Center for Polish Studies

Working with partners in the US and Poland, Dr. Andrew Kier Wise, Professor of History and Chair, Center for Polish Studies, and Ann Robinson, Executive Director of Global Programs, launched Daemen’s four-week study abroad program in Poland in June 2013. Dr. Wise accompanied students in 2013-2015. Brian Hammer from the Department of Visual & Performing Arts, co-led the trip in 2015, and he accompanied the student group in 2016. Each student earns 6 credits – 3 credits in History and 3 credits in International Service Learning. Details for the Study Abroad Program in Poland can be found here.

Since 2013, twenty-four Daemen students have participated in the program, in which students study Polish history and culture. The History course includes classroom lectures and site visits in Warsaw, Kraków, and Przemyśl in Poland, as well as Lviv, Ukraine. The Service Learning course involves historic preservation projects in Poland. The first project, now completed, involved the mapping and photographing of a Jewish cemetery in Przemyśl. Here are some reports about our Study Abroad Program in the local media and in Poland:

• Erika Carlson, “Someone You Should Know: Resident travels to Poland, helps complete project,” Cheektowaga Bee (18 September 2014) 
• “Daemen students delve into Poland’s history and cultural heritage,” Am-Pol Eagle (n.d., 2014)
• Steve Dlugosz, “Study abroad program in Poland serves as 'trip of a lifetime' for some Daemen College students, faculty,” Am-Pol Eagle (15 September 2015): 1, 5;  
• “Kudos to Daemen College,” Am-Pol Eagle (n.d., 2013) 
• Tomasz Pudłocki, “Amerikanie z Buffalo w Przemyślu i we Lwowie,” Nasz Przemyśl (September 2015): 36.
• Tomasz Pudłocki, “Konstruowanie świata wzajemnej współpracy. Z Andrew K. Wisem, profesorem Daemen College ze Stanów Zjednoczonych Ameryki rozmawia Tomasz Pudłocki,” Nasz Przemyśl (October 2014): 34-35.

A description of the completed Service Learning project in Poland and the work of all participating students, faculty, and community members (for example, Dr. Chana Kotzin, Community Archives Project Director, Jewish Buffalo Archives Project) can be found at the following links at:

• An Inventory of Przemyśl's Jewish Cemetery

Data from the Service Learning project can be found at An Inventory of Przemyśl's Jewish Cemetery

Funding

In addition to outside grants, students have benefited from internal funding at Daemen College. Students have received several Think Tank Grants for collaborative research with faculty while in Poland and each year the Polish Studies Center provides three travel grants to defray costs for students participating in the Study Abroad Program.

• Two students, Jordan Sieracki (2013) and Collin Buszka (2015) received Tomaszkiewicz-Florio grants from the Kosciuszko Foundation for study at Jagiellonian University during the summer.
• A third student (Caitlyn Ebert, 2013) received a Gilman Award for study in Poland. Read more about Jordan and Caitlyn 
• Social Work major Ellen Banks was the first Sabatino Scholar in 2015. The Charles Sabatino Study Abroad Scholarship helped fund her trip to Poland in 2015.  

Students taking part in the Study Abroad Program in Poland have also used their time in Poland to gain invaluable career experience. History major Kaleigh Ratliff completed an internship in Public History at the National Museum of Przemyśl in March 2013. Kaleigh later earned an MA in Museum Studies at George Washington University. Read about Kaleigh’s experience in Poland and how it impacted her career.

History major Emily Kraft conducted original research for her senior thesis on the preservation and exhibition of Jewish heritage in Poland, which she successfully defended in December 2015. Emily is now pursuing an MA in Museum Studies at Syracuse University. Read Emily’s description of her experiences in Poland in The Am-Pol Eagle

Study Abroad students have also presented the results of the Service Learning project at the Polish Arts Club of Buffalo in 2013, and the Daemen Academic Festival in 2014 and 2015. Here is a report about the students’ presentation at the Polish Arts Club. The five students who took part in the Study Abroad Program in 2013 also published an essay in the book Polska wielokulturowa: wspόłistnienie kultur polskiej i żydowskiej w xx wieku/Multicultural Poland: Coexisting of Polish and Jewish Cultures in the 20^th Century (2013).

The Center has developed opportunities for students and faculty with the following institutions and foundations:

• American Studies Center, University of Warsaw 
• East European State Higher School (PWSW) (Przemyśl)
• Foundation for Holocaust Education Projects 
• Institute of History, Jagiellonian University (Kraków) 
• International Institute for Jewish Genealogy 
• Polish Jewish Cemeteries Restoration Project
• Remembrance and Reconciliation, Inc. 
• Society of Friends of Learning in Przemyśl 

The Center has collaborative relationships with faculty at Jagiellonian University (Kraków). Professor Tomasz Pudłocki was a Visiting Professor of History at Daemen College in Fall 2015 as a Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence.  

Professor Pudłocki also is the on-site coordinator for our Study Abroad Program in Poland. In spring semester 2018, Dr. Andrew Wise will teach courses at the Institute of History at Jagiellonian in its new program, Studies in Central and Eastern Europe: Histories, Cultures and Societies. Click here for more information about this program 

Dr. Lisa Parshall (History & Political Science Department) taught a course on American democracy for graduate students at the University of Warsaw in summer 2017 as the first Daemen participant in a faculty exchange with the American Studies Center. This builds on several years of collaboration with faculty at the University (Dr. Sławomir Józefowicz) in conjunction with the Poland Study Abroad Program and community programming at Daemen. For more on Dr. Parshall’s experiences in Poland, click here 

In Fall 2017, Dr. Karolina Krasuska spent six weeks at Daemen as the first scholar from the American Studies Center to participate in this exchange. During her time at Daemen, Dr. Krasuska co-taught a course with Dr. Wise (HST 206: 20^th Century Europe), and she also delivered several public lectures.  

The Center and its affiliated faculty are dedicated to bringing international scholars to Daemen College for academic conferences and discussions of timely topics related to Polonia, Poland, and the broader region of Central and Eastern Europe.

Public lectures (in conjunction with the History & Politics Speaker Series)

• Karolina Krasuska (“The Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw,” 3 October 2017) 
• Yaron Jean (“International Civil Wars and Forced Population Movements: Some Reflections from Europe Between the Two World Wars,” 16 February 2017)
• Sławomir Józefowicz (“The Trans-Atlantic Populist Turn: Origins and Interpretations,” 13 September 2016) and other public lectures in Buffalo co-sponsored by the Center 
• Erica Lehrer (“Jewish Poland Revisited: Heritage Tourism in Unquiet Places,” 26 October 2015): 
• Robert Blobaum (“The Collapse of Empires: The View from Warsaw,” 19 September 2015) 
• Annamaria Orla-Bukowska (“The Other Side of the Coin: The Righteous Among the Nations of the World,” 8 November 2014) 
• Regina Grol, as joint guest speaker for Dr. Shirley Peterson’s course, LIT 329 Imagining Trauma in Literature (“Transferred Trauma: The Second Generation,” 15 September 2014): 
• Tomasz Pudłocki (“Family and Nation, or Equality of Rights? Women in Galician Society, 1867-1914,” 24 April 2014 & “I Judge the Poles by Their Enemies: Gilbert Keith Chesterton and Poland, 1918-1945,” 25 April 2014)
• Chana Kotzin (“The Jewish Community of Greater Buffalo: A Pictorial History,” 8 April 2014)
• Tomasz Pudłocki & John Hartman (“Galicia: One Land, Three Nations,” 23 November 2013):
• Norman Weinberg (“Poland’s Jews Before, During and After the Shoah: Reclaiming Sacred Jewish Heritage in Poland,” 26 October 2012)

Exhibitions and Other Events

• Exhibition. Nikifor. Exhibition of Watercolors. 10 September-2 October 2015. In collaboration with faculty from the Visual and Performing Arts Department (Brian Hammer, Dennis Barraclough, and Laura Watts) and Jacek Frączak (Missouri State University). Co-sponsored and co-funded by the Polish Arts Club of Buffalo, with primary funding from Collegiate Village.

This exhibition was covered extensively in local media and in Poland:

• “Naive Painter Nikifor Promoted in Daemen College Exhibition,”(2 October 2015) 
• Jaroslaw K. Radomski, “Exhibit shows beauty Nikifor created out of poverty,” Am-Pol Eagle 56, no. 51 (1 October 2015): 1, 6.
• “Cykl wystaw Nikifora w USA,” onet.wiadomości (9 September 2015), http://wiadomosci.onet.pl/kraj/cykl-wystaw-nikifora-w-usa/8txrn9
• “Cykl wystaw Nikifora w USA,” Dziennik Związkowy (9 September 2015), http://dziennikzwiazkowy.com/kultura/cykl-wystaw-nikifora-w-usa/
• “Cykl wystaw prac Nikifora w USA. Pokażą także film,” wyborcza.pl (9 September 2015) 
• “The Grand Opening,” Am-Pol Eagle (September 2015) 
• Tomasz Pudłocki, “Nikifor w Buffalo,” Kurier Plus (19 September 2015): 12 
• Tomasz Pudłocki, “Nikifor w zaprzyjaźnionej amerykańskiej uczelni,” Życie Podkarpackie (21 September 2015), 
• “Trzy razy Nikifor w USA,” Culture.pl (September 2015), 
• “USA Exhibitions for Naïve Art Icon Nikifor,” Culture.pl (September 2015) 

• Roundtable. Ukraine Crisis Roundtable. 26 April 2014. In collaboration with Ukraine Crisis Response Buffalo and the Permanent Chair of Polish Culture at Canisius College.
• Dramatic Reading. Student presentations of the play “Who Returned My Soul” at Daemen (produced by Profesor Robert Waterhouse and directed by Professor Chris Brandjes) in March 2014. In collaboration with the Foundation for Holocaust Education Projects.
• Exhibition. Drawing the Banality of Evil: An Exhibition of Works by Jacek Frączak. (16-18 April 2013).

Brian Hammer- Instructor of Art History, Department of Visual & Performing Arts  

Brian Hammer led the Study Abroad trip to Poland in 2015 and 2016. At Daemen, he coordinated the exhibition of artworks by Nikifor (2015)  and Wiesław Skibiński (2017). He has also delivered public presentations on the Veit Stoss altarpiece (St. Mary’s Basilica, Kraków) at Daemen College and at the Polish Arts Club of Buffalo.

Shawn Kelley- Professor, Department of Philosophy & Religious Studies 

Dr. Shawn Kelley is Chair of the Department of Religion and Philosophy and the Core Director. His teaching interests include the Bible, interfaith dialogue, the Holocaust and Genocide studies. He has published a book on the racial and anti-Semitic ideas found in formative biblical scholarship (Racializing Jesus: Race, Ideology and the Formation of Modern Biblical Scholarship) and on genocide studies and the Bible (Genocide, the Bible and Biblical Scholarship). He is currently working on a volume which employs genocide theory to analyze the New Testament.

Penny Messinger- Associate Professor of History/Chair, History & Political Science Department 

Dr. Penny Messinger teaches classes on American history, women’s history, women’s studies, and global women’s issues. She is Chair of the Department of History & Political Science and directs the Women’s Studies program. Dr. Messinger has been instrumental in developing the History & Politics Event Series and other co-curricular programming at Daemen. Her research, with Dr. Andrew Wise, focuses on the lives and radical political activism of Boris (1866-1947) and Dr. Anna Mogilova Reinstein (1866-1948). Their experiences coming of age in eastern Europe in the late 19^th century sparked their efforts to create revolutionary change on a global scale through radical organizations and institutions that included the (Russian) People’s Will movement in the 1880s and the (US) Socialist Labor Party (SLP) after their arrival in Buffalo in 1891 & 1892. During their time in the US, both Reinsteins were deeply engaged with Buffalo’s Polish diasporic community. In addition to party-building work for the SLP and editing the Polish-language newspaper Siła, Anna maintained a thriving obstetrical practice for immigrant women and children, many of them from Poland. Likewise, Boris was a labor organizer and agitator before he returned to Russia to join the Bolshevik Revolution and, later, the Soviet government.  

Robert Morace- Distinguished Professor, English Department 

Robert Morace, Distinguished Professor of English at Daemen College, was Senior Fulbright Lecturer at Warsaw University from 1985 to 1987. The author or editor of six books on contemporary fiction, he has recently become especially interested in transatlantic diaspora communities and their literature(s). He has long been consulting editor for Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction and more recently has served as advisor to two volumes in the Contemporary Literary Criticism series. He also co-chaired, with Carrie Braemen (University at Buffalo) the 11th Biennial Symbiosis: Transatlantic Literary & Cultural Relations Conference (2017, Amherst, New York). Professor Morace currently serves on the advisory board for Symbiosis: A Journal of Literary and Cultural Relations.

Lisa Parshall- Associate Professor of Political Science, History & Political Science Department

Dr. Parshall is an Associate Professor of Political Science specializing in American politics, public policy, public law and judicial behavior. As the first Daemen faculty member participating in the faculty exchange with the American Studies Center  at the University of Warsaw, Dr. Parshall taught Democracy in America: Critical Perspectives at the ASC-UW in Spring 2017 and gave a public lecture on her forthcoming book on U.S. presidential nominating reform. Read about Dr. Parshall’s experiences in Poland.

Ann Robinson- Executive Director, Global Programs 

Charlie Wesley - Assistant Professor, English Department  

Dr. Wesley's teaching and scholarly interests relevant to the Center focus on exile and refugee literature, censorship, and Human Rights.

Andrew Kier Wise- Professor of History, History & Political Science Department/Chair, Polish Studies Center 

Dr. Andrew Kier Wise teaches courses in World and European History, with a special focus on Poland and Russia. He has authored several book chapters and articles on the history of Poland, including five articles in The Polish Review. His two monographs that deal with Poland are Aleksander Lednicki: A Pole Among Russians, a Russian Among Poles. Polish-Russian Reconciliation in the Revolution of 1905 (2003) and Feliks Koneczny and Civilizational Fundamentalism in Poland (forthcoming, 2018). His current research (in collaboration with Dr. Penny Messinger) deals with the lives and radical political activism of Buffalo residents Boris and Anna Reinstein. He received the General Pulaski Association Educator Award (2015) and recognition by Am-Pol Eagle as a “Citizen of the Year” (2013). He currently serves as a board member for the Polish Arts Club of Buffalo, the Permanent Chair of Polish Culture at Canisius College, and the Kosciuszko Foundation, Western New York.

Affiliated Faculty in Poland

The Center and its affiliated faculty are dedicated to bringing international scholars to Daemen College for academic conferences and discussions of timely topics related to Polonia, Poland, and the broader region of Central and Eastern Europe.

Dr. Sławomir Józefowicz- International Mobility Coordinator, American Studies Center, University of Warsaw 

Dr. Józefowicz is a senior lecturer at the American Studies Center (ASC) and a guest lecturer at the Institute of Political Science, University of Warsaw.  He teaches courses in political thought, contemporary ideologies, populism and radical politics, and American society. Since 2016 he has also served as the International Mobility Coordinator at the ASC. Since 2000 Dr. Józefowicz has been lecturing on the Polish historical and political experience to foreign audiences both in Poland and abroad. In this role, he occasionally lectures at Polonicum - University of Warsaw and the European Academy of Diplomacy in Warsaw, and cooperates with the Daemen College Study Abroad Program. As the Kosciuszko Foundation Visiting Fellow at the State University of New York at Buffalo he taught courses within the Polish Studies Program in 2007/08 and 2008/09. In September 2016, he delivered presentations on various themes at several institutions in the Buffalo area: Daemen College, Canisius College and Villa Maria College.  

Dr. Józefowicz is a graduate of the Institute of Political Science at the University of Warsaw, and he also holds a Ph.D from the Institute of Political Studies (Polish Academy of Sciences, 1999). In 1994-1996, he served as the Coordinator of the Higher Education Support Program and several scholarship programs at the Stefan Batory Foundation. He was a Fellow of the USAID professional program (1995) and the Fulbright Summer Institute (1997). He was also a scholar and grant holder at the University of London, Birkbeck College (1992), the New School for Social Research and UC Berkeley (1993).  His fields of study include political theory and thought, and American political culture. His publications include "Republika. Rozważania o przemianach archetypu" (with S. Filipowicz and N. Gładziuk), in The Republic. Deliberations on the Changing Archetype (Warszawa 1995) and "Demokracja: rządy rozumu czy polityczna poprawność" (with. S. Filipowicz and P. Perczyński), in Democracy: Reign of Reason or Political Correctness (Warszawa 2001).  Dr. Józefowicz worked as a researcher at the Polish Academy of Sciences (Institute of Political Studies, 1991-2005) and as an academic teacher at the Institute of Political Science, University of Warsaw (2000-2013). He was also co-editor of the bi-yearly journal Przegląd Europejski - The European Review (2000-2005), and a guest lecturer at Pułtusk School for Humanities (1997 – 2005) and Collegium Civitas (2000-2007, 2009-2010). 

Dr. Karolina Krasuska- Assistant Professor, American Studies Center, University of Warsaw Dr. Karolina Krasuska is Assistant Professor at American Studies Center at the University of Warsaw, Poland and the founding director of the research unit Gender/Sexuality at the ASC. She is the author of a monograph examining modernist poetry from a transnational, gender-oriented perspective Płeć i naród: Translokacje [Gender and nation: Translocations], Warsaw 2012 and a co-editor and co-author of the pioneer Encyklopedia gender, Warsaw 2014. She is also the Polish translator of Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble (Uwikłani w płeć, Warszawa 2008). Her newest publication is a co-edited volume (with Andrea Peto and Louise Hecht) Women and the Holocaust: New Perspectives and Challenges, Warsaw 2015. Currently, she is working on a project on gendered modes of the 21^st-century Jewish-American fiction.

Professor Tomasz Pudłocki- Professor of History, Jagiellonian University, Kraków 

​​Academic Conferences

• “For Your Freedom and Ours.” Polonia and the Struggle for Polish Independence. Planned for September 2018. This conference will commemorate the 100th anniversary of Polish independence. Presentations will deal with the Polish diaspora and its role in the long struggle that culminated in the creation of a new Polish state in 1918. While related conference activities will have a special focus on Polonia in Buffalo and other communities in Western New York and southern Ontario, conference sessions will deal with all diaspora communities – from Moscow (Russia) to São Paulo (Brazil) and beyond.
• Death of Empires: A Multidisciplinary Conference on World War I (September 2015). This international conference was organized by faculty from the English Department (Dr. Nancy Marck and Dr. Hamish Dalley), Visual & Performing Arts Department(Professor Robert Waterhouse), and History & Political Science Department (Dr. Penny Messinger).

Our Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence for Fall 2015, Tomasz Pudłocki, was also one of our collaborators for this international conference. The conference keynote speaker, Professor Robert Blobaum, spoke on “The Collapse of Empires: The View From Warsaw During World War I.” 

+plus Polish Studies

Explore the important role of Poland in world history – with a special focus on the modern era – through coursework, study abroad, and service learning. This +plus cluster features the unique opportunity for students to learn more about Polish culture and to experience life in Poland today through study abroad. Select THREE courses from the following list. All courses are core-approved. Students may also propose related coursework from other institutions or relevant internships as substitutions. Underlined courses are offered each summer as part of the study abroad program in Poland.

• HST 206 20th Century Europe
• HST/IND 325 Introduction to Polish Culture 
• PHI/REL 309 The Holocaust
• HST 328 Multicultural Poland: History & Public Memory
• IND 348 International Service Learning (in Poland)

For more information, contact Dr. Andrew Kier Wise, Professor of History/Chair, Center for Polish Studies.