Recent Posts

Most Used Categories

Tag: Announcements

You are Here :
Art, Events, Poland - Polish - Polonia, , , , ,

Events at the University of Michigan

Political Science and Music at the University of Michigan
By Raymond Rolak

ANN ARBOR– Two special events will be presented on the campus of the University of Michigan as part of the Center of Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies. On Tuesday, April 17, at 4 p.m., the former President of Poland, Aleksander Kwasniewski, and former Czech Prime Minister, Petr Pithart, will be speaking at the Rackham Auditorium. There will also be a panel dialogue and both will be on the dais addressing: “The European Crisis: A View from Warsaw and Prague.”

The special guests because of their insight and wealth of experiences will offer their own unique perspectives on recent events in Europe. Highlighted will be the challenges that become associated with political changes and successes in emerging democracies. The program is part of the continuing education series of the Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies.

On Wednesday, April 18, 12:00 p.m.-1:30 P.M., CREES and the Center for International Studies will have a noontime concert and enrichment presentation on “Jewish Music in the Time of the Holocaust.” The music of Czech-Jewish composer Pavel Haas will be showcased. Haas managed to compose songs while interred at the Terezín concentration camp. Presenters will include: Timothy Cheek, associate professor of voice, Caroline Helton, assistant professor of voice, Kathryn Goodson, piano and Allen Schrott, bass-baritone.

In an unassociated coincidence of music and politics, 120 years ago, Ignace Jan Paderewski made his first of six visits to the University of Michigan campus to perform one of his renowned piano concerts. The beloved Polish patriot did a benefit performance for women’s sports on February 18, 1892.

The former Prime Minister of Poland in 1919 always was open to discuss and lobby for a free Poland. He amassed a large fortune through his musical enterprises, most of which he donated to the service of Poland and the benefit of needy musicians and Jewish refugees.

Poland - Polish - Polonia, ,

Scholarship Opportunity: East European Studies Junior Scholars’ Training Seminar

East European Studies Junior Scholars’ Training Seminar (JSTS) Program Scholarship

Deadline: The deadline for receipt of this year’s JSTS applications and supporting materials is April 15, 2012. Applicants will be notified approximately six weeks later.

Background Information: East European Studies of the Woodrow Wilson Center and the National Council for Eurasian and East European Research are soliciting applications for the twenty fourth annual training seminar for junior scholars in East European studies, to be held during August, 2012. All domestic transportation, accommodation and meal costs will be covered by the sponsors.

Eligibility: These scholarships are available to U.S. citizens. While Southeast Europe remains a primary focus, projects on Central Europe and the Baltic states are again eligible. Projects should focus on fields in the social sciences and humanities including, but not limited to: Anthropology, History, Political Science, Slavic Languages and Literatures, and Sociology. All projects should aim to highlight their potential policy relevance.

Disciplines represented at JSTS 2011 included: anthropology; history; political science; and, sociology.

Program Description: JSTS successfully combines formal and informal meetings to promote a variety of intellectual exchanges.

Additional Requirements: Successful applicants are expected to submit a five-page paper no later than July 1 on the sources and methodology of their report and the wider significance of their work. (In other words, what was researched, how it was researched, and what it all means.) This paper will serve as the basis for discussion at the seminar.

Application Information: To apply for the Junior Scholars’ Training Seminar (JSTS), the applicant must submit the following:

  • – a completed application form a curriculum vitae (which must include social security number and full date of birth, institution where degree is expected or was received, title of dissertation/thesis, and name and department of academic advisor);
  • – a single page, single-spaced statement of the work you wish to discuss – either the dissertation/thesis or another project;
  • – one letter of recommendation from academic advisor.

Please mail application materials for all grants to:

East European Studies
The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
One Woodrow Wilson Plaza
1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20004-3027

OR send them by E-mail.

Art, Events, , ,

Celebrate 10 Years of One Story at the Literary Debutante Ball

Tickets are now on sale for the One Story Literary Debutante Ball. The One Story Literary Debutante Ball is a benefit celebrating One Story’s 10th anniversary and seven writers who have published their first books in the past year. The ball will feature cocktails, music, dancing, and a silent art auction.

One Story will also be honoring best-selling author Ann Patchett at the ball for her exceptional support of other writers.

All proceeds will benefit One Story, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, and aid it in its mission to support the art form of the short story and the authors who write them. Tickets for the ball start at $75 each.

The One Story Literary Debutante Ball will be held on Friday, April 20th from 7-11 pm at the The Invisible Dog Art Center, 51 Bergen St. (between Court St. & Smith St.), Brooklyn, NY. You may purchase your tickets on-line at One Story.

Poland - Polish - Polonia, Xpost to PGF, , , , ,

Polish American Historical Association Call for Nominations

The Polish American Historical Association (PAHA) has issued a call for nominations for various awards and a young scholar grant. All nominations should be sent to the Chair of the Awards Committee, Dr. Stephen Leahy (Shantou University, China).

Young scholar award nominations must be received by May 1, 2012.

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. This award includes a $500 travel grant to present the paper at PAHA’s 2013 Annual Meeting. The candidate for the award must be a graduate student at the time of the application or nomination.

The following award nominations must be received by July 15, 2012.

Mieczyslaw Haiman Award is offered annually to an American scholar for sustained contribution to the study of Polish Americans.

Oskar Halecki Prize recognizes an important book or monograph on the Polish experience in the United States. Eligibility is limited to works of historical and/or cultural interest, including those in the social sciences or humanities, published in the two years prior to the year of the award.

Skainy Civic Achievement Award honors 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.

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

Distinguished Service Award is given occasionally to a member of PAHA who has rendered valuable and sustained service to the organization.

Kulczycki Prize recognizes outstanding scholarship in a dissertation about the Polish experience in America. The Award includes a subvention to help the winner publish their work.

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.

Kulczycki Prize recognizes an important dissertation on the Polish experience in the United States offered to a graduate student or younger scholar within the first five years after awarding of the doctorate degree to assist in the publication of a book or monograph.

Art, Events, Poland - Polish - Polonia, , ,

Polish-American Heritage Day cross promotes sports and art

Polish-American Heritage Day Part of EMU Basketball Cross-Promotional
By Raymond Rolak

YPSILANTI– On Saturday, February 11, 2012 Eastern Michigan University will be hosting Polish-American Heritage Day along with their scheduled basketball doubleheader. The women will take on Kent State at 2:00 p.m. and the men host perennial Mid-American Conference power Ohio University at 4:30 p.m.

Ethnic Heritage Days are growing area of sports cross-promotion. All the Mid-American Conference teams are finished with non-conference play and looking toward the MAC Championship weekend in Cleveland, March 7-10, 2012.

The EMU women boast high scoring guard Tavelyn James, an All-America candidate, and rebounding whiz Olivia Fouty while the men’s team features Polish national Kamil Janton.

The afternoon will be highlighted with a Polish art show, educational and historical exhibits. Polish dance troupes, folk music and Polish food items will also be featured. Children’s activities will be in abundance and the ever popular EMU mascot, ‘SWOOP’ will entertain. The ‘EMU SPIRIT’ dance team will be conducting a pregame dance tutorial for the attending dance groups.

For out-of-town visitors there is a special basketball package available. Polish fraternal organizations, Polish National Alliance and PRCUA are sponsoring the dance activities. The E-Club, an organization of athletic letter winners will be presenting the Hall of Fame inductees during halftime of the men’s game.

Halftime entertainment will also include a folk dancing spectacular and the song renditions of Polish pop sensation Magda Kaminski.

Included with a game ticket will be a free chance at a $1,000 MacBook among other prizes. This type of cross-promotion has been very successful with Major League Baseball and Minor League Baseball teams that have active ethnic populations in their cities.

Senior 6' 10" center Kamil Janton gets a chance to talk about his NCAA basketball experiences at Eastern Michigan University to broadcaster Tomek Czuprynski of Telewizja-Detroit. Janton, who was born in Tarnow, Poland played high school basketball in suburban Chicago. EMU is hosting the upcoming Polish-American Heritage Day set for Saturday, February 11, 2012. The basketball doubleheader at the Convocation Center will include an art show. Photo by Lars Hjelmroth, Rolco Sports Network
Christian Witness, Perspective, Political, , , , ,

Extend unemployment insurance – action needed

Leaders in the House majority plan a vote on HR 3630—a bill that would slash federal unemployment benefits in every state and cut federal UI benefits by more than half in the Renew unemployment insurance UIstates with the highest unemployment rates. Tell your Members of Congress and Congressional leaders to oppose these reckless and harmful cuts to unemployment insurance, and instead support swift action to fully renew the federal UI program through 2012.

Millions of hardworking Americans—nearly 2 million in January alone, and over 6 million in 2012—will be cut off from the emergency lifeline of federal unemployment insurance, unless Congress acts to fully renew the program before it expires December 31st. In the past three years, federal unemployment insurance has helped more than 17 million Americans while they’ve looked for work in the toughest job market since the Great Depression. Recent Census figures show that federal unemployment insurance helped keep more than 3 million from falling into poverty last year alone.

A January 2010 report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) looked at a variety of strategies for increasing employment and raising the gross domestic product (GDP), which is the market value of all goods and services that reach the consumer. It noted that for every dollar in UI benefits, $1.90 in economic benefit is created. The CBO looked at a variety of strategies to boost the economy — or to keep things from getting worse — such as investing in infrastructure, reducing income taxes, or cutting payroll taxes for companies that hire new people. Increasing aid to the unemployed offered the biggest bang for the buck, according to its estimates. Other studies such as that by Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Analytics, note similar results.

Congress has never cut back or allowed these programs to expire when unemployment was anywhere near this high for this long. Congress must act, and act now.

Tell Congress: Renew the full federal Unemployment Insurance program through 2012 Now! or call toll-free 1-888-245-3381.

Poland - Polish - Polonia, , , , , ,

Discovering a city in the midst of a lost era

Warsaw 1935, a new film which provides an opportunity to view a city and discover an era. Warsaw, the metropolis called “The Paris of the North” in all its prewar glory. The film is a reconstruction in film and realized in 3D!

1935 Warsaw explores the deeper reality of ​​our recent past. Until now we could only view the Warsaw of 1935 through old photographs, just shadows and outlines of the city. These photos only built a partial picture of the beauty, cultural richness, and sense of a Warsaw that existed 75 years ago. It is summer 1935 in Warsaw. We see a day in the life of this beautiful and proud city.

The movie, in three parts:

  • Part One – The action of downtown Warsaw and Marszałkowska Street
  • Part Two – The Saxon Garden and the Old Town.
  • Part Three – The area that became the Warsaw ghetto in its original, natural, and life filled form.

The surprising story of one city … 75 years ago. See it, for the first time. Early 2012.

WARSZAWA 1935 OFICJALNY ZWIASTUN from NEWBORN HD on Vimeo.

Poland - Polish - Polonia, , , , , ,

Poland’s Emigration Museum and the story of immigration

Maritime Station at 1 Polska Street in Gdynia was a port building commissioned in 1933. It served passenger traffic, including thousands of emigres who left Poland to resettle in distant lands. Because of the building’s strong relationship to the history of emigration, and its location at the hub of emigration routes, the building has been revitalized and now houses the Emigration Museum.

The Museum is seeking input for its Portrait Of An Emigrant Collection. This Collection of emigration stories will assist in recreating the history of Polish emigration through family albums, memoirs, and diaries. The collection seeks: Stories of emigrants; Recollections of departures, homesickness, home, family, and work; News of the new world, new people, new habits, and new motherlands; Reports of family life, children, education, learning a foreign language, us and them; Photos of farewells in the old country; Family stories about those who left and those who stayed; and The tales of relatives, acquaintances, and old friends.

Each of these is a start of a new history; the stories and illustrations that make up the collective portrait of the emigration epic. This history composed of individual fate –- ordinary, stormy, and sometimes dramatic is compelling. The Museum is compiling the collection of emigration from the stories of individuals and their archival photos.

Contact the Museum or Mr. Aleksander Gosk by E-mail for more information.

Events, Poland - Polish - Polonia, , , ,

Traveling photographic exhibition, “Katyn: Massacre, Politics, Morality”

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) Golda Meir Library is hosting the traveling photographic exhibition, “Katyn: Massacre, Politics, Morality,” from November 7-27 in the 1st floor east wing of the Library.

The exhibit recounts the execution of 21,857 Polish troops and civilians in the Katyn Forest by the Soviet KGB during World War II, and the decades-long suppression of the truth about the atrocity.

Created by Poland’s Council for the Protection of the Memory of Struggle and Martyrdom, the exhibit debuted last May in the Rotunda of the Russell Senate Office Building in Washington D.C. and has traveled to the Hoover Institute at Stanford University and the Buffalo NY Public Library.

In conduction with the exhibit, the UWM Libraries will host a panel discussion, “The Katyn Forest Massacre: The Crime, the Coverup, the Historical Legacy,” on Wednesday, November 9 at 7 p.m. in the fourth floor Conference Center of the Golda Meir Library, 2311 E. Hartford Ave.

Participants are Douglas W. Jacobson, author of The Katyn Order: A Novel; Michael Mikos, Professor, UWM Dept. of Foreign Languages and Literature; Neal Pease, Professor, UWM Dept. of History; and Donald Pienkos, Professor Emeritus, UWM Dept. of Political Science.

The panel discussion and the exhibit are free and open to the public. For more information or special needs, call 414-229-6202.

Events, Poetry, Poland - Polish - Polonia, , , , , , ,

Miłosz events

California Experiences to be Discussed at Yale
By Raymond Rolak

New York — A celebration and conference will be at the Czeslaw Milosz archive at the Bienecke Library on the Yale campus November 4-5, in New Haven, CT. An exhibition will be on display thru December 17, 2011, titled Exile as Destiny: Czesław Miłosz and America. The manuscripts, documents, and photographs on display are lesser-known aspects of Milosz’s relationship with America. What will be especially analyzed will be the multifaceted relationships with his adopted home in California and fellow émigré authors. How he embraced and distained his translations with the English language will also be discussed.

An academic poetry conference at Claremont McKenna College in Los Angeles regarding the celebrated author just concluded.

Centennial and Poetry of Milosz Featured in N.Y.

An evening of remembrance and poetry will be held at Columbia University on Saturday, October 27, 2011 at 5:30 pm., in the Butler Library. It will be a celebration of the memorabilia and poems of Czeslaw Milosz.

He died in 2004 at the age of 93 and had previously been a professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of California-Berkley from 1961 to 1998.

Milosz gained recognition for his poetry when he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1980. There will also be an exhibition of artifacts and letters opening at the Butler Library.

Controversy always followed him. He refused to categorically identify himself as either a Pole or a Lithuanian. He defected to France in 1951 and immigrated to the United States in 1960.

A collection of his essays published as “To Begin Where I Am” and “The Captive Mind” in 1953 brought him great notoriety. The author will be honored with comments by Professor Helen Vendler of Harvard University. The event will coincide with other multilingual readings of his poetry by members of the Colombia University community. Also featured will be Colombia’s Alan Timberlake and Dr. Anna Frajlich, who will both do readings.

Readings Also in San Francisco

In California, another celebration will be hosted by the Polish Arts and Culture Foundation of San Francisco when they present A Celebration of Milosz on Saturday October 29, at 2:00 PM. at the Main Library’s Koret Auditorium. A panel of literary notables, friends and family will read some of his works representing his European experiences and influences.

Miłosz at Central Connecticut State University

A Miłosz event at Central Connecticut State University (CCSU): “Czesław Miłosz: A Poet of Both Nations.” Yale professor Tomas Venclova will present on Wednesday, November 9th at 7pm in Founders Hall, Davidson Bldg, CCSU, New Britain CT. Professor Venclova is one of the outstanding scholars of Slavic Studies in the world. He was a friend of Polish poet Czesław Miłosz. Professor Venclova is an author of collections of poems, poetry-translations, essays, articles. His poetry has appeared in many languages. He is a recipient of numerous international poetry prizes including Valencia (Slovenia, 1990) and Qinghai (China, 2011), as well as of the Lithuanian National Prize (2000). The event is free and open to the public. Parking is available in campus garages. For more information, please contact the CCSU Polish Studies Department at 860-832-3010, or via E-mail.

The S. A. Blejwas Endowed Chair of Polish and Polish American Studies at CCSU will also be presenting “The Magic Mountain: an American portrait of Czesław Miłosz” on Sunday, November 13th at 4pm in the CCSU Vance Academic Center, Room 105. Celebrating 100th anniversary of Czesław Milosz’s birth, Polish Studies Program presents a documentary about American years in the life of Polish poet and 1980 Nobel Prize winner. Milosz’s own reminiscences and remarks by his friends and students, some of them the most prominent 20th century American intellectuals, complete the portrait of nearly 40 years the poet spent in Berkley, California. This event is also free and the public is cordially invited. For more information, please contact the CCSU Polish Studies Department at 860-832-3010, or via E-mail.

All Right Reserved © 2005 - 2023