Polish Studies Center Picnic

Saturday, September 25, 12pm-3pm
Woodlawn Shelter, Bryan Park intersection of Woodlawn Street and E. Southdowns Drive ~ near Bryan Park pool~

Andrzej Stasiuk and Monika Sznajderman Reading

April 26, 7pm
Faculty Club, Indiana Memorial Union, Indiana University

Be sure to check out the poster.

Polish writer Andrzej Stasiuk is one of the brightest new literary talents to emerge in East and Central Europe since the fall of communism. Novelist, essayist, playwright, and public intellectual, Stasiuk has carved out a place for himself as a highly original thinker and stylist, conveying the bittersweet realities of the “New Europe” with grace, irony, and insight. His work has been widely translated throughout Europe; four of his books have been made available in English, including Tales of Galicia (2003), Nine (2007) and Fado (2009), the last two translated by IU faculty member Bill Johnston.

Andrzej Stasiuk will read from his work in Polish and in English translation, and will discuss his writing in the context of present-day Poland and Central and Eastern Europe. He will be accompanied by his partner, Monika Sznajderman, publisher of Wydanictwo Czarne, one of Poland’s premier literary presses. This event marks Andrzej Stasiuk’s first appearance in the U.S.; from Bloomington he travels to New York to take part in the opening reading of the PEN World Voices Festival, alongside such writers as Salman Rushdie and Patti Smith.

Reception to follow.

This event is free and open to the public.

“Stasiuk’s prose soars” Irvine Welsh, New York Times Book Review

“Stasiuk, exploring a region that so many have assumed to be irresistibly converging with the West, has mapped what Freud might have called its ‘genetic memory.’” Benjamin Moser, Harper’s Magazine

A Horizons of Knowledge Lecture

Co-sponsored by Polish Studies Center, Creative Writing Program, and Russian & East European Institute.

Tragedy at Smolensk

Dear Friends of the Polish Studies Center,

Most of you will know by now that on the morning of Saturday, April 10, 2010, a terrible tragedy struck the Polish nation. An airplane carrying President Lech Kaczynski and a great number of other national leaders crashed at Smolensk, Russia. All 96 people on board the plane were killed. The dead include President Kaczynski and his wife Maria; three deputy speakers of the Sejm; all the heads of Poland's armed forces; dozens of political, military, civilian, and religious leaders; and many others. The victims had been traveling to Russia to take part in a ceremony marking the 1940 massacres at Katyn, where 20,000 Polish officers were executed by the Soviets.

The Polish Studies Center community extends its deepest sympathy to the relatives and friends of those who perished, and to the people of Poland. We will be sending a letter of condolence to the Polish Ambassador in Washington, D.C.

At 5:30pm Monday, April 12, Professor Justyna Beinek is showing the film “Katyn” by Andrzej Wajda, to her P366 class. Guests are welcome. The class meets in Ballantine Hall 140.

A book of condolences will be available starting Wednesday, April 14, for you to write in. It will be left at the Center (1217 E Atwater Ave). The Center is open Wednesday 1pm-4pm, Thursday 8am-1pm, and Friday 1pm-4pm. At the end of the week the book will be conveyed to the Polish Embassy in Washington, DC.

On Friday, April 16th at 5:30pm-6:30pm a panel will be held in Wylie Hall 015 to present information on the tragedy at Smolensk, including its historical context and its repercussions for the present political situation in Poland. Many questions are being asked about the effect of the crash on the Polish political scene, the 20th- and 21st-century historical context of the disaster, and its meaning for Polish-Russian relations. New information, perspectives, and opinions are rapidly emerging. Please join us for this informal panel in which Professor Padraic Kenney (IUB-History) and Polish Studies Center director Bill Johnston (IUB-Comparative Literature) will present contextual background, describe Poland's recovery from the loss of a significant portion of its ruling class, and discuss likely future developments. All are welcome.

Finally, a special mass commemorating those who died in the plane crash and for the intention of Poland will be said on Saturday, April 17 at 10:30am at St. Paul's Catholic Center (1413 E 17th St). The mass will be held in both English and Polish. All are welcome to attend.

I hope you will join us in expressing our sympathy and concern for all those affected by this horrific occurrence.

Bill Johnston, Director

Polish Music: Chopin & Beyond at the Chopin Theatre in Chicago

March 20

Concert of Polish Music celebrating 200th anniversary of Fryderyk Chopin’s birth presented by Jacobs School of Music, Indiana University – Bloomington.

11a Studio - Complimentary brunch (w/cash bar) at the theater’s “Parisian” Cabaret Studio during which Prof. Bill Johnston introduces performing artists and program. Also informal talk on “Why Chopin is Polish, French, Israeli, Mongolian, Japanese, etc!"

1p Mainstage - “Fryderyk Chopin:Varsovian, Pole, Citizen of the World” multimedia lecture by Halina Goldberg, Professor of Musicology

120p - Performance by students Alexandre Tsomaia (piano), Laura Waters (voice) and Rafał Zyskowski (viola). All are receiptents of Polish Studies Artists in Residence scholarship.

240p - Performance by Edward Auer, Professor of Piano at Jacobs School of Music, IU. Mr. Auer is the first American to win a prize in the prestigious Chopin International Competition of Warsaw.

East-Central European Film Series

Be sure to check out the poster.

Sponsored by the Polish Studies Center and the Russian and East European Institute.
All films will be shown on Thursday evenings at 7.30 pm in Student Building (SB) 150.

OVERVIEW
In the immediate aftermath of 1989, most Central European cinema grappled with a new sense of freedom. The last decade, however, has seen a phenomenal output of creative energy in the region. This series of films represents some of the finest examples of 21st-century cinema from East-Central Europe. Showcased will be established directors like Andrzej Wajda exploring new themes and styles; a superbly talented middle generation of filmmakers like Petr Zelenka; and some wonderful emerging talents such as Corneliu Porumboiu and Xawery Żuławski. Films will revisit the region’s communist past (4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days; Little Moscow), examine 21st-century life in the region (The Polish-Russian War; Kontroll), and meditate on the processes of acting and cinema (The Karamazovs; Sweet Rush). The series is also marked by stylistic originality, including the bleached neon lighting of the Budapest subway in Kontroll, the frenetic cartoonish comedy of The Polish-Russian War, and the deapan brilliance of 12:08 East of Bucharest. All in all, this series offers spectacular evidence that Central European cinematography is undergoing one of its strongest and most impressive periods in history

PROGRAM

Jan 21
Sweet Rush (Tatarak) (Poland, dir. Andrzej Wajda, 2009)
The latest film by Central Europe’s best-known living director shows Wajda at the height of his powers. In a fascinating meta-cinematic creation, he melds a pre-war  story of passion and loss with the real-life grief of Krystyna Janda, the lead actor in the film-within-a-film, who movingly describes the recent death of her cinematographer husband. 85 min.

Feb 4
Kontroll (Hungary, dir. Nimród Antal, 2003)
Antal’s hilarious, brilliantly crafted movie takes place entirely in the Budapest subway, and describes the fraught lives of an oddball assemblage of ticket inspectors in their effort to carry out their job under less than ideal conditions. 105 min.

Feb 18
The Polish-Russian War (Wojna polsko-ruska) (Poland, dir. Xawery Żuławski, 2009)
Based on Dorota Masłowska’s astonishingly successful 2002 novel “Snow White and Russian Red,” this film finds a new cinematic language to match Masłowska’s extraordinary, drug-addled vision of youth in the new Poland. Includes an enigmatic appearance by Masłowska herself. 108 min.

Mar 4
4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days (4 luni, 3 saptamâni si 2 zile) (Romania, dir. Cristian Mungiu, 2007)
A visceral, superbly detailed recreation of late communism in Romania. Otilia’s friend Gabriela is pregnant, and Otilia finds herself arranging an illegal abortion in a Bucharest hotel. One of the most moving and devastating movies to have emerged form Central Europe since the fall of communism. 113 min.

Mar 25
Little Moscow (Mała Moskwa) (Poland, dir. Waldemar Krzystek, 2008)
One of the most unusual and thoughtful films to explore Poland’s communist past, “Little Moscow” tells of a romance between a Pole and the wife of a Russian officer stationed in Legnica in western Poland in the 1960’s.  114 min.

Apr 8
The Karamazovs (Karamazovi) (Czech Republic, dir. Petr Zelenka, 2008)
A troupe of Czech actors brings a theatrical adaptation of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s “The Brothers Karamazov” to Nowa Huta in Poland, where they are to perform in an abandoned  steel mill. During a rehearsal of their play, real-life events are woven into the drama. A brilliantly original exploration of the purpose and privilege of theater. 100 min.

Apr 22
12:08 East of Bucharest (A fost sau n-a fost?) (Romania, dir. Corneliu Porumboiu, 2006)
A small group of “veterans” of 1989 gather in a run-down provincial TV studio to discuss the burning question: What was their true contribution to the revolution? With superb deadpan humor and brilliantly observed detail, director Porumboiu offers a hilarious yet profoundly thoughtful look at the memory and remembrance in relation to the end of communism. Winner of the Caméra d’Or for best first film at the Cannes Film Festival. 89 min.

Polish Music: Chopin & Beyond

Vocal and instrumental music of Chopin, Moniuszko, Lutosławski, Szymanowski, Bacewicz, Karłowicz

Performed by the Polish Studies Center 2009-2010 Artists in Residence
Alexandre Tsomaia, piano
Laura Waters, soprano
Rafał Zyskowski, viola

Saturday, February 13, 2010 8pm
Auer Hall (Second floor of the Simon Music Center, 200 S Jordan Ave)

Admission is free, but donations to Polish Studies Center will be gratefully received

Sponsored by
Polish Studies Center
Office of the Vice President for International Affairs
Jacobs School of Music

Concert poster

Polish Studies Center Holiday Party

You are invited to our annual holiday potluck!

Wednesday, December 9th, 6pm-8pm
Leo R. Dowling International Center
111 South Jordan Avenue, Bloomington

Come and celebrate the holiday with the sharing of traditional Polish greetings and the singing of Polish Christmas carols. Please bring a dish to share. The Center will provide ham, turkey, dinner rolls, soft drinks, and all dinnerware.

Wesołych Świąt!

Balladina

The Polish Studies invites you to take part in an informal reading of Balladina, a strange and wonderful tragi-comedy by Poland’s great Romantic poet Juliusz Słowacki (1809-1849), as translated by our own Bill Johnston.

Tuesday, November 17, 7pm
Polish Studies Center, 1217 E Atwater Ave

Balladina tells the story of a country girl who murders her sister, marries a count, and plots to take over the kingdom. Sometimes described as “Macbeth meets A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Balladina is Słowacki’s wild and crazy homage to Shakespeare, all against a backdrop of Polish legend. Part comedy, part fantasy, part tragedy, Balladina has it all. Bill Johnston’s translation was published this year by Cambridge Scholars Publishing; this will be its first public “performance” in the U.S., prior to a staged reading to take place in December as part of the annual meeting of AATSEEL (American Association for Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages) in Philadelphia.

Coffee, tea and snacks will be served.

If you are interested in reading a part, please e-mail Bill at billj@indiana.edu for more information. But remember, participation isn't required, and no previous experience is necessary for the readers! Come and join in the fun!

Helena: Rzecz o Modrzejewskiej

Marianowotarska in a play by Kazimierz Braun directed by Jerzy Kopczewski

Sunday, October 11th, 5pm
Indianapolis Latvian Community Center
1008 W. 64th Street, Indianapolis, IN

Tickets are $20 for PCSI members, $25 for non-members, and $10 for students

The performance will be in Polish. We invite you to meet with Kazimierz Braun and Maria Nowotarska after the performance. Refreshments will be served during intermission.

The Polish Studies Center at Indiana University will be collecting money for ticket orders until October 7th. Please make checks payable to: Polish CSI. Carpooling to Indianapolis will be made available through the Polish Studies Center. Please contact the Center if you would like to participate as either a rider or a driver.

Kazimierz P. Braun Lecture

American and Polish Theatre: Mutual Influences, Similarities and Differences

Monday, October 12th, 12:30pm
Indiana Memorial Union - Sassafras Room

Kazimierz Braun of SUNY-Buffalo is an exceptional figure in the field of international theatre and drama. One of Poland's best-known and most accomplished theatre directors at the time of his departure from Poland in 1985, since coming to the United States he has established himself here as a major director, playwright, scholar and teacher. With decades of experience both in Europe and North America, he is ideally placed to make important connections between theatrical traditions across the two continents. Professor Braun's talk will outline the major connections between Polish and American theatre traditions, emphasizing the numerous and lasting mutual influences both have shared, the commonalities, and also the major differences between them.

Sponsored by
Polish Studies Center
Russian and East European Institute
Department of Theatre & Drama

Rebirth of Polish Democracy: A Twenty Year Retrospective

A Polish Studies Center Symposium
Friday, September 18th, 8:30am-12pm and 1:30pm-5pm
Indiana Memorial Union - Maple Room

Schedule:
8:30 Gathering in Maple Room
8:45 Welcoming remarks by Patrick O'Meara, Vice President for International Affairs
9:00-12:00 Panel I: Political Transformations. Presenters: Andrzej Rychard, Polish Academy of Sciences; Padraic Kenney, Indiana University; Daniel Cole, IU School of Law, Indianapolis; Greg Domber, University of North Florida; Commentary by Regina Smyth, Indiana University
1:30 Prof. Marek Konarzewski, Embassy of the Republic of Poland: "Global Climate Change: the Polish Perspective"
2:00-5:00 Panel II: Transformations in Society and Culture. Presenters: Mira Rosenthal, Indiana University; Daniel Bishop, Indiana University; Anna Zachorowska-Mazurkiewicz, Jagiellonian University, Krakow; Justyna Beinek, Indiana University; Commentary by Bill Johnston, Indiana University

Polish Studies Center Picnic

Saturday, September 12, 12pm-3pm
Henderson Shelter, Bryan Park (intersection of Henderson Street and E. Allen Street, near basketball courts)

Please bring a dish to share: salads, meats (there will be a ready grill),side dishes, deli items, desserts, etc. All picnicware will be provided, including cups, plates, forks, knives, napkins and ice, as well as non-alcoholic beverages. Polish dishes are highly appreciated if you are able.

ALL ARE WELCOME!

Marek Łaziński Lecture

Thursday, April 23rd, 12pm
Polish Studies Center

Pan, pani and human vanity. The need for an universal title in Polish forms of address.

Marek Łaziński is visiting professor at Humboldt University in Berlin and lecturer in the Institute of Polish Language at the University of Warsaw; he has been a member of the Management Board of the National Corpus of Polish since 2008. He has authored numerous books including Dystynktywny słownik synonimów, O paniachi panach, Polskie rzeczowniki tytularne i ich asymetrie rodzajowo-płciowe, Słownik nazw miejscowości i mieszkańców z odmianą and Słownik zapożyczeń niemieckich w polszczyźnie. His research interests include the verbal aspect in Polish, Polish forms of address, grammatical gender in Polish and its asymmetry for sex, corpus linguistics, grammar of Polish as a foreign language and sociolinguistic changes.

Remembering the Warsaw Ghetto with “The Pianist”

Holocaust Remembrance Day Concert

Sunday, April 19, 5pm
Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center, 275 North Jordan Avenue

Edward Auer, piano
Junghwa Moon Auer, piano
Brian Arreola, tenor
Kasia Bugaj, viola
Ching Yi Lin, violin
Halina Goldberg, narration

The concert commemorates Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) through the musical legacy of Władysław Szpilman, best known in the United States for his wartime memoir and the film “The Pianist” that was based on it. Performances will run the full range of genres composed and performed by Szpilman, from popular song, through operetta repertory, to solo piano and chamber music.

The concert is free, but we encourage a donation for the benefit of the impoverished, elderly Righteous Gentiles, specifically Polish Gentiles who helped save Jews during the Holocaust. A call for such help came recently from the Children of the Holocaust in Poland, an association of Holocaust survivors who at the outbreak of the Second World War were 13 years of age or younger, and who are now in their 70s, struggling to continue to provide aid to the Righteous Gentiles as they have in the past. For more information see http://www.dzieciholocaustu.org.pl

The patronage for this event is provided jointly by the Polish Studies Center and Congregation Beth Shalom in Bloomington.

Anna Brzysk Lecture

Friday, April 10th, 4:30pm-5:30pm
Fine Arts 102

Art History Burke Lecture Series: Dr. Anna Brzyski, University of Kentucky "Who is Contemporary and Who is Not: Historiography and Modernism in East Central Europe"

Polish Film Series Spring 2009

All showings will be at 7:30 pm
Wylie Hall, Room 05, on the IU Bloomington Campus

All films are in Polish with English subtitles. Free and open to the public.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 4
Theatre of the 8th Day / Portiernia (80 min.)
In November, Theatre of the 8th Day – Poland's legendary avant-garde theater group – came to Bloomington on their first-ever (in more than 40 years!) U.S. tour. If you were there, you'll want more. If you weren't, find out what you missed. The program includes a short excerpt from their 2004 production Visitors’ Reception (Portiernia) – a breathtaking commentary on post-communism – and a documentary (Theater of the Eighth Day) on the group. In Danish and Polish with English subtitles.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 11
The Reservation (Rezerwat)
2008, dir. Lukasz Palkowski (100 min.)
The Reservation follows a young freelance photographer as he gets tangled up in the underside of nouveau-riche Warsaw. Even for a savvy Pole, the other side of the river is a culture clash, and seems like a journey back to another time. A warm, bittersweet comedy.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 18
Katyn (Katyń)
2007, Andrzej Wajda (118 min.)
Katyn describes the tragedy of a generation, as seen by Poland's most acclaimed film director. The film follows the story of four Polish families whose lives are torn apart when, at the outset of WWII, thousands of Polish soldiers (who are also fathers, husbands and brothers) fall into the hands of Soviet troops and, in April 1940, are massacred by Stalin's police. The film also explores the complicated circumstances of Poland's position both in the war and after.
Special presentation to benefit the Polish Studies Center; donation suggested

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 25
Tricks (Sztuczki)
2007, Andrzej Jakimowski (95 min.)
From the director of Squint Your Eyes (Zmruż oczy, 2002), this film introduces Stefek, a young boy living in Poland’s rustbelt with his sister Elka and his mother. His father left some time ago, and Stefek believes he can manipulate his fate, and that the man he has glimpsed at the train station is really his father.

The Files: A play by The Theatre of the 8th Day

Thursday, November 13th, 7:30pm
Friday, November 14th, 7:30 pm
Saturday, November 15th, 2:30pm (Polish language version) and 7:30pm
John Waldron Arts Center
122 S. Walnut
Bloomington, IN 47408

The Files, directed by Ewa Wójciak and Marcin Kęszycki, the founders and directors of the Theatre of the Eighth Day, premiered in Poznan, Poland, on January 10th, 2007, and was recognized by critics as one of the most important performances of the last few years.

The Files is a special and unusual performance for the Theatre of the Eighth Day (famous for fighting the regime only through art), because it uses Secret Police reports on the Theatre's actors written during the period from 1975 to 1983 (reports that by definition also covered the actors' contacts, friendships, and meetings), juxtaposed with the actors' private letters at the time the reports were written, as well as parts of old performances to which the reports referred. For the sake of clarity and because the reports were so voluminous, the company decided to narrow the action of the play to the 1970s, since that was when they were active only as artists. (Later, in the 80s, they began to be more directly active in politics.). The inspiration for this play was their discovery of a typical report on one of their earlier plays that was written by a Secret Police officer from Crakow, whose intellectually over-ambitious analysis of the play's subversive tendencies was so grotesquely uncomprehending that it was hilarious.

Sponsored by
The College of Arts and Humanities Institute
Polish Cultural Institute
Polish Studies Center

Agnieszka Graff Lecture

“Our Innocence, Foreign Perversions: Gender and Sexuality in Polish Nationalist Discourse"

Thursday, November 13th, 4pm
Indiana Memorial Union - Persimmon Room

“Our Innocence, Foreign Perversions: Gender and Sexuality in Polish Nationalist Discourse.” This lecture will explore how nationalist discourse in contemporary Poland is not only gendered, but also overlaid with ideas of domestic purity threatened by a decaying West. Agnieszka Graff is one of the best-known writers on issues of gender and feminism in Eastern Europe, thanks to her ability to present them in clear and engaging – and provocative – prose. This talk will be quite accessible to students interested in questions of gender politics, as well as to students interested in Poland and Eastern Europe; both are quite numerous at IU.

Sponsored by
Institute of Advanced Studies
Polish Studies Center
Horizons of Knowledge
Russian and East European Institute
Gender Studies

Michal Heller - Student Gathering

Thursday, November 6th, 9am
Polish Studies Center

The Polish Studies Center is entertaining Michal Heller, the physicist and theologian who is this year's winner of the Templeton Prize. We are hosting a breakfast encounter at the Center for students (undergraduate and graduate) ONLY. This is a rare opportunity to meet one of Poland's most distinguished thinkers in an informal setting. We'll provide bagels and coffee.

Robert Blobaum Lecture

Thursday, September 24th, 5pm
University Club of Indiana University - Faculty Room

Dr. Robert Blobaum, Eberly Professor of History, West Virginia University: “A Warsaw Story: Polish-Jewish Relations in the First World War”. Spy scares, accusations of profiteering and speculation, suspicions that the Jews had privileged access to ever-scarcer food and public assistance, and anti-Jewish boycotts: Warsaw in World War One seemed ripe for a pogrom, like the one that wracked Lwow in November 1918. Yet a pogrom did not happen - why not?

Sponsored by
Polish Studies Center
Robert A. and Sandra S. Borns Jewish Studies Program
Horizons of Knowledge
Department of History
Russian and East European Institute

Polish Studies Center Picnic

Saturday, September 13, 12-3pm
Bryan Park Woodlawn Shelter (intersection of Woodlawn Street and E. Southdowns Drive)

Our annual potluck gathering to welcome friends of the Polish Studies Center to a new academic year.

Please bring a dish to share: salads, meats (there will be a ready grill), side dishes, deli items, desserts, etc, as well as a non-alcohoic beverage. All picnicware will be provided, including cups, plates, forks, knives, napkins and ice. Polish dishes are highly appreciated if you are able.

Polish Studies Conference

April 17-20

With a plenary speech by Clare Cavanaugh

For more information go to our conference page

Jakub Tyszkiewicz Lecture

“U.S. Policy Toward Gomulka’s Poland (1956-1970)”

Thursday, March 20th, 5:30pm
Faculty Room, University Club, Indiana Memorial Union

The Polish October of 1956, the political “thaw” started in Warsaw, was not only a turning point in the history of communist-ruled Poland but also the beginning of new times in Polish-American relations. United States policy toward Poland changed dramatically after that time. Washington stopped viewing Poland as a part of Soviet-related matters, as it had during the Stalinist period and launched completely new activities toward the new communist ruler in Warsaw – Władysław Gomułka. In the long term such a policy would make it possible to diminish Soviet supremacy and allow the Polish nation to live on the independent and free country. Jakub Tyszkiewicz will present the main aims of U.S. policy toward Poland and the attitude of the U.S. government toward situation in Poland in 1956-1970.

Jakub Tyszkiewicz is an adjunct professor in the Department of History at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is also Professor of History at the University of Wroclaw, Poland.

Benjamin Paloff Lecture

“Intersubjectivity and Its Discontents, or: How to Make Fun of Witold Gombrowicz”

Thursday, February 28th, 5:30pm
Ballantine Hall, Room 242

This presentation, which draws on select issues from his current book manuscript, addresses Witold Gombrowicz’s emphasis on intersubjective relations as the basis of Being. A persistent concern throughout Gombrowicz’s prose, the ways in which one person or thing is inevitably bound to another, appears as a simultaneously comic and tragic consequence of existence and, in generic terms, the common foundation of comedy and tragedy.

Benjamin Paloff is Assistant Professor in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures and the Program in Comparative Literature at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Polish Film Series

All showings will be at 7:30 pm in Swain Hall East, Room 105, on the IU Bloomington Campus. All films are in Polish with English subtitles. Free and open to the public.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 28
Warsaw (Warszawa)
2003, dir. Dariusz Gajewski (104 min.)
Winner of five Golden Lion awards at the Festival of Polish Feature Films in Gdynia, Warsaw is a film with many storylines, all of which play out during 18 hours of a single day in winter. In an attempt to renew and reignite their lives, a few strangers arrive in a cold, gloomy metropolis on the same day. They pass each other in the streets without noticing, until nightfall, when they are brought together…

THURSDAY, MARCH 6
Palimpsest
2006, dir. Konrad Niewolski (85 min.)
The psychological thriller Palimpsest tells the story of Marek, a police investigator assigned to solve the intricate murder of his friend, a fellow detective. As the case unfolds, we enter the depths of Marek’s deteriorating mind, forcing us to ask: “What is real and what is illusion?”

THURSDAY, MARCH 20
I Am (Jestem)
2005, dir. Dorota Kedzierzawska (93 min.)
In this award-winning film of sparse dialogue and rich, evocative imagery, a resolute 11-year-old boy finds a “home” on a deserted old barge after running away from an orphanage and being rejected by his mother. Teetering between the realm of childhood and the often cold adult world, the runaway orphan meets a girl who helps him understand who he is.

Polish Studies Center Christmas Party

You are invited to our annual holiday potluck!

Tuesday, December 4th, 6pm-8pm
Leo R. Dowling International Center
111 South Jordan Avenue, Bloomington

Come and celebrate the holiday with the sharing of the oplatek (Christmas wafer) and the singing of Polish Christmas carols. Please bring a dish to share. The Center will provide ham, turkey, dinner rolls, soft drinks, and all dinnerware. Wine can also be brought to share and will be served by a bartender.

Andrew Nagorski Lecture

Tuesday, October 30, 5pm
Dogwood Room of the Indiana Memorial Union.

Andrew Nagorski, a senior editor at Newsweek International and long-serving correspondent in Moscow, Warsaw, Berlin and elsewhere, is visiting IU to talk about his latest book The Greatest Battle: Stalin, Hitler, and the Desperate Struggle for Moscow That Changed the Course of World War II.

Mr. Nagorski is an award-winning foreign correspondent who has reported from Warsaw, Rome, Hong Kong, Washington, Bonn and Berlin, he served two tours as Moscow bureau chief. After only fourteen months, his first tour was cut short in 1982 by the Soviet authorities who, angered by his enterprising reporting on a broad range of sensitive topics, expelled him “for impermissible methods of journalistic activities.” He served his second tour in the mid-1990s, and has visited Moscow regularly since then.

European Union and Transatlantic Policies Roundtable

Wednesday, September 26, 12pm-1:30pm
Woodburn Hall 218

The European Union Center of Excellence at Indiana University is leased to announce its first Roundtable on Transatlantic Policies for the 2007-08 year. Participants include:

Philippe Moreau Defarges, Senior Research Fellow at the French Institute of International Relations (IFri), specializes in European affairs and global governance. He is also co-director for IFri's annual publication, RAMSES, and has worked in several departments at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Józef Niznik, Professor in the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, is Head of the European Studies Unit and the Jean Monnet Professor in the Graduate School for Social Research of the Institute. Since 2000, he has been a professor in the Department of International Relations of the Collegium Civitas in Warsaw.

Jim Rollo, Professor of European Economic Integration at the University of Sussex, is co-director of the Sussex European Institute and co-editor of the Journal of Common Market Studies. Previously, he was a senior economic advisor to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London.

John McCormick (moderator) is Chair of the Department of Political Science at IUPUI. His latest book, The European Superpower, argues that the rise of the European Union has created political and economic competition between itself and the United States.

This roundtable is co-sponsored by the European Union Center of Excellence, West European Studies, Department of Political Science, Russian and East European Institute, the Polish Studies Center, the International Studies Program, and the Center for the Study of Global Change.

Poetry Reading with Tomasz Rozycki and Mira Rosenthal

Thursday, September 27, 5pm
The University Club, Faculty Room at the Indiana Memorial Union

Horizons of Knowledge, the Polish Studies Center, the Russian and Eastern European Institute, and the Creative Writing Program invite you to a bilingual poetry reading with Tomasz Rozycki and Mira Rosenthal. They will be reading from The Forgotten Keys (Zephyr Press, 2007).

Polish poet Tomasz Rozycki is the author of six books of poetry and has received numerous awards in Poland. His work has been translated into many European languages. The Forgotten Keys, a selection from five of his collections, marks his English debut. His most recent book, Colonies, is shortlisted for the 2007 Nike Prize, Poland's top literary honor.

The translator Mira Rosenthal is a doctoral student in the Department of Comparative Literature at IU. She has been a Fulbright Fellow to Poland and edited a special issue of Lyric Poetry Review on new Polish poetry in translation. Her work has appeared in the journals Ploughshares, AGNI Online, American Poetry Review, and Notre Dame Review, among others.

Polish Studies Annual Picnic

Saturday, September 8, 12pm-3pm
Bryan Park Woodlawn Shelter (intersection of Woodlawn Street and E. Southdowns Drive)

Our annual potluck gathering to welcome friends of the Polish Studies Center to a new academic year. Please bring a dish to share: salads, meats (there will be a ready grill), side dishes, deli items, desserts, etc, as well as a non-alcohoic beverage. All picnicware will be provided, including cups, plates, forks, knives, napkins and ice. Polish dishes are highly appreciated if you are able.

Polish-German Post/Memory: Aesthetics, Ethics, Politics

April 19-21

For more information go to the conference page.

Pictures from the conference

Adam Michnik Lecture

“Poland and Germany: The Return of Bad Memories ”

Thursday, April 19, 3:30pm
IMU, Dogwood Room

Adam Michnik is the Editor-in-Chief of Gazeta Wyborcza, Warsaw, Poland,and Visiting Professor of History at Princeton University.

George Gasyna Lecture

"Burning Man: On the Optics of Suspicion"

Tuesday, April 3, 5:30pm
Ballantine Hall, Room 214

George Gasyna is assistant professor of Polish and Comparative Literature at the University of Illinois, and writes on continental modernism, postmodernism, and exilic literature. He is currently researching the Polish avant-garde of the interwar period.

Abstract of "Burning Man: On the Optics of Suspicion" (Word Document)

Karen Kovacik Lecture

“Between Warszawa and Chicago”

Thursday, March 29, 7pm
Polish Studies Center

Karen Kovacik is Director of Creative Writing at IUPUI. She's the author of several collections of poetry, most recently “Metropolis Burning” (Cleveland State University, 2006). Her poetry and fiction have appeared widely in such journals as Glimmer Train, Chelsea, Indiana Review, and Massachusetts Review. She was recently awarded the Charity Randall Citation for poetry in performance from the International Poetry Forum. In 2004-05, she held a Fulbright Research Fellowship to Warsaw, Poland to work on translating contemporary women poets.

Polish Studies Film Series

All films will be shown in Swain Hall East, Room 105 at 7:30pm. Films in Polish with English subtitles. Admission Free.

Thursday, March 8
We're All Christs (Wszyscy Jestesmy Chrystusami) - 2006
Directed by Marek Koterski, Starring Marek Kondrat and Andrzej Chyra Adas Miauczynski is a frustrated highbrow who tells us about the hell which his family was given because of his addiction to alcohol. Each episode refers to religion but an alcoholism portrayed without mythological romanticism in Koterski's film compares grotesque with Christ's martyrdom. 110 mins

Thursday, March 1
The Debt Collector (Komornik) - 2005
Directed by Feliks Falk, Starring Andrzej Chyra
48 hours from the life of a ruthless debt collector. His despotism, nonchalant and arrogant attitude towards the debtors led to tragic events. He later tries to repair the damage but unfortunately, his enemies take advantage of the careless move he made. Worse, people he tried to compensate will not help him... 93 mins

Thursday, February 22
Jasminum - 2006
Directed by Jan Jakub Kolski
Director/writer Jan Jakub Kolski's fairy tale takes place in a monastery whose residents are merrily discombobulated by the arrival of a single mother charged with restoring the religious paintings. The restoration expert and her young daughter know a few things about mixing scents, and eventually they learn the secret of the lingering jasmine odor driving everybody crazy in the vicinity of the monastery. 103 mins

Justyna Wlodarczyk Lecture

“Translating Ideology: Anti-Choice Strategies as America's Export Product to Poland”

Wednesday, February 21, 5:30pm

Justyna Wlodarczyk is a Polish Fulbrighter from Warsaw University who is currently at the University of Indianapolis, where she is working on her doctoral dissertation in contemporary American Literature.

Zemsta / Revenge

Reading from the English version of the play followed by a screening of the film

Tuesday, January 16, 5:30pm-7pm Polish Studies Center

Polish Studies Annual Picnic

Saturday, September 9, 12pm-3pm
Bryan Park Woodlawn Shelter (intersection of Woodlawn Street and E. Southdowns Drive)

Our annual potluck gathering to welcome friends of the Polish Studies Center to a new academic year. Please bring a dish to share: salads, meats (there will be a ready grill), side dishes, deli items, desserts, etc, as well as a non-alcohoic beverage. All picnicware will be provided, including cups, plates, forks, knives, napkins and ice. Polish dishes are highly appreciated if you are able.

Hanna Gosk Lecture

Narrating Everyday Life in Polish Prose of the Late 20th and Early 21st Century"

Thursday, September 14th, 5:30pm
Polish Studies Center

Professor Hanna Gosk is a visiting faculty member from Warsaw University, where she teaches at the Institute of Literature, Faculty of Polish Philology.

Joanna Lawrynowicz Piano Recital

Thursday, September 21, 8pm
Auer Hall

Joanna Lawrynowicz is a doctor of music at the Fryderyk Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw. She appeared in public for the first time at the age of five in the Warsaw National Philharmonics. The artist is the winner of four international competitions: The Steinway and Sons Competition for Young Pianists (Berlin 1990), The International Chopin Competition (Darmstadt, Germany 1999), The International Piano Competition of Halina Czerny-Stefanska in Ajigasava (Japan 2000) and The International Piano Competition "Art Livre" in Sao Paolo (Brazil 2001).

Event co-sponsored by IU's Young Pianist program and The Jacobs School of Music

Halina Goldberg Lecture

"Phrase structure of Chopin's early works in light of Józef Elsner's instruction"

Friday, September 29th, 12:30pm
Simon Music Center, Room 267

Halina Goldberg is an assistant professor of musicology at the Jacobs School of Music. Her main research interest is the music of Chopin, while she has a general interest in the music of Poland and Eastern Europe. She is the editor of The Age of Chopin: Interdisciplinary Inquiries (2004) and the author of Music in Chopin's Warsaw (2005).

Bozena Shallcross Lecture

"Situating the Holocaust Object"

Wednesday, November 29th, 5:30pm
Ballantine Hall, Room 004

Bozena Shallcross is an Associate Professor of Polish Language and Literature in the Slavic Department at The University of Chicago. She works in the area of 20th century Polish literature and the visual arts; her other interdisciplinary research interests include the “thing” discourse, as well as the interrelationship between questions of identity and the home.

Solidarity 25 Years Later

April 20-21

Opening Reception
Sponsored by the Office of International Programs
Thursday, April 20
7:30-9pm
IMU University Club

Friday, April 21
IMU Sassafras Room

10am
Introductory Remarks: Jaroslaw Lasinski, Consul-General of the Republic of Poland

10:15am-12:15pm
“Solidarity: A Retrospective”
Jack Bielasiak, Indiana University (Political Science)
Konstanty Gebert, Gazeta Wyborcza
Irena Grudzinska Gross, Boston University
Chair: Jeff Isaac, Indiana University (Political Science)

2pm-4pm
“New Research Perspectives on the Solidarity Period”
Eva Cermanová, Indiana University (History)
Greg Domber, George Washington University (History)
Ania Muller, Indiana University (History)
Chair: Owen Johnson, Indiana University (Journalism)

Please join this group of outstanding scholars and activists for a thought-provoking discussion that will revisit the meaning and legacies of the Polish Solidarity, the workers’ union that helped topple the workers’ state.

This event is sponsored by the Polish Studies Center, Horizons of Knowledge, the Robert A. and Sandra S. Borns Jewish Studies Program, the Office of International Programs, the Russian and East European Institute, and the Department of Political Science.

Kris Van Heuckelom Lecture

“The Idolatrous Booke: Bruno Schulz on Text and Image.”

Tuesday, March 28, 2006, 5:30pm
Ballantine Hall, Room 242

Dr. Kris Van Heuckelom, a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Chicago and Assistant Professor of Polish at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium, will give a lecture and a slide presentation on the Modernist Polish-Jewish writer and artist, Bruno Schulz (1892-1942): “The Idolatrous Booke: Bruno Schulz on Text and Image.”

The Writer Uprooted: A Conference on Contemporary Jewish Exile Literature

March 22-24, 2006
IU Bloomington campus

Event hosted by The Robert A. and Sandra S. Borns Jewish Studies Program.

Marek Chodaczynski and The Impossible Theatre from Poland

March 3, 2006, 5:30pm
Polish Studies Center

Marek Chodaczynski, the director of The Impossible Theater from Warsaw, Poland, will perform a 10-minute play "Balaam or the Problem of Objective Fault," based on a philosophical tale by Prof. Leszek Kolakowski (Oxford). He will also show a filmed version of another tale from the same cycle, "God or the Relativity of Misericordia," and will talk about his award-winning alternative puppet theater for adults.

All events are in Polish with English translation.

Series of New Polish Films

Thursday, February 23:
Vinci - 2004
Directed by Juliusz Machulski. Starring Robert Wieckiewicz, Borys Szyc, and Kamilla Bar. An immensely enjoyable comedy thriller from Seksmisja and Vabank director Machulski, Vinci tells the story of an elaborate plan by a (mostly) likeable bunch of rogues to steal Poland’s best-known painting—Leonardo da Vinci’s Lady with an Ermine, which hangs in the Czartoryski Museum in Kraków. Or does it?...
105 mins

Thursday, March 2:
The Wedding (Wesele) - 2004
Directed by Wojtek Smarzowski. Starring Marian Dziedziel and Tamara Arciuch.
This award-winning black comedy from first-time director Smarzowski
offers a hilariously jaundiced portrayal of a small-town wedding.
When Kasia and Janusz marry at a lavish wedding, wheeler-dealing nouveau-riche relatives,
crooked officials, and city mobsters all want a piece of the action.
110 mins

Thursday, March 9:
My Nikifor (Moj Nikifor) - 2004
Directed by Krzysztof Krauze. Starring Jerzy Gudejko, Krystyna Feldman,
Lucyna Malec, and Artur Steranko.
Krauze’s visually captivating, psychologically profound film depicts the unlikely relationship
between Nikifor, the famous naive artist from Krynica,
and painter Marian Wlosinski. Featuring a brilliant gender-bending performance
by eminent Polish actress Krystyna Feldman in the role of Nikifor.
100 mins

All films will be shown in the Radio-TV Center, Room 251 at 7:30 p.m. This building is in the southwest corner of the main library parking lot. Films in Polish with English subtitles. Admission free.

Jerzy Jarzebski and Michal Markowski Lectures

Monday, February 6, 2006, 5:30pm
Ballantine Hall, Room 004

Two distinguished Professors from Jagiellonian University will give guest lectures. The first, by Professor Jarzebski, is titled "Objects Inscribed with History: The Case of Contemporary Polish Prose". The second, by Professor Markowski, is titled "A Short History of Stones: Polish Poetry and the Real".

Event co-sponsored by the Horizons of Knowledge, Russian and East European Institute, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Office of International Programs, and the Polish Studies Center

Jerzy Jarzebski and Michal Markowski Lectures

Tuesday, February 7, 2006, 5:30pm
Polish Studies Center

Two distinguished Professors from Jagiellonian University will give guest lectures. The first, by Professor Markowski, is titled "Literature Meets Media, or How Polish Culture Politicizes Itself". The second, by Professor Jarzebski, is titled "Cultural and Literary Life in Today's Poland".

Event co-sponsored by the Horizons of Knowledge, Russian and East European Institute, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Office of International Programs, and the Polish Studies Center

Larry Wolff Lecture

February 21, 2006, 6:30pm
Lilly Library Lounge

Distinguished History Professor from Boston College will give a guest lecture titled "Searching for the Saharan Oasis: Galicia in the Age of Metternich and Fredro."

Event co-sponsored by IU's College Arts and Humanities Institute, Cultural Studies, Russian and East European Institute, West European Studies, and the Polish Studies Center

The Writer Uprooted: A Conference on Contemporary Jewish Exile Literature

March 22-24, 2006

Event hosted by The Robert A. and Sandra S. Borns Jewish Studies Program

Polish Studies Center Christmas Party

Friday, December 9th, 2005, 6pm-8pm
Leo R.Dowling International Center, 111 South Jordan Avenue

Come and celebrate the holiday with the sharing of the oplatek (Christmas wafer), the sharing of a meal, and the singing of Polish Christmas carols. Please bring a dish to share. The Center will provide ham, turkey, dinner rolls, soft drinks, and all dinner ware. Wine can also be brought to share and will be served by the bartender.

Book Launch and Reading for three new publications by IU faculty and students

Wednesday, November 9th, 7:00pm
Faculty Room (Room 250) in the IMU

"The Black Seasons" by Michal Glowinski, translated by Marci Shore (IUB), published by Northwestern University Press

Special issue of "Lyric" magazine devoted to Polish poetry edited by Mira Rosenthal (IUB)

"White Magic and Other Poems" by Krzysztof Kamil Bacznski, translated by Bill Johnston (IUB), published by Green Integer

Event co-sponsored by The Robert A. and Sandra S. Borns Jewish Studies Program

Recital by New Concept Trio

Thursday, November 3rd, 7:00pm
Recital Hall

Polish musicians Katarzyna Bakowska (violin), Anna Sawicka (cello), and Marzena Buchwald-Rozyczka (cembalo) will play a combination of baroque and 20th century Polish and Hungarian music.

Event co-sponsored by The School of Music

Polish Studies Annual Picnic

Saturday, September 10, 2005, 12pm-3pm
Bryan Park Woodlawn Shelter (intersection of Woodlawn Street and E. Southdowns Drive)

Our annual potluck gathering to welcome friends of the Polish Studies Center to a new academic year. Please bring a dish to share: salads, meats (there will be a ready grill), side dishes, deli items, desserts, etc, as well as a non-alcohoic beverage. All picnicware will be provided, including cups, plates, forks, knives, napkins and ice. Polish dishes are highly appreciated if you are able.

Tomasz Basiuk Lecture

"The LGBTQ Movement in Poland Today and the Case of the Poster Campaign of 2003"

Tuesday, February 15, 7pm
Sassafras Room of the Indiana Memorial Union

The post-1989 Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered and Questioning movement in Poland has had little visibility until recently, when adjustments for Poland's accession into the European Union occasioned more open discussion of LGBTQ rights. In 2003, anti-homophobic posters using the slogan “Let them see us” were used in a grass-roots campaign which marked a turning point for the movement but provoked immediate backlash.

Tomasz Basiuk is Assistant Professor at the American Studies Center at Warsaw University. He spent 1990-91 as an exchange scholar at Indiana University. He teaches courses in American literature, postmodern fiction and theory, gay and lesbian writing, and queer theory. He co-edited a collection of essays on queer studies in 2002, A Queer Mixture: Gender Perspectives on Minority Sexual Identities (in Polish, with Dominika Ferens and Tomasz Sikora, Wydawnictwo Naukowe Slask.) He is spending the current academic year at the CUNY Graduate Center (Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies) as Fulbright Scholar.

Sponsored by the Polish Studies Center and the Office for GLBT Student Support Services

Polish Film Series

All films are in Polish with English subtitles. All showings will be at 7:00pm at Swain Hall East, room 105.

Thursday, February 17:
Zurek (Sour Soup) 2003, Directed by Ryszard Brylski
Based on the story by Olga Tokarczuk, this film tells the dramatic tale of a woman's struggle to discover the identity of her grandchild's father. Starring Zbigniew Zamachowski, Katarzyna Figura, and Natalia Rybicka.

Thursday, February 24:
Zycie Jako Smiertelna Choroba Przenoszona Droga Plciowa (Life as a Fatal Sexually Transmitted Disease) 2000, Directed by Krzysztof Zanussi
Tomasz, a sixty-year-old doctor, suspects that he has a fatal disease. The tests prove he is right. Tomasz is an atheist, but the closeness of death makes him think about the meaning of life and death. The answer - or a sign - is given to him in a hospital room. Starring Zbigniew Zapasiewicz, Krystyna Janda, and Pawel Okraska

Thursday, March 3:
Zmruz Oczy (Squint your Eyes) 2002, Directed by Andrzej Jakimowski
This is a beautifully understated comedy about a spirited ten-year-old girl who has run away from her proudly affluent parents in town and finds safe haven on a derelict communal farm where her former teacher is watchman. Starring Zbigniew Zamachowski, Malgorzata Foremniak, and Andrzej Chyra.

Keely Stauter-Halsted Lecture

Women about Whom One Does Not Speak: Prostitution and the Articulation of a National Public Space in 19th Century Poland

Friday, March 25, 12pm
Ballantine Hall room 005

In the half-century before World War One, the Polish lands witnessed intense public discussion over the future of regulated prostitution. Journalists, law enforcement officials, doctors, and members of Poland's growing feminist movement expressed outrage at the flagrant solicitation of commercial sex in public spaces throughout Polish territory. A series of well-publicized white slavery trials focused attention on the plight of young women duped into following mostly Jewish traffickers to foreign ports, where they were imprisoned in brothels and harems. This presentation looks at the ways in which debate over Poland's domestic and international sex served as a prism through which to articulate competing futures for a unified Polish nation. Professor Stauter-Halsted examines the range of public attitudes on the prostitution question in divided Poland at the turn of the 20th century and demonstrates that the contemporary treatment of sex workers as innocent victims allowed publicists to sidestep more fundamental social ills driving women into the practice of commercial sex.

Keely Stauter-Halsted is Associate Professor of History at Michigan State University. She is the author of The Nation in the Village: The Genesis of Rural National Identity in Austrian Poland, 1848-1914 (Cornell University Press 2001), winner of the Orbis 2002 Prize for outstanding book on Polish affairs.

Presented by The Polish Studies Center, The Department of History, and The Russian and East European Institute

Gender and Feminism Under Post-Communism: An International Conference

March 31-April 3, 2005

The conference will focus on the development of feminism and the impact of feminist theories on the reshaping of gender roles in public policies, representations, and social and cultural practices in Eastern Europe, Russia, and China since 1989.

Sponsored by the Russian and East European Institute, the Polish Studies Center, the Inner Asian and Uralic National Resource Center, the Center for the Study of Global Change, the East Asian Studies Center, the West European Studies Center, the Office of International Programs, the Humanities Institute, and the University Graduate School.

The conference will bring to campus ten prominent international scholars who will speak on four panels: "Economic and Social Justice Issues," "Representations," "History and Myth," and "Public and Private Spheres."

A Poetry Reading by Piotr Sommer

Reading from his new collection Continued

Thursday, April 21, 6pm
The Lilly Library Lounge, 1200 E. 7th Street, Bloomington

Continued (Wesleyan University Press, 2005) is a selection of poems by Piotr Sommer, spanning his career to date. A kind of poetic utterance, these “talk poems” are devoid of any singsong quality yet faithfully preserve all the melodies and rhythms of colloquial speech. Events and objects of ordinary, everyday life are related and described by the speaker in a deliberately deadpan manner. Yet a closer look at the language he uses, with all its ironic inflections and subtle “intermeanings,” reveals that the poem's “message” should be identified more with the way it is spoken than with what it says. The poems in this volume were translated into English with the help of other notable poets, writers, and translators, including John Ashbery, D.J. Enright, and Douglas Dunn.

“Piotr Sommer is the great poet of ‘everyday loneliness, contrary to your self, perhaps.’ Like Frank O’Hara, whom he has translated into Polish, he is on the lookout for what he calls ‘improper names’—the very ones that allow us to construe the unkempt and taciturn world that surrounds us.” — John Ashbery

A reception and book signing will follow. Copies of Continued, will be available for purchase.

Polish Studies Center Picnic

September 11, 12pm-3pm
Bryan Park Woodlawn Shelter (Woodlawn Street at Sheridan near Bryan Park Pool in Bloomington)

Please bring a dish to share: salads, meats(there will be a ready grill), side dishes, deli items, desserts, etc, as well as a non-alcoholic beverage. Polish dishes are highly appreciated if you are able.All picnic ware will be provided, including cups, plates, forks, knives,napkins and ice.

Meet the Warsaw Village Band

Friday, September 17, 12pm
Polish Studies Center

Please join us to welcome these Polish musicians to Bloomington. The Warsaw Village Band is Coming to the Lotus Festival September 16 and 17.

Winners of the BBC3 2004 World Music Award for best Newcomers

This internationally recognized Polish band revives traditional music of Poland, like the bialy glo (white voice) singing of the highlands and the 16th century suka fiddle, and blends it with contemporary electronic techniques to produce something new - a genre they call hardcore folk. “ ...masterly performed, imbued with a youthful enthusiasm that revitalizes you on every listen and manifests why it still means something to be searching for music all over the land, instead of being content to listen to mainstream pop.” – Nondas Kitsos, Rootsworld.

A Celebration of the Life and Work of Czeslaw Milosz

Thursday, September 30th, 7pm
Federal Room of the Indiana Memorial Union

Please join us for readings of his work and a reception.

Czeslaw Milosz passed away in August at the age of 93. Milosz was a towering figure in Polish letters, a major presence in world literature, and winner of the 1980 Nobel Prize for Literature. To celebrate the work of this outstanding individual, the Polish Studies Center is holding this informal reading of his poetry and prose. Readings will be given in both English and Polish.

Presented by the Polish Studies Center and the Office of the Chancellor

A Witold Gombrowicz Centenary Celebration

November 4-6

This year has been named the "Year of Gombrowicz" in Poland in honor of his birth in l904. We join the celebration of this renowned writer with three events:

Thursday, Nov. 4: A reading of the play The Marriage
Audience participation is optional, but enjoyment is guaranteed.
6pm at the Polish Studies Center
Coffee, tea, and dessert will be served.

Friday, Nov 5: A lecture on Gombrowicz by visiting Professor Grzegorz Jankowicz
and readings by Bill Johnston from his new translation of Bacacay
6pm at the Lilly Library Lounge
1200 E. 7th St. Bloomingon
Followed by a reception

Saturday Nov. 6th: A new film of Pornografia
Based on the novel of Gombrowicz and directed by Jan Jakub Kolski
In Polish with English subtitles
7pm at Swain Hall East, room 105
729 E. 3rd. St. Bloomington

Presented by the Polish Studies Center

Two Lectures by Boguslaw Winid

Wednesday, November, 17th, 7:30pm in the Dogwood Room of the Indiana Memorial Union: "Polish-American Relations after NATO and EU Enlargement". Reception following.

Thursday, November 18th, 10am in Room 004, Ballantine Hall: "The Plunder of Poland's Art Treasure During the Second World War and the Restitution Efforts".

Boguslaw Winid is Deputy Chief of Mission, Embassy of Poland, Washington D.C. Dr. Winid, historian and political scientist, has written extensively on Polish-American relations, NATO, and currently on the World War II era plunder of art, books, and archival documents and on Poland's efforts since l989 to recover them. He has been Deputy Ambassador at the Embassy of Poland in Washington D.C. since 2001. Previously he was director of the North American Department in the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Polish Studies Center Christmas Party

Please come to our annual holiday potluck.

December 9th, 5pm-7pm
Leo R.Dowling International Center

Come and celebrate the holiday with the sharing of the oplatek (Christmas wafer) the sharing of a meal and the singing of Polish Christmas carols.

Please bring a dish to share. The Center will provide ham, turkey, dinner rolls, soft drinks, and all dinner ware. Wine can also be brought to share and will be served by the bartender.

The Good, Bad, and the Vengeful: New Polish Films

Thursday February 26:
Hi, Teresa (Czesc, Tereska) 2002. Directed by Robert Glinski. Starring Aleksandra Gietner and Zbigniew Zamachowski. 86 mins.

Thursday March 4:
The Career of Nikos Dyzma (Kariera Nikosia Dyzmy) 2002. Directed by Jacek Bromski. Starring Anna Przybylska, Cezary Pazura, and Andrzej Grabowski. 105 mins.

Thursday March 11:
Revenge (Zemsta). 2002. Directed by Andrzej Wajda. Starring Roman Polanski, Daniel Olbrychski, Andrzej Seweryn, Janusz Gajos, and Katarzyna Figura. 100 mins.

All films will be shown in Fine Arts 102 at 7pm. Films in Polish with English subtitles. Admission is free.

Grazyna Jonkajtys-Luba Lecture

“The Fate of Poles Deported to the Soviet Union during the Second World War”

March 6, 2pm
Polish Studies Center

Please note that this lecture will be in Polish.

Antony Polonsky Lecture

“Poles, Jews, and the Problems of a Divided Memory”

Friday, March 26, 2pm
Woodburn Hall

Antony Polonsky is currently the Albert Abramson professor of Holocaust Studies at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and Brandeis University. Polonsky has earned numerous honors, awards, and fellowships throughout his career and has published extensively. He is the author of Politics in Independent Poland: The Crisis of Constitutional Government, The Little Dictators: The History of Eastern Europe since 1918, and The Great Powers and the Polish Question, 1941-45.

The debate provoked by the publication of Jan Gross's book Sasiedzi: Historia zaglady zydowskiego miasteczka (Sejny, 2000) and its English translation Neighbors: the Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne (Princeton University Press, 2001) has been the most prolonged and far-reaching of any discussion of the Jewish issue in Poland since the Second World War. It is also probably the most profound examination of any social issue since the end of the communist regime in 1989 and the establishment of a pluralistic and democratic political system. Antony Polonsky, editor of a volume devoted to this controversy, will examine its nature and describe the positions adopted by the various participants. The debate, acrimonious and bad-tempered as it has sometimes been, is a necessary stage in the creation of the democratic and pluralistic Poland. It is part of a reckoning with the past long delayed by the negative impact of communist censorship and taboos. The issues it raises are echoed in many other European countries and have a wide significance in a world in which large numbers of national groups and states are struggling to come to terms with the difficult aspects of their past.

This event is co-sponsored by the Robert A. and Sandra S. Borns Jewish Studies Center, and the Russian and East European Institute.

Andrzej Paczkowski Lecture

Reckoning with the Communist past: The Case of Poland

Friday, April 2nd, 10am
Distinguished Alumni Room, Indiana Memorial Union

Andrzej Paczkowski is Professor at the Institute for Political Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, where he also is a member of the Board of the Institute of National Remembrance. His most recent publication is The Spring Will be Ours: Poland and the Poles from Occupation to Freedom, (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003). He serves as editor of Intermarium: an Online Journal of East Central European Postwar History and on the editorial board of the Harvard Project on Cold War Studies. He co-authored, with Stéphane Courtois, Nicolas Werth, Jean-Louis Panné, Karel Bartosek, and Jean-Louis Margolin, The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression (1999).

Public Opinion About the EU in East-Central Europe Conference

April 2-3

Speakers include: Jack Bielasiak (IU-Bloomington, Political Science), Krzysztof Jasiewicz (Washington and Lee University), and Radoslaw Markowski (Institute of Political Studies, Warsaw).

Co-sponsored by the Polish Studies Center.

Timothy Snyder Lecture

"The First Cold War: Polish Espionage in Soviet Ukraine, 1928-1933"

April 16, 4pm
Ballantine Hall, room 005

After 1926, when a coup d’état returned Józef Pilsudski to power in Poland, the Polish foreign ministry and army began plans to exploit the national question in propaganda and intelligence competitions with the Soviet Union. Between 1928 and 1933, Polish and Ukrainian agents organized diplomatic espionage, border crossings, and sabotage on a considerable scale. These actions, heretofore completely unknown to scholars, seem to have played a role in Stalin's justifications for policies of show trial, famine, and terror in Soviet Ukraine.

Sponsored by Horizons of Knowledge, the Polish Studies Center, the Department of History, and the Russian and East European Institute