Polish History Museum) “An Introduction to the Jan Karski Project”
2. Maciej Kozłowski (Deputy Director, Department of Africa and the Middle East, Polish Foreign Ministry) -  “Jan Karski”
3. Andrzej Żbikowski (University of Warsaw) “The Polish Underground State, the Holocaust, and Karski’s Mission and the Allies”
4. Wojciech Białożyt (Jan Karski Education Foundation) “The Importance of Karski’s Example to the Young Generation of Poles”
5. Sławomir Dębski (Centre for Polish-Russian Dialogue and Understanding) - “Jan Karski, Felix Lemkin, Genocide, Human Rights Protection and the UN Doctrine of Responsibility to Protect”

LUNCH - 11:30-13:00 (11:30-1:00 pm)


Kosciol Najswietszej Maryi Panny (BVM Church), New Town. 

Saturday, June 21 - 13:00-15:00 (1:00-3:00 pm). Six parallel sessions.
Saturday, Session 1. Afternoon.
Medieval and Reformation Poland
Chair - Patrice M. Dabrowski (University of Vienna)
1. Paul Knoll (University of Southern California) - "The University of Cracow in the National Life of Poland in the 15th Century"
2. Paul Radzilowski (Madonna University) - "Gloriam in ignominiam commutans: Management of Narrative Time in Two Accounts of the Martyrdom of St. Stanislaus by Jan Dlugosz"
3. Julia Verkholantsev (University of Pennsylvania) - "Etymology as Historical Artifact: Isidore of Seville's Etymologiae and the Exposition of Ethnonyms in Medieval Chronicles Written in Poland and Other Central European Lands"
4. Bryan Kozik (University of Florida) - "Jan Dantyszek as Diplomat? Confessionalization and Concerns Abroad in Royal Prussia"


Saturday, Session 2. Afternoon.
Speaking of the Unspeakable: The Destruction of the Polish Jewry-Israeli, American, German, and Polish Literary and Historical Perspectives
Chair - Neal Pease (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee)
1. Lucyna Aleksandrowicz-Pedich (SWPS/University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Warsaw) - "Poland as the Land of Death in Jewish-American Fiction After the Holocaust"
2. Shoshana Ronen (University of Warsaw) - "Post-Holocaust Representations of Poland in Israeli Literature"
3. Katrin Stoll (German Historical Institute, Warsaw) - "Conscious Engagement and the Holocaust: Jan Karski as a Model for Coming to Terms with the Past in Germany"
4. Rachel F. Brenner (University of Wisconsin-Madison) - "Witnessing the Destruction: Polish Writers-Diarists Record the Holocaust"

Saturday, Session 3. Afternoon.
Diaspora Reactions to World War and Cold War 
Sponsor - Polish American Historical Association
Chair - Renata Vickrey (Central Connecticut State University)
1. Gabriela Pawlus Kasprzak (University of Toronto) - "United We Stand: Polish Canadian Perceptions of World War II"
2. Jan Lencznarowicz (Jagiellonian University) -  "The Changing Image of FDR in the Post-World War Polish Émigré Press, 1945-1956"
3. Robert Szymczak (The Pennsylvania State University at Beaver) - "Justice for Poland: The Polish American Congress Radio Broadcasts of the 1950s"
4. Mary Erdmans (Case Western Reserve University) - "Lukomski and Mazewski: The Role of Post-World War II Émigrés in Chicago Polonia, 1960-1990"

Satuday, Session 4. Afternoon.
Crossing Borders: the Transnationalism of Witold Gombrowicz
Chair - Silvia G. Dapía (John Jay College, City University of New York, and The Graduate Center)
1. Daniel Balderston (University of Pittsburgh) - "Buenos Aires, 1947: Notes on the Manuscript of the Collective Translation of 'Ferdydurke.'"
2. Lukasz Tischner (Jagiellonian University) - "Was Gombrowicz Post-Secular?"
3. Tul'si Bhambry (University College London) - "Gombrowicz's Models of Authorship"

Saturday, Session 5. 
Afternoon.
HIV Infection: Treatment, Prevention and Immunology
Co-Chairs - Miroslaw Górny (New York University School of Medicine) and Hanna Chroboczek Kelker (New York University School of Medicine)
1. Andrzej Horban (Warsaw Medical University & Hospital of Infectious Diseases) - "Why Poland Has a Low HIV Prevalence"
2. Andrzej Wojtczak (Collegium Mazovia Innovative School of Higher Education) - "Preventive Strategies for HIV Infection"
3. Miroslaw Górny (New York University School of Medicine) - "Antibodies to the Variable Regions V2 and V3 Can Play a Protective Role Against HIV-1 Infection"

Saturday, Session 6. Afternoon.
Economics, Politics, Society in Contemporary Poland-the Annual Michael Sendzimir Session
Chair - Bozena Leven (College of New Jersey)
1. Jan Napoleon Saykiewicz (Duquesne University) - "Poland's 25-years of Transition - the Hopes and Disenchantments"
2. Krzysztof Bledowski (Manufacturers Alliance) -  "The Economics and Politics of Poland's Euro Adoption"
3. Tomasz Mroczkowski (American University) -  "America, Europe and Asia: The New Race for Innovation Leadership in the Global Knowledge Economy"
4. Jan Nowak (Tischner European University) - "Internationalization of the Polish Economy"

BREAK - 15:00-15:20 (3:00-3:20 pm)


Polish Eagle in Kosciol Garnizonowy (Military Church).

Saturday, June 21 - 15:20-17:20 (3:20-5:20 pm)


Saturday, Session 7. Afternoon II.
The Great War
Chair - Stephan Lehnstaedt (German Historical Institute, Warsaw)
1. Robert Blobaum (West Virginia University) - "A City in Flux: Warsaw's Transient Population During the First World War."
2. Katarzyna Sierakowska (Institute of History, Polish Academy of Science) - "Wartime Fears: Polish men and Women 1914-1918"
3. Piotr Szlanta (University of Warsaw) - "Life under Occupation: A Polish Case, 1914-1918"

Saturday, Session 8. Afternoon II.
Commemoration in Exile 
Sponsor - Polish American Historical Association
Chair - Dorota Praszalowicz (Jagiellonian University)
1. Anna Jaroszynska-Kirchmann (Eastern Connecticut State University) - "'Dear But Painful Remembrances': American Polonia's Commemoration Rituals"
2. Anna Mazurkiewicz (University of Gdansk) - "Celebrating Freedom as a Means of Fighting Captivity"
3. Patryk Pleskot (Institute of National Remembrance) - "Constructing and Deconstructing the Polish Diaspora. The Role of Commemoration in Creating Polish Australian Identities in the 1980s"
4. Iwona Korga (Józef Pilsudski  Institute of America) - "Representations of Poland and Polonia at the 1939 World's Fair in New York City"

Saturday, Session 9. Afternoon II.
Crossing Borders: Witold Gombrowicz's Kronos
Chair - Daniel Balderston (University of Pittsburgh)
1. Jerzy Jarzebski (Jagiellonian University) - "Kronos and the Mystery of Existence"
2. George Zbigniew Gasyna (University of Illinois) - "Enacting the Self: Reassessing Gombrowicz's Identity Politics in the Context of the Recent Publication of his 'Intimate Journal,' Kronos"
3. Aleksander Fiut (Jagiellonian University) - "Some Remarks on Gombrowicz's Kronos"
4. Malgorzata Smorag-Goldberg (University of Paris-Sorbonne) - "On Gombrowicz's Kronos"

Saturday, Session 10. Afternoon II.
Biomedical Engineering: The Most Challenging Problems
Chair - Norman Kelker (Enzo Biochem, Inc.)

1. Piotr Ładyżyński (Institute of Biocybernetics and Biomedical Engineering, Polish Academy of Sciences) “Homecare Today and Tomorrow. A New Chances for Diabetic Patients”
2. Hieronim Jakubowski (Rutgers University) "Emerging Cardiovascular Risk Factors: a Personal Account from the US and Poland"
3. Grzegorz Wegrzyn (The University of Gdansk) "Treatment of Neuronopathic Inherited Metabolic Disease"


Saturday, Session 11. Afternoon II.
Monetary Policy in Poland and the U.S.: Lessons from the Great Recession
Chair - Krzysztof Bledowski   (Manufacturers Alliance for Productivity and Innovation)
1. Ryszard Kokoszczynski (Institute of Economics, Narodowy Bank Polski) -"Choice of Monetary Policy Instruments"
2. Mateusz Szczurek (Ministry of Finance, Republic of Poland) - "Monetary Policy and Financial Stability"
3. Timothy Kearney (Misericordia University) - "Monetary Unions: Reverberations from Copernicus' Economic Theories"

Saturday, Session 12. Afternoon II.
Poland and Polonia Since 1989
Chair - Angela Pienkos (Polish Center of Wisconsin)
1. Boguslaw Winid (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Poland) - "Poland, the United States and NATO Enlargement, 1992-1997"
2. Janusz Wróbel (Institute of National Remembrance) - "Chicago's Polonia in the time of Poland's Political Transformation, 1989-1991"
3. Wieslawa Piatkowska-Stepniak (University of Opole) - "The Polish Political Emigration on Behalf of Poland's Entry into NATO"
4. Donald E. Pienkos (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee) - "Redefining American Polonia's Mission since 1999: Problems and Prospects"



SATURDAY, RECEPTION 19:00 - 7:00 pm
Muzeum Powstania Warszawskiego - Museum of the Warsaw Uprising
ulica Grzybowska 79 - 79 Grzybowska Street


Krakowskie Przedmiescie, from St. Anne's to Plac Zamkowy.

Sunday, June 22 - 9:30-11:30. Six Parallel Sessions. 


Sunday, Session 13. Morning.
The Four Year Sejm and the Question of Polish Independence
Chair - John Micgiel (Columbia University)
1. Richard Butterwick-Pawlikowski (University College London) - "The Question of Polish Independence, 1788-94"
2. Ramune Šmigelskyte-Stukiene (Lithuanian Historical Institute) - "Implementation of the Four-Year Sejm's Reforms in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania: Process and Problems"
3. Agnieszka Whelan (Old Dominion University) - "Before the Temple of Sibyl: Republican Rhetoric in the Gardens of Princess Izabela Czartoryska"

Sunday, Session 14. Morning.
Cold War Polish Political Emigration - Research Reports - I
Sponsor - Instytut Pamieci Narodowej
Chair - Slawomir Lukasiewicz (Institute of National Remembrance)
1. Janusz Wróbel (Institute of National Remembrance) - "Geography and Social Structure of Cold War Polish Political Emigration"
2. Slawomir Lukasiewicz (Institute of National Remembrance) - "Polish Party System in Exile 1945-1991"
3. Pawel Zietara (University of Warsaw) - "Interactions Between 'Country' and 'Exile'"
4. Malgorzata Ptasinska (Institute of National Remembrance) - "Culture in Exile"

Sunday Session 15. Morning.
Literature Across Borders
Chair - Ewa Wolynska (Central Connecticut State University)
1. Silvia G. Dapía (John Jay College, City University of New York and The Graduate Center) - "Two Ways of Thinking About Crime: Gombrowicz's 'A Premeditated Crime' and Borges's 'Emma Zunz.'"
2. Adam Kozaczka (Syracuse University) - "Noble Virtues and Warlike Masculinities: The Shared Language of Polish and Scottish Literary Nostalgia in the Long Nineteenth Century"
3. Christine Kenison (University of North Carolina) - "Borderland or Promised Land: a Comparative Analysis of Gustav Freytag's Soll und Haben [Debit and Credit] and Wladyslaw Reymont's Ziemia obiecana [The Promised Land]"
4. Krystyna Illakowicz (Yale University) - "Miss America Goes Shopping: Perceptions of American Women in Poland in the 1920s and the 1930s"

Sunday, Session 16. Morning.
Biotechnology to Improve Healthcare
Chair - Wlodek Mandecki (PharmaSeqi)
1. Krzysztof Kucharczyk (BioVectis) - "Biotechnology and Life Sciences Sector Development in Poland after 1989 and Potential Future Directions"
2. Wlodek Mandecki (PharmaSeqi) - "From Barcode to Electronic p-Chips: Advanced Tagging Methods for Biomedical Research and Beyond
3. Agnieszka Sirko (Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Polish Academy of Sciences) - "The Development of Subunit Vaccine Against Bird Flu"

Sunday, Session 17. Morning.
The Most Important Challenges for the Polish Economy in the XXI Century
Chair - Marzenna Weresa (Warsaw School of Economics)
1. Marzenna Weresa (Warsaw School of Economics) - "Innovation Policy in Poland"
2. Rafal Wieladek (European Commission) - "Poland in the Economic and Monetary Union"
3. Michal Szwabe (Warsaw School of Economics) - "Post-accession Migrations of Polish Labor"
4. Tomasz Napiórkowski (Warsaw School of Economics) - "American FDI in Poland"

Sunday, Session 18. Morning
Katyn Massacre: Source Materials in the USSR/Russia, Great Britain and the United States
Session In Honor of Prof. Anna Cienciala
Sponsor - Naczelna Dyrekcja Archiwów Panstwowych
Chair - Wladyslaw Stepniak (National Archives, Warsaw)
1. Wladyslaw Stepniak (National Archives, Warsaw) - "Working on the English Language Version of the Soviet Documentation"
2. Natalia Lebedeva (Russian Academy of Sciences) - "Katyn Materials - The Way to the Truth"
3. Wojciech Materski (Polish Academy of Science) - "The Katyn Massacre Files in the Archives of the Russian Federation"
4. Krystyna Piórkowska (Independent Researcher) - "The Unknown Testimonies - U.S. English-speaking Witnesses on Film - The Work of Roy L. Towers, Jr. Video Recordings of Colonels John H. Van Vliet, Jr. and Donald B. Stewart"


LUNCH - 11:30-13:00 (11:30 am-1:00 pm)


Palace of Culture. Stalin's Stamp.


Sunday, June 22 - 13:00-15:00 (1:00-3:00 pm). Six Parallel Sessions. 

Sunday, Session 19. Afternoon.
Cold War Polish Political Emigration - Research Reports - II
Sponsor - Instytut Pamieci Narodowej
Chair - Dariusz Stola (Polish Academy of Science)
1. Rafal Stobiecki (University of Lódz) - "Humanities in Exile"
2. Joanna Pylat (Polish University Abroad) - "Sciences in Exile"
3. Mariusz Olczak (Archive of New Records) - "Veterans' Organizations"
4. Joanna Wojdon and Bozena Szaynok (University of Wroclaw) - "Poles in United States After 1945"

Sunday, Session 20. Afternoon.
Foreign Policy of the Republic of Poland 1919-1939
Session In Honor of Prof. Anna Cienciala
Chair - Daria Nalecz (Ministry of Science and Higher Education)
1. Janusz Cisek (Jagiellonian University) - "The Centenary of World War I: A Discussion of the Responsibility of the European Powers"
2. Slawomir Debski (Center for Polish-Russian Dialogue and Understanding) - "Poland and the Powers behind the Versailles system 1919-1925"
3. Marek Kornat (Polish Academy of Science) - "Polish Foreign Policy 1933-1939 in the works of Professor Anna Maria Cienciala"
4. Mariusz Wolos (Polish Academy of Science) - "Zombie History - The Black Legend of Minister Józef Beck in Historiography"


Sunday, Session 21. Afternoon.
Tadeusz Kosciuszko in America
Chair - Adam Walaszek (Jagiellonian University)
1. James S. Pula (Purdue University) - "Kosciuszko's Influence as an American Military Leader"
2. Magdalena Micinska (Institute of History, Polish Academy of Sceince) - "Kosciuszko and Niemcewicz - the Sword and the Pen"
3. Graham R. Hodges (Colgate University) - "Kosciuszko and American Historians"
4. Michal Burczak (University of Warsaw) - "Creating an Enduring Myth of the National Hero: A Comparison of Tadeusz Kosciuszko and George Washington"

Sunday, Session 22. Afternoon.
Trajectories of Seeing and Belonging: U.S. and Poland - I
Sponsor: Adam Mickiewicz Institute
Chair - Krystyna Illakowicz (Yale University)
1. Maria (Masha) Shpolberg (Yale University) - "Towards 'Real' Realism: The Strategies of Polish Documentary Film 1956-1960"
2. Nadine Schwakopf (Yale University) - "Alea iacta est, Or: How Poetry Takes Place. Constellations of Signs in Stanislaw Drózdz's Works"
3. William Schreiber (Yale University) - "Inventing the Intelligentsia: The Other Polish Anthropological Tradition and Moving Beyond Nationalism"
4. Margaretta Midura (Yale University) - "Lifestyle and its Contribution to Public Health: A Comparison of Poland and the United States."

Sunday, Session 23. Afternoon.
Biochemical and Symbiotic Underpinnings of Evolution and Disease
Chair - Norman Kelker (Enzo Biochem, Inc.)
1. Magda Konarska (Rockefeller University) - "The Spliceosome: What It Is, How Does It Work, and Where Did It Come From?"
2. Barbara Kazmierczak (Yale University School of Medicine) - "Microbiome Acquisition and the Progression of Inflammation and Airway Disease in Cystic Fibrosis"
3. Thomas Wisniewski (New York University School of Medicine) - "Novel Therapeutic Approaches for Neurodegenerative Disorders"

Sunday, Session 24. Afternoon.
Religion in Post-World War II Europe
Chair - Ewa Wolynska (Central Connecticut State University)
1. Magdalena Nowak (University of Gdansk) - "Religion and National Integration in Galicia at the Turn of 19th/20th Century"
2. James E. Bjork (King's College London) - "Between Identity and Morality: The Catholic Church and National Rehabilitation of Volksdeutsche after the Second World War"
3. Piotr H. Kosicki (University of Maryland) - "Between Lublin and Louvain: His Holiness John Paul II and Europe's Catholic Universities"
4. Mikolaj Kunicki (St. Anthony's College Oxford) - "Martyrs, Saints and Heroes. The Portrayals of Church Leaders in Polish Contemporary Cinema"

BREAK - 15:00-15:20 (3:00-3:20 pm)


Biblioteka Uniwersytecka, University of Warsaw

Sunday, June 22 - 15:20-17:20 (3:20-5:20 pm). Six parallel Sessions. 

Sunday, Session 25. Afternoon II.
Transnational Migrations
Chair - Donald E. Pienkos (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee)
1. Milosz K. Cybowski (University of Southampton) - "The Polish Great Emigration and the Jewish Question, 1831-1836"
2. Barbara Cieslinska (University of Bialystok) - "Labor Migration and Migrant Lifestyles: The Case of Emigration from the Podlaskie Region to USA"
3. Pieter De Messemaeker (University of Ghent) - "Bundism Abroad: Transnational Networks in Early 20th Century Belgium, the Case of the Alter Family"
4. Jannis Panagiotidis (Free University Berlin) - "What is the German's Fatherland? The GDR and the Resettlement of Ethnic Germans from Socialist Countries (1949-1989)"

Sunday, Session 26. Afternoon II.
Tadeusz Kosciuszko in Poland
Chair - Anna Mazurkiewicz (University of Gdansk)
1. Anna M. Rosner (University of Warsaw) - "Jewish Participation in the Kosciuszko Uprising"
2. Anna Cortes (University of Warsaw) - "Tadeusz Kosciuszko and the Defense of Warsaw in 1794"
3. Jaroslaw Czubaty (University of Warsaw) - "Republican in a Changing World: The Political Position and Attitudes of Tadeusz Kosciuszko 1798-1817"
4. Joanna Wojdon and Jakub Tyszkiewicz (University of Wroclaw) - "The Changing Image of Tadeusz Kosciuszko in Postwar Polish Education"

Sunday, Session 27. Afternoon II. 
Trajectories of Seeing and Belonging: U.S, and Poland II
Chair - Krystyna Illakowicz (Yale University)
1. Damian Weikum (Yale University) - "Rich in Opportunity and Devoid of Absurdity: Polish Film After 1990"
2. Christel Oropesa (Yale University) - "The Totalizing Machine"
3. Diana Lech (Yale University) - "Rebellion and the Inescapability of Form: Gombrowicz's Ivona and Mrozek's Tango"
4. Katarzyna Rojek (Yale University) - "Man of Marble, Blind Chance, Snow White Russian Red: Demystifying Inherited Realities"
5. Robert Juchnicki (Yale University) - "The Fight for Freedom and the Role of Women: the Cinematic Perspective"

Sunday, Session 28. Afternoon II.
How Poland is Developing its Space Capabilities
Chair - William Klepczynski (Global Timing Services, LLC)
1. Piotr Wolanski (Committee on Space Research, Polish Academy of Science) - "Poland in Space"
2. Wlodzimierz Lewandowski (Committee on Space Research, Polish Academy of Science) - "Poland's Contribution to the EU Programs COPERNICUS and GALILEO"
3. Zbigniew Klos (Space Research Center, Polish Academy of Science) - "The Place of Poland in Worldwide Space Activity"

Sunday, Session 29. Afternoon II.
The Interwar Era
Chair - Neal Pease (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee)
1. Beryl Nicholson (Independent Scholar) - "Hour Zero: Rebuilding Lives and Livelihoods in Eastern Poland, 1920-24"
2. Michal Kasprzak (Ryerson University) - "The Revolution is Nigh: Why Interwar Polish Communists Could Not Accept the Second Republic"
3. Pawel Styrna (Institute of World Politics) - "The Wellisz Family: A Case Study in Jewish Assimilation"

Sunday, Session 30. Afternoon II.
History Through Biographies and Memoirs
Chair - Christopher Garbowski (Maria Curie Sklodowska University)
1. Maja Trochimczyk (Moonrise Press, Los Angeles) - "On Fashion, Portraits, and the Professional Image of Maria Szymanowska (1789-1831)"
2. Jan Chroboczek (Institute of Microelectronics, Electromagnetism and Photonics, France) - "What Jan Brozek Found Out About Copernicus in His Travel to Warmia in 1618"
3. Martin Müller-Butz (Friedrich-Schiller University Jena) - "Imperial Russia in Polish Memoirs and Autobiographies"
4. Aleksandra Gruzinska (Arizona State University), "Franco-Polish Relations: Marie Curie (1867-1934) and Françoise Giroud (1916-2003). The Life Trajectories of Two Prominent Women"

DINNER - On Your Own


Ballroom in the Royal Castle, Warsaw.

Monday, June 23 - 9:30-11:30. Six Parallel Sessions. 

Monday, Session 31. Morning.
Reflections of the Polish Diaspora (Sponsor - Polish American Historical Association)
Chair - Harriet Napierkowski (University of Colorado-Colorado Springs)
1. Arnold Klonczynski (University of Gdansk) - "Nationally and Religiously: Commemorations in the Life of the Polish Diaspora in Sweden, 1945-1989"
2. Anna Brzozowska-Krajka (Maria Curie-Sklodowska University) - "The Private and Public Face of Ethnicity Across Cultural Borders: the Uniqueness of the Góral Diaspora in America"
3. Thomas J. Napierkowski (University of Colorado-Colorado Springs) - "The Khaki Boys Series: Images of Polish Americans 1918-1920"
4. Grazyna Kozaczka (Cazenovia College) - "Girling of a Polish American Child: Models of Femininity in Immigrant and Ethnic Adolescent Narratives"

Monday, Session 32. Morning. 
Poland in World War II
Chair - Angela Pienkos (Polish Center of Wisconsin)
1. Boguslaw Winid (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) - "Polish Weapons in the September Campaign"
2. Jaroslaw Garlinski (Independent Scholar) - "The Polish Independent Parachute Brigade and the Warsaw Uprising, 1944"
3. Michael Peszke (Independent Scholar) - "History of the Polish Special Duties Flight 1586: Defenders of Warsaw"
4. Anna Topolska (University of Michigan) - "Memory and the Representation of the Second World War in Post-War Poland: the Case of the Museum of Fort VII in Poznan"

Monday, Session 33. Morning.
Józef Retinger:  The Polish Man of Mystery and Modern Europe
Chair - Zdzislaw Najder (Institute of Central and Eastern Europe)
1. Jan Pomian (Independent Scholar) - "Introduction"
2. M. B. B. Biskupski (Central Connecticut State University) - "Retinger, the Mexican Years"
3. Thierry Grosbois (University of Luxembourg) - "Sikorski, Retinger and the European Idea"
4. Andrzej Pieczewski (University of Lódz) - "Joseph Retinger and European Integration after WW II: Central and Eastern Europe Question"
5. Wladyslaw Bulhak (Institute of National Remembrance) - "The Foreign Office, the SOE and Retinger's Trip to Poland in 1944"

Monday, Session 34. Morning. 
Polscy pisarze w Stanach Zjednoczonych po II wojnie swiatowej. Najnowsze badania - I
Session is in Polish (w jezyku polskim)
Chair - Beata Dorosz (Institute of Literature, Polish Academy of Science) and Maciej Patkowski (Association of Polish Writers, New York & Warsaw)
1. Wojciech Ligeza (Jagiellonian University) - "Szkicowanie Ameryki Pólnocnej (w utworach polskich emigrantów"
2. Waclaw Lewandowski (Mikolaj Kopernik University, Torun) - "Ameryka Kazimierza Wierzynskiego"
3. Józef Olejniczak (University of Slask, Katowice) - "Józef Wittlin w nielubianym miescie"
4. Beata Dorosz (Institute of Literature, Polish Academy of Science) - "Jan Wolny - nieznany pisarz polityczny w 'Tygodniku Polskim' Jana Lechonia (1945-1947)"

Monday, Session 35. Morning. 
Between Inclusion and Exclusion: Excess, Transgression, and Recycling
Chair - Ewa Barczyk (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee)
1. Tamara Trojanowska (University of Toronto) - "Reading Polish Culture: Modes of Cultural Transgression"
2. Lukasz Sicinski (University of Toronto) - "Between Language and Reality: Rubbish in Miron Bialoszewski's Prose"
3. Lukasz Wodzynski (University of Toronto) - "Liquid Borders: Modernity and the Rise of the New Woman in Stefan Zeromski's 'A Story of Sin'"
4. Piotr Kajak (University of Warsaw) - "Crossing (pop)cultural borders in teaching Polish as a Foreign/Second Language"

Monday, Session 36. Morning.
Crossing Borders in the East Bloc
Chair - Dagmara Jajesniak-Quast (European University, Viadrina)
1. Dariusz Stola (University of Warsaw) - "Crossing the Borders of Communist Poland"
2. Igor Tchoukarine (Macalester College) - "Tito's Yugoslavia, the Soviet Bloc, and Global Tourism in the 1950s and 1960s"
3. Mark Keck-Szajbel (European University, Viadrina) - "Poland as Paradise. Finding Freedom in People's Poland"
4. Zdenek Nebrenský (Imre Kertész College, Jena) - "Tourism as a Political Message: Transnational Interaction and the Travelling of Czechoslovak Youth After Stalin's Death"

LUNCH - 11:30-13:00 (11:30 am-1:00 pm)


The Royal Castle and Plac Zamkowy

Monday, June 23 - 13:00-15:00 (1:00-3:00 pm)

Monday, Session 37. Afternoon.
Crossing Digital Borders-Negotiating Cultural Displacement: International Students in the U.S. and Poland
Chair - Ewa Barczyk (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee)
1. David Gunkel (Northern Illinois University) - "Negotiating Cultural Difference in the Digital Communication Era: A Pilot Study of International Student Experience in the U.S. and Poland"
2. Agnieszka Stasiewicz-Bienkowska (Jagiellonian University) - "Home in the Digital World: The Shifting Meanings of Here and Away-International Student Exchange"
3. Ann Hetzel Gunkel (Columbia College) - "The Boundary Event: Digital Natives In-between Cultures"

Monday, Session 38. Afternoon.
Post-War Commemoration and Documentation
Chair - Lukasz Jasina (John Paul II Catholic University)
1. Sheila Skaff (Columbia University) - "Ryszard Kapuscinski's Cold War Photography"
2. Christopher Garbowski (Maria Curie Sklodowska University) - "The Glorious Dead and Commemoration in Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan and Wajda's Katyn"
3. Piotr Szczypa (Maria Curie Sklodowska University) - "Heroes and the Monstrous Event of the Holocaust in Schindler's List and Korczak"
4. Józef Marek Haltof (Northern Michigan University) - "The Last Stage (1948) and the Politics of Commemorating Auschwitz"

Monday, Session 39. Afternoon.
Polscy pisarze w Stanach Zjednoczonych po II wojnie swiatowej. Najnowsze badania - II
Session is in Polish (w jezyku polskim)
Chair - Beata Dorosz (Institute of Literature, Polish Academy of Science) and Maciej Patkowski (Stowarzyszenie Pisarzy Polskich, Nowy Jork - Warszawa)
1. Ewa Kolodziejczyk (Independent Scholar) - "Czeslaw Milosz w Biuletynie 'Poland of Today' (1946-1950)"
2. Aleksander Madyda (Mikolaj Kopernik University, Torun) - "Najnowsze badania zycia i twórczosci Zygmunta Haupta - tendencje i postulaty"
3. Grazyna Kubica-Heller (Jagiellonian University) - "Proza etnograficzna Alicji Iwanskiej"
4. Alicja Szalagan (Polish Academy of Science) - "'American Dream' Maria Kuncewiczowa w Stanach Zjednoczonych"

Monday, Session 40. Afternoon.
A Re-evaluation of the Radziwill Family's Role in the History of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth
Chair - Paul Knoll (University of Southern California)
1. Karin Friedrich (University of Aberdeen) - "Radziwill's Self-importance: Communication, Cultural Capital and Ego-documents in the Life of a Lithuanian Magnate"
2. Lynn Lubamersky (Boise State University) - "Scenes from the Life of Barbara Radziwillowa Caught Between a Rock and a Hard Place"
3. Kristina Sabaliauskaite (Independent Scholar) - "Silva Rerum I, Silva Rerum II, and Silva Rerum III - Between Fact and Fiction: Recreating the Early Modern Culture of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth in Contemporary Literature"
4. Steven Seegel (University of Northern Colorado) - "Mapping Old Poland-Lithuania: Reassessing the Legacy of Loss and Erasure."

Monday, Session 41. Afternoon.
Crossing Borders with Educational Bridges
Chair - Stephen M. Leahy (Shantou University, China)
1. Joanna Król (University of Szczecin) and Teresa Wojcik (Villanova University) - "The Portrayal of the United States in Polish Curricula and Textbooks during the Stalinist Period (1948-1956)"
2. Mary Kay Pieski (Kent State University) and Teresa Wojcik (Villanova University) - "Exchanging Gifts of Language, Culture, and Friendship: The Kosciuszko Foundation Celebrates Twenty-Four Years of the Teaching English in Poland Program (TEIP)"
3. Katarzyna Drag (Pontifical University of John Paul II) and Piotr Drag (Jagiellonian University) - "Cultural Experiences in Europe: Study Abroad Programs at American Universities"
4. Dorota Klus-Stanska (University of Gdansk) - "Cognitive Partnership in School Education as a Condition for Bridging the Generation Gap"

BREAK - 15:00-15:20 (3:00-3:20 pm)


Souvenirs from Warsaw - Lowicz-style dolls. 


Monday, June 23 - 15:20-17:20 (3:20-5:20 pm). Six Parallel Sessions.

Monday, Session 42. Afternoon II.
Crossing Borders: Migration and Cultural Maintenance
Chair - Stephen M. Leahy (Shantou University, China)
1. Pien Versteegh (Windesheim University of Applied Sciences) - "People on the Move: Polish Migration from Germany to the Netherlands and Belgium"  (1890-1930)
2. Wesley Adamczyk (Independent Scholar) - "The Power of Identity: Polish Children in Exile"
3. Irvin Ungar (Historicana) - "Building Bridges: The Legacy of Polish-Jewish Artist Arthur Szyk, Fighter for Justice and Freedom"
4. Donald E. Pienkos (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee) and Angela Pienkos (Polish Center of Wisconsin) - "An Enduring Tie: One Family's Century-long Connection Linking its Branches in Poland and America"

Monday, Session 43
The Polish 20th Century: Issues of Historical Memory
Chair - Jerzy Kochanowski (University of Warsaw)
1. Patrice M. Dabrowski (University of Vienna) - "Manipulating Memory of the Great War and Its Aftermath in the Eastern Carpathians"
2. Neal Pease (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee) - "Not a Stone Upon a Stone: The Demolition of St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, Warsaw"
3. Piotr Wróbel (University of Toronto) - "Triple Memory: Poles, Ukrainians, Jews, and the Pogrom of Boryslav, Eastern Galicia/Western Ukraine, in July 1941"
4. Stephan Lehnstaedt (German Historical Institute, Warsaw) - "'Remembering' World War II in Warsaw: German Occupiers in the Face of Legal Persecution after 1945"

Monday, Session 44.
Strategies of Evasion, Flight and Resistance Among the Jews of Poland and the Diaspora
Chair - Olga Linkiewicz (Polish Academy of Science)
1. Teresa A. Meade, (Union College) - "From Assimilation to 'Hidden Jew': Mia Truskier in Poland and the Diaspora"
2. Robert Mindelzun (Stanford University School of Medicine) - "Memories of Childhood in the Work Camps of Siberia and Komi SSR, 1939-44"
3. Daniel J. Walkowitz (New York University) - "Looking for Bubbah: Jewish Heritage Tourism in the Post-89 Era"
4. Fábio Koifman (Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro) - "Making their Way from Europe to Brazil:  Contributions of Jewish Poles to the Culture and Arts of Brazil"

Monday, Session 45.
Polscy pisarze w Stanach Zjednoczonych po II wojnie swiatowej. Najnowsze badania - III
Session is in Polish (w jezyku polskim)
Chair - Beata Dorosz (Institute of Literature, Polish Academy of Science)
1. Janusz Pasterski (Univesity of Rzeszów) - "Problem  dwukulturowosci w poezji Andrzeja Buszy i Bogdana Czaykowskiego"
2. Jolanta Pasterska (Univesity of Rzeszów) - "Zakorzenienie w pamieci:  przypadek Floriana Smiei"
3. Grazyna Borkowska (Polish Academy of Science) - "O twórczosci Anny Frajlich"

Monday, Session 46.
The EU in the Financial Framework 2014 -2020 - Implications for the Polish Economy
Chair - Elzbieta Kawecka-Wyrzykowska (Warsaw School of Economics)
1. Elzbieta Kawecka-Wyrzykowska (Warsaw School of Economics) - "Polish Position on EU Budgetary Policy"
2. Adam Ambroziak (Warsaw School of Economics) - "Regional State Aid in Poland"
3. Artur Nowak-Far (Polish Ministry of Foreign Affair) - "EU Legal Framework of Economic Changes in Poland"

Monday, Session 47.
Swiat malarza i fotografa
Session is in Polish (w jezyku polskim)
Chair - Hanna Chroboczek Kelker (New York University School of Medicine)
1. Malgorzata Mizia (Tadeusz Kosciuszko Kraków University of Technology) - "Sztuka architektury"
2. Jan Hausbrandt (Independent Scholar) - "Polska-tak jak bylo (lata 1970-1984)"
3. Rafal Olbinski (Independent Artist) - "Zalety dwuznacznosci"

BANQUET
Maja Trochimczyk at Barbakan and the Old Town Walls. 


___________________________________________________________

Photos (c) 2010-2013 by Maja Trochimczyk

Saturday, March 1, 2014

Apply for PAHA's Graduate Student Research Paper Award by April 15


The Polish American Historical Association announces the call for nominations and applications for the Graduate Student Research Paper Award.

The Graduate Student Research Paper Award recognizes a substantial original research paper on Polish-American history and culture produced by a young scholar in the humanities or social sciences.

A paper should be sent via e-mail to: anna.a.mazurkiewicz [at] gmail.com before April 15th, 2014.

In addition to the recognition and paper publication offer from the interdisciplinary, refereed scholarly journal The Polish American Studies, the winner will receive a $1000 travel grant to present the paper at the PAHA 2015 Annual Meeting (January 2-5, New York). The conference is held in conjunction with the annual meeting of the American Historical Association.

The candidate for the award must be a graduate student at the time of the application or nomination. In addition to the paper (up to 25 pages, 1.5 spaced, Times New Roman 12) any submission must contain: graduate student's short biographic note, 250-word abstract, and one letter of reference. The results will be announced by May 15, 2014.


PREVIOUS WINNERS

2013 – Two Awards Given - Marta Cieślak and Piotr Derengowski



1: Marta Cieślak (Transnational Studies Department, SUNY at Buffalo), "Crossing the Boundaries of Modernity: The Transatlantic Journey of Polish Peasants to the United States"



2: Piotr Derengowski (Department of History, University of Gdansk, Poland), "Capt. Alexander Raszewski's Polish Legion and Other Less Known Polish Troops in the Union Army During the American Civil War" 

2008 – Michael T. Urbanski

In 2008, PAHA recognized Michael Urbanski (Central Connecticut State University) for the paper entitled: "Polite Avoidance: The Story of the Closing of Alliance College," which was subsequently published in the Polish American Studies, Vol. 66, No. 1 (Spring, 2009), pp. 25-42. This paper focuses on the history and controversial closing of the Polish National Alliance’s College in Cambridge Springs Pennsylvania.
URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20533157

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Poetry Corner - Leonard Kress (Fall 2013)


Leonard Kress studied religion at Temple University, English at University of Illinois, Chicago, and poetry at Columbia University (MFA), as well as Polish and Slavic folklore at the Jagiellonian University and Indiana University. He has also completed a translation of the 19th century Polish Romantic epic, Pan Tadeusz by Adam Mickiewicz (which is available as a free pdf download from Harrow Gate Press: harrowgatepress.com) as well as poetry by Szymon Zimorowic and Jan Kochanowski. 

Kress has published poetry and fiction in Massachusetts Review, Iowa Review, Crab Orchard Review, American Poetry Review, Atticus Review, Harvard Review, etc. His recent collections are The Orpheus Complex, Living in the Candy Store, and Thirteens. He teaches philosophy, religion, and creative writing at Owens College in Ohio.

Chrysantema by Maja Trochimczyk


__________________________________________________


Gryzantyny

Two women live in different neighborhoods of the same city. Every Sunday they meet at the cemetery where their children are buried. They must travel over an hour to get there—the grounds of a monastery of Polish and Hungarian monks who revere a charred icon of the Blessed Virgin. In the 17th century this icon, burned by Swedish invaders, saved the land after decades of devastation. Paderewski’s heart is also buried there, in an urn, though neither woman knows where.

They trudge out to the graveyard after mass. They carry shopping bags of topsoil, trowels, flower pots, bulbs and votive candles. One brings a watering can, the other a jar which they fill at a pump near a fringe of trees. After a few dry creaks water gushes uncontrollably. They groom the gravesites religiously, on hands and knees, pawing at the encroaching grass and weeds. One woman’s son died of cancer, almost sixteen. From time to time this woman carries a second shopping bag—clothes that need mending, because the other woman takes in sewing. New cuffs, hems, roomier gussets.

The other woman’s daughter died mysteriously many years ago. There was a dispute over whether or not she could be buried in consecrated ground. The monks intervened. While the first woman prays for the soul of her son, the second woman scours nearby graves for a pot of flowers she placed by her daughter’s tombstone the previous week. She can’t find them and begins to shout accusations—the drunk veterans who just held a memorial, the scouts, the groundskeeper, even the monks. In her search, she weaves in and around the polished granite markers. She doubles back and begins again, so that a pattern emerges. Did you take my gryzantyny, she asks the first woman, who continues praying. Her stockings have ripped and bruises are forming on her bent knees. It would be fruitless to translate gryzantyny, they don’t grow on this side of the Atlantic.


Astry by Maja Trochimczyk


__________________________________________________


Meeting Miłosz

I met Miłosz but once—he hadn’t yet
turned 80. Far from Poland, far
from his perch in the Berkeley hills,

another conference about history and suffering
and witness, he wasn’t even the keynote
speaker. That was delivered in perfect

minor pitch by a priest from South Africa,
or maybe a nun from El Salvador.
There were severed-limb visuals

and spontaneous collective weeping
and Miłosz seated at the long table,
silent, palm propping his jaw like the apostle

three seats down from Jesus in Tintoretto’s
otherwise bell-and-whistle-boisterous
Last Supper. (Betrayer, beloved disciple,

sycophant, cynic, sidekick, all or none
of the above) his mic like a drained goblet
of Galilean wine. I catch him during a break,

he’s leaning on a Corinthian column,
shy and scowling, smoking--not a cigarette
but something home-grown, home-cured

and hand-rolled, packed with dismay,
a smoldering pen or pencil, rising
steam from a container of coffee.

I ask him what he thinks of X
and his eyebrows twitch, I am translating
X, I say, does he have any advice?

Milosz’s attention drifts. Sparkling ash falls,
lead snaps, ink smears, coffee scalds.
He’s gone and wherever he’s gone,

he’s gone fully, to a realm where the dead
are revived just long enough to deliver
their inexorable excuses for not being saved.


Sun Daisy by Maja Trochimczyk


__________________________________________________

Polka Dancing to Eddie Blazonczyk and
the Versatones in Coaldale, Pennsylvania

I’d come, even if I wasn’t invited,
to dance polkas, obereks, czardaszes with her.
I’d ping beyond recovery my last-legs-Datsun,
bucking it up into the mountains—turnpike,
tunnel, Minersville, Slabtown, the Ashland
Coal Breaker, flexed like a great bullying arm
to fling gravel into the doglegs of these patches.

Where gold church domes bubble up on the surface
from sizzling underground veins, and tropical
blooms of unmowed Byzantine blue rash
across towns abandoned. Her dad would already be
downing pitchers of the liquefied amber his Baltic
ancestors traded, convinced that enough of it
flushing his system might purge the coal dust.

By the time I’d arrive, he’d be at the urinal,
among others, groaning black piss.
And her mom, terrified that her son, back,
from the city and the sex life there
that all here suspect but don’t mention, might drag
some young guy from the line at Mack Truck
into the Chicken Dance or Fire, Fire.

Such unequivocal joy—a squeezebox resting
on gut, fueled by six-packs and old ladies
shaking devils’ fiddles, all so she can hop
and twirl, and thread through dancers thickening
from heat and age like roux. So she can sweat
herself slippery, too slick to hold on to,
changing her outfit, her partner with each new set.

_________________________________

The Poetry Corner is edited by John Z. Guzlowski. This issue is reprinted from the Fall 2013 Polish American Historical Association Newsletter. To learn more about Polish American and Polish writers and artists, please visit his website, Writing the Polish Diaspora: http://writingpolishdiaspora.blogspot.com/

Photographs by Maja Trochimczyk.

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

NEH Summer Institute - Deadline March 4, 2014

America’s East Central Europeans: Migration and Memory 
National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute for College & University Teachers 
Columbia University, East Central European Center June 8-29, 2014



This NEH Summer Institute looks at 20th century Baltic, Western Slavic, South Slavic, Hungarian, as well as Jewish immigration to the United States from East Central Europe. Twenty-five NEH Summer Scholars will come together on the campus of Columbia University with some fifty master teachers and community representatives to address three core questions: First, what are some of the methodological and conceptual issues we should consider in the study of the East Central European emigrations? Second, how can we define the particular characteristics, motivations, and experiences of these immigrants? Finally, can we create a narrative synthesis of the “East Central European Experience” in America that could be integrated into broader courses on politics and immigration, sociology, and ethnic studies?

 College teachers, independent scholars, museum curators, librarians and advanced graduate students are encouraged to apply for this competitive program. The application deadline is March 4, 2014, and successful applicants are notified March 31. Application information is available at NEHsummerinst.Columbia.edu or contact Co-Director Robert Davis (rhd2106@Columbia.edu) 212 854-4701.

 STIPEND, TENURE, AND CONDITIONS OF AWARD 

Individuals selected to participate will receive $2,700. Stipends are intended to help cover travel expenses to and from the project location, books and other research expenses, and ordinary living expenses. Stipends are taxable. Applicants to all projects, especially those held abroad, should note that supplements will not be given in cases where the stipend is insufficient to cover all expenses. Seminar and institute participants are required to attend all meetings and to engage fully as professionals in the work of the project. During the project’s tenure, they may not undertake teaching assignments or any other professional activities unrelated to their participation in the project. Participants who, for any reason, do not complete the full tenure of the project must refund a pro-rata portion of the stipend.

 At the end of the project’s residential period, NEH Summer Scholars will be asked to submit online evaluations in which they review their work during the summer and assess its value to their personal and professional development. These evaluations will become part of the project’s grant file. 

Above, “Czecho-Slovaks and Rumanians celebrating their independence in front of Independence Hall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,” originally appearing in Robert Keating Smith’s The Czecho-Slovaks (New York: Board of Missions, n.d.), transcribed for Project Canterbury (http:// anglicanhistory.org) in 2008 by Wayne Kempton, Archivist and Historiographer of the Episcopal Diocese of New York. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this Web resource do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

JANUARY 27, 2014 - INTERNATIONAL DAY OF COMMEMORATION 
IN MEMORY OF THE VICTIMS OF THE HOLOCAUST



On January 27, 1945, Soviet troops came into the largely empty death and concentration camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Its prisoners were sent on the death march towards Germany. Only few were left behind. The United Nations selected this day to establish the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust. The more time passes since the war, the more people want to forget or deny that it happened. It is important to remember.

Two Board members of PAHA published poetry blogs for this occasion:

 John Guzlowski: International Holocaust Remembrance Day, on his Open Salon Blog

 Maja Trochimczyk: Day of Remembrance at the United Nations and in Family History, on her Poetry Laurels Blog.

Monday, January 6, 2014

PAHA Announces its 2014 Awards at the 71st Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.

           
           PAHA President Thomas Napierkowski introduces Ambassador Ryszard Schnepf 
                         at the Opening Panel of PAHA 71st Meeting, with presenters, 
                           Dr. Maja Trochimczyk and Prof. Mary Patrice Erdmans.

On Friday, January 3, 2014 at the Embassy of the Republic of Poland, the Polish American Historical Association announced the winners of the organization's annual awards.  The Awards Reception was hosted by Deputy Chief of Mission to the U.S., Minister-Counselor Maciej Pisarski.  The Ambassador of Poland, Dr. Ryszard Schnepf opened the deliberations of PAHA during its first session on Friday morning at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington D.C. In his welcoming remarks the Ambassador underlined the importance of the PAHA mission to promote research and disseminate Polish-American history and culture. He highlighted an improvement in cooperation between US-based researchers and academics from Poland, and encouraged PAHA members to take part in celebrating in the important historical anniversaries in 2014: the 100th birthday of Jan Karski, the legendary Polish resistance emissary who brought the first accounts of the Holocaust to the world, and the 70th anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising.  


   
At the Embassy, Poland's Minister-Counselor Maciej Pisarski welcomed the scholars and in his remarks emphasized the critical importance of historical research for Polish-American community in America and for Polish-American relations.  He reminded the audience about the important European anniversaries of 2014: the 25th anniversary of Poland's accession to the European Union and the 15th anniversary of membership in NATO.  


            Min. Pisarski welcomes PAHA, with Dr. Pien Versteegh, PAHA Executive Director.

PAHA President Thomas Napierkowski presided over the award ceremony. PAHA presented the annual Halecki Prize for the best book on a Polish American topic to Dr. Beth Holmgren, Professor of Slavic and Eurasian Studies, Slavic and Eurasian Studies Department Chair at Duke Universityfor her book "Starring Madame Modjeska: On Tour in Poland and America", the annual Haiman Award for sustained scholarly effort in the field of Polish American Studies to Dr. Dominic A. Pacyga, and the annual Swastek Prize for the best article appearing in Polish American Studies to Dr. Anna Mazurkiwicz from the University of Gdańsk, as well as many other awards listed below. We congratulate all the winners for their achievements and well-deserved recognition.

Prof. Beth Holmgren (R) with Dr. Maja Trochimczyk (L)

Oskar Halecki Prize 
“Recognizes an important book or monograph on the Polish experience in the United States”

Beth Holmgren, Starring Madame Modjeska: On Tour in Poland and America (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2012). 

Review by Maja Trochimczyk in the Polish American Studies (spring 2013) opens with: “this handsomely produced volume about Poland’s legendary actress is a must for every library and every Polonian home”. Kazimierz Braun who had authored a play devoted to Modjeska wrote: “this is an excellent and meticulously rendered book” (Modern Drama 56/2, 2013). Upon examination of the review copy provided by the publisher, the Awards Committee found the above-mentioned reviews very well grounded. In our opinion, this book deserves the Halecki Award for its merits and also bears the potential of promoting the story of Helena Modrzejewska (Modjeska) among Polish-Americans as well as Polish and Polish-American heritage among the larger, non-ethnic audiences in the U.S. Beth Holmgren is the Professor of Slavic and Eurasian Studies and Slavic and Eurasian Studies Department Chair at Duke University.



Mieczyslaw Haiman Award
 “Offered annually to an American scholar for sustained contribution to the study of Polish Americans”

Dominic Pacyga – Professor of History, Department of Humanities, History and Social Sciences at Columbia College Chicago

 Dr. Pacyga received his PhD in History from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1981. He has published extensively about Polish Americans - especially immigrant and working class Polish Americans and their descendants - and with a focus on Chicago. Dr. Pacyga has lectured and written widely on a variety of topics including the Polish-Americans whose members worked in the stockyards and steel mills. His Polish Immigrants and Industrial Chicago (1991) throws real light on their experiences. Dr. Pacyga was the recipient of the Oscar Halecki Award from the Polish American Historical Association and of the Catholic Book Award. In 1999, he received the Columbia College Award for Excellence in Teaching. He has been a visiting Professor at both the University of Chicago and the University of Illinois at Chicago. In the spring of 2005, he was a Visiting Scholar in Campion Hall at Oxford University. Professor Pacyga is now in Kraków – as a Fulbright Lecturer at the Institute for American Studies and the Polish Diaspora, Jagiellonian University.


Amicus Poloniae Award
“Recognizes significant contributions enhancing knowledge of Polish and Polish-American heritage by individuals not belonging to the Polish-American community”

Peter Hetherington

Peter Hetherington is a geologist by profession and author of Unvanquished – already a widely-acclaimed book that through a dynamic narrative chronicles Joseph Pilsudski’s life with a “stunning detail and impressive depth” – as one reviewer put it. Published in 2012 this 752-page book brings Pilsudski to life and with him the history of Poland and the region. The book had two editions in one year! It has been favorably reviewed and endorsed (among others) by Zbigniew Brzeziński and Marek Jan Chodakiewicz and has already received a number of recognitions. Hetherington’s description of the book reads: “Although not of Polish ancestry, I have come to appreciate Pilsudski and the Polish people with zeal of a convert, and hope that in some small measure this book will increase awareness of Poland's rich cultural heritage and her important contributions to Western civilization." His interest, effort, input and efficacy with no support in the Slavic profession make him a perfect candidate for the award recognizing friends of Poland.


Creative Arts Award
„Recognizes the contributions in the field of creative arts by individuals or groups who have promoted an awareness of the Polish experience in the Americas”

Julian Stanczak 

A Polish-born painter and printmaker is being recognized for his 70-year career in the arts and education and his unique gift for painting and insight into visual perception. He and his family - he was only 12 years old at the time - were all forcibly removed by the Soviet military to Central Asia following the Nazi-Soviet invasion and conquest of Poland in 1939. Stanczak escaped from Siberia, via Persia and Uganda reached England and then United States where he received a BA from the Cleveland Institute of Art, and completed MFA at Yale. He has achieved wide acclaim and success despite the fact that since his incarceration in the USSR he’s permanently lost the use of his right arm (he used to be right-handed).

Julian Stanczak is recognized as one of the important pioneers in Op-Art. This term first appeared in print in Time magazine in October 1964 in response to Julian Stanczak's show Optical Paintings at the Martha Jackson gallery in New York. The year 2013-2014 has been announced “The Year of Stanczak Celebrations” by the Akron Museum of Art in Cleveland, the Museum of Art, the Cleveland Institute of Art, and the Kelvin Smith Library of Case Western Reserve University Lectures & Exhibitions.

PAHA President Thomas Napierkowski

Skalny Civic Achievement Awards

“Honor individuals or groups who advance PAHA's goals of promoting research and awareness of the Polish-American experience and/or have made significant contributions to Polish or Polish-American community and culture”

 Edward J. Dybicz United States Army veteran of the European Theatre of Operation during World War II (born 1923). Mr. Dybicz has been a tireless supporter of Polish and Polish-American activities in Pennsylvania and Delaware during the past fifty years. He has written numerous articles in the Polish American Journal and in the local newspapers, he is a member of the Polish-American Sacred Heart Church in Swedesburg, the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 840 and the Disabled American Veterans Post 44. He is a member of the Montgomery County Historical Society and the Valley Forge Historical Society.


Susanne Lotarski formerly a Deputy Assistant Secretary and Director of office of Eastern Europe, Russia and Independent State, U.S. Department of Commerce, devotes her skills and energy to serving the Polish-Americans and strengthening the links between the U.S. and Poland. Widely recognized on both continents, she was selected for the award for her activism in the Polish community in Washington, DC, and her leadership in the Polish American Congress (she is the Vice President for Public Relations), unwavering service to the Polish Institute of Arts & Sciences, and for tireless organizing of conferences and workshops on various topics for scholars and students in the D.C. area.

Tony Muszynski is a founder and first Program Director of “Poland in the Rockies,” who served as President, and earlier as a Vice-President of the Polish Canadian Association of Calgary. He is Vice-President of both the Canadian Polish Congress (Western Canada) and the Canada-Poland Youth Internship Society. Muszynski works as an immigration lawyer, he leads the Athabasca Project for the Canadian Polish Congress, a project that has as its main goal significantly increasing skilled worker immigration to Canada from Europe.

Irene Tomaszewski, founding President of the Canadian Foundation for Polish Studies, she serves as Curriculum Director for the Canadian "Poland in the Rockies" summer educational program designed specifically for university students and young professionals. She is also the editor of I Am First a Human Being: The Prison letters of Krystyna Wituska and co-author of Zegota: The Rescure of Jews in Wartime Poland.


Wanda Urbanska (center-left) in conversation with 
representatives of Julian Stanczak and Bozena Nowicka-McLees

Wanda Urbanska – an author and television host mostly recognized for her program devoted to sustainable living called Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska. She has authored and co-authored nine books, published in the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Natural Home, Mother Earth News and other papers. A blogger (atyourlibrary.org/wanda-urbanska) she is also a PR and political strategist. Dedicated to promoting the links between the U.S. and Poland, she was a Director of the Jan Karski U.S. Centennial Campaign. Its efforts culminated on May 29, 2012 as the Campaign succeeded in obtaining a Presidential Medal of Freedom for Polish Underground hero of World War II – Jan Karski. She is currently the President of the Jan Karski Educational Foundation.


The Polish Arts Club of Buffalo, Inc. founded almost 80 years ago (in 1945) is a non-profit organization that organizes an array of cultural programming (lectures, readings, musical and social events, film showings) to integrate, entertain and educate the Polish Americans as well as interested larger public about Poland’s culture and heritage. Members of the Arts Club meet at least once a month and hear talks on variety of topics related to Polish and Polish-American art, culture, and history. They periodically organize concerts, art shows, invite visiting scholars to their Club and even organize annual biesiadas in honor of their outstanding community members. Furthermore, they have devoted a considerable effort to preservation and promotion of the murals by Jozef Slawinski (the sgraffito technique) in the Buffalo-Niagara region. Always open to new contacts and expanding their network, in 2013 the PAC of Buffalo Inc. helped to organize PAHA midyear meeting in Buffalo and invited James Pula to give a talk to their members.


Prof. Anna Jaroszynska-Kirchmann with Dr. Theodore Zawistowski 

Distinguished Service Award 
“Given occasionally to a member of PAHA who has rendered valuable and sustained service to the organization”

Anna Jaroszyńska-Kirchmann

She is PAHA’s former President (2007-2009), and first Vice President (2004-2007), a former member of Awards Committee, Associate Editor of the Polish American Encyclopedia (ed. by James Pula), serves on the editorial board of Polish American Studies. Anna Jaroszyńska-Kirchmann teaches at the Eastern Connecticut State University, continuously rendering excellent service to PAHA; PAHA board member for many years she’s been instrumental in developing new strategies, alert in PAHA’s PR activities. Recipient of many prestigious awards –Anna Jaroszyńska-Kirchmann has devoted her time and her skill to the organization caring for the study and promotion of the Polish-American history and culture with visible, positive results.



Swastek Prize
“Awarded annually for the best article published in a given volume of Polish American Studies, the journal of the Polish American Historical Association”

 Anna Mazurkiewicz, "'Join, or Die'--The Road to Cooperation Among East European Exiled Political Leaders in the United States, 1949-1954."

The voters commented that this was “a meticulously researched article that was also well articulated so as to readily read by the type of general audience that Studies attracts. The Board found this to be an excellent treatment of an important subject in the recent history of Poland and Polonia that was solidly grounded in a wealth of original archival research. The questions raised in the article are appropriate and the analysis persuasive.”


Graduate Student Research Paper Awards
“Recognize outstanding research into Polish-American history and culture by a young scholar in the humanities or social sciences”


1. Marta Cieslak (Transnational Studies Department, SUNY at Buffalo), "Crossing the Boundaries of Modernity: The Transatlantic Journey of Polish Peasants to the United States."

This paper explores the pre-World War I transatlantic migration of Polish peasants to the United States and positions them within the transnational hierarchies of race, ethnicity and class, which, it argues, enabled the impoverished rural Poles to finally turn from the losers of modernity to its beneficiaries.


 2. Piotr Derengowski (Department of History, University of Gdansk, Poland), "Capt. Alexander Raszewski's Polish Legion and Other Less Known Polish Troops in the Union Army During the American Civil War."

 This paper argues that the involvement of Poles in the Civil War was significant, and though organization of a entirely Polish unit during the war proved to be impossible, many units were either organized by Poles, or were called “Polish.” Had it not been for their dispersion - the author writes - there were enough Poles to raise several regiments, or possibly even a brigade.

 Both students attended the awards reception and presented their papers at the conference. Piotr Derengowski has just successfully defended his Doctoral Dissertation. Marta Cieslak will be finishing her work this year. Both awardees are Polish, one works on Polish American topics in Poland – one in the U.S.


Attendees of the Awards Ceremony (L to R). Front: Maja Trochimczyk, Anna Mazurkiewicz, Neal Pease, Wanda Urbanska, Susan Lotarski, Grazyna Kozaczka, Ambassador Rowny,Deputy Chief of Mission to the US, Minister-Counselor Maciej Pisarski, Anna Jaroszynska Kirchman, Helen Napierkowski, Beth Holmgren, Grazyna Zebrowska, Representatives of the Polish Club of Buffalo, Pien Versteegh. Back: Stanley Kozaczka, James Pula, M.B.B. Biskupski, Mary Patrice Erdmans, Tom Napierkowski, Ted Zawistowski, Tom Duszak, Marta Cieslak, Piotr Derengowski, Peter Hetherington, and other guests.

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Washington, D.C. in January? Program of PAHA 2014 Conference


PAHA 2014 Annual Meeting Program
Marriott Wardman Park Hotel, 2660 Woodley Rd NW
Washington, D.C., DC 20008, 202-328-2000

Registration

Program of Events:

On January 3 and 4, 2014, one of Polonia’s most venerable organizations will hold its Annual Meeting at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington D.C. The conference will gather over 30 scholars presenting their current research during eight scholarly sessions dedicated to such topics as: Protest and Exile, Polish Immigrant and Ethnic Women, Between the Revolutionary War and World War II, Polish Immigrant and Ethnic Identities, Religious Leaders and Communities, and Stories of World War II. Individual presenters will discuss: Pułaski’s burial, Polish troops in the American Civil War, General Bolesław Wieniawa-Długoszowski, Pope John Paul II in America, World War II mementos and family histories, Polish children in exile, Polish-Jewish émigré composers and their inclusion into Polish music history, writings by women, American support for Warsaw in 1944, Polish-American press in Canada and the U.S., careers of second generation émigrés, Polish documents at the Library of Congress, dialects in Polish folk theater, and much more.

A special book forum will be dedicated to Mieczysław B.B. Biskupski’s The United States and the Rebirth of Poland, 1914–18 (with comments by noted historians Prof. Neal Pease, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee and Prof. James Pula, Purdue University North Central). The Conference will end with a screening of Mariusz Kotkowski’s Pola Negri: Life is a Dream in Cinema held on Saturday, January 4, 2014: 5:30 PM at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel, Jefferson Room. PAHA Annual Awards for research in the field of Polish American Studies will be announced during the Annual Awards Banquet on Friday, January 3, 2014. 


PAHA Annual Board Meeting
Thursday, January 2, 2014: 3:30 PM-5:30 PM
Marriott Wardman Park, Taft Room


PAHA Registration Desk
Friday, January 3, 2014: 8:00 AM-2:30 PM
Marriott Wardman Park, Registration Counter A


Protest and Exile
Friday, January 3, 2014: 8:30 AM-10:00 AM
Marriott Wardman Park, Taft Room
Chair: John Radzilowski, University of Alaska Southeast
 


Papers:
"In America Forever or Only a Short Time": Brotherhood of Dispersed Solidarity Members
Mary Patrice Erdmans, Case Western Reserve University

Jewish Composers of Polish Music in 1943
Maja Trochimczyk, Moonrise Press

"On or Before January 1, 1972": Detente and the American East European Exile Programs
Anna Mazurkiewicz, University of Gdansk

Comment: The Audience

Review of a 1943 Performance of Aleksander Tansman's Polish Rhapsody.



Polish Immigrant and Ethnic Women
Friday, January 3, 2014: 10:30 AM-12:00 PM
Marriott Wardman Park, Taft Room
Chair: Maja Trochimczyk, Moonrise Press 


Papers:
What Women Wrote: Polish American Women Readers and Their Letter in Ameryka-Echo, 1902–69
Anna Jaroszynska-Kirchmann, Eastern Connecticut State University

Monica Krawczyk's Rebellious Women
Grazyna Kozaczka, Cazenovia College

Case Study of a c. 1912 Polish Immigrant: The Story of Ludovica Baldyga of Zalas, Poland and Clinton, Mass
Barbara Pulaski, Mount Ida College
Francis Wolenski, Millennium Pharmaceutical Co.

Comment: Mary Patrice Erdmans, Case Western Reserve University




Between the Revolutionary War and World War II
Friday, January 3, 2014: 2:30 PM-4:30 PM
Marriott Wardman Park, Taft Room
Chair: Anna Mazurkiewicz, University of Gdansk


Papers:
I Have a Bone to Pick: A Study of the Evidence for the Pulaski Burial
James Pula, Purdue University North Central

Captain Alexander Raszewski's Polish Legion and Other Lesser Known "Polish" Troops during the Civil War
Piotr Derengowski, University of Gdansk

Frantic 7 and the American Resupply Mission to Besieged Warsaw, 1944
John Radzilowski, University of Alaska Southeast

General Boleslaw Wieniawa-Dlugoszowski: The Last True Cavalry Officer of the Twentieth Century
Charles Chotkowski, Piast Institute

Comment: The Audience





Polish Immigrant and Ethnic Identities
Friday, January 3, 2014: 2:30 PM-4:30 PM
Marriott Wardman Park, Taylor Room
Chair: Mary Cygan, University of Connecticut at Storrs 


Papers:
Mediating Nationalism: The Case of Gazeta Katolicka in Interwar Canada
Gabriela Pawlus Kasprzak, University of Toronto Scarborough

Career Patterns of Second Generation Polish Migrants in the United States, 1900–30
Pien Versteegh, Windesheim University of Applied Sciences

Respecting the Past, Embracing the Future: A Study of Polish American Public Opinion
Thaddeus Radzilowski, Piast Institute
Dominik Stecula, University of British Columbia

Confronting the Dynamic of American Polonia's Sands of Time
Anthony Bajdek, Northeastern University

Comment: The Audience 


Awards Banquet (by invitation only)
Friday, January 3, 2014: 7:00 PM-9:30 PM
Embassy of the Republic of Poland
2640 16th St NW
Washington, DC 20009 


PAHA Registration Desk
Saturday, January 4, 2014: 8:00 AM-2:30 PM
Marriott Wardman Park, Registration Counter A



Polish and Polish American Religious Leaders and Communities
Saturday, January 4, 2014: 9:00 AM-11:00 AM
Marriott Wardman Park, Taft Room
Chair: Theodore Zawistowski, Pennsylvania State University 


Papers:
Building the Community: Oblates in the Canadian Polonia
Michal Kasprzak, Ryerson University

Poland's John Paul II: Pope and Cold Warrior in the Americas
Julia L. Sloan, Cazenovia College

Reverend Wincenty (Vincent) Barzynski, C.R.: A Nineteenth Century Transformative Leader for Chicago Polonia
Michael Dziallo, Westchester Public Schools

Comment: The Audience


Seventy-Five Years Later, Stories of World War II Emerge from Polonia's Basement
Saturday, January 4, 2014: 9:00 AM-11:00 AM
Marriott Wardman Park, Taylor Room
Chair: Mary Patrice Erdmans, Case Western Reserve University 


Papers:
The Power of Identity: Polish Children in Exile
Wesley Adamczyk, independent scholar

The Wall Speaks Project
Wojtek Sawa, Warsaw Academy of Advertising

Polish Legacy Project: World War II
Andy Golebiowski, Independent Photojournalist

Comment: The Audience




Polish Diaspora in America
Saturday, January 4, 2014: 11:30 AM-1:30 PM
Marriott Wardman Park, Taft Room
Chair: Pien Versteegh, Windesheim University of Applied Sciences 


Papers:
Polish History Sources in the Library of Congress's Manuscript Division
Frederick J. Augustyn, Library of Congress

Ken Parejko's Remember Me Dancing: A Literary and Historical Record of the Stara Emigracja
Thomas Napierkowski, University of Colorado Colorado Springs

Crossing the Boundaries of Modernity: The Transatlantic Journey of Polish Peasants to the United States
Marta Cieslak, University at Buffalo (State University of New York)

Our Own Language: Ceremony, Performance, and Dialect in the Polish Folk Theater
Mary Cygan, University of Connecticut at Storrs

Comment: The Audience



Book Forum: The United States and the Rebirth of Poland, 1914–18
Saturday, January 4, 2014: 2:30 PM-4:30 PM
Marriott Wardman Park, Taft Room
Chair: M. B. B. Biskupski, Central Connecticut State University

Comment:
Neal Pease, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee
James Pula, Purdue University North Central 




Pola Negri: Life is a Dream in Cinema
Saturday, January 4, 2014: 5:30 PM
Marriott Wardman Park, Jefferson Room
Chair: Mariusz Kotowski, independent filmmaker