Polish Studies at Indiana University

• The Institution
• Polish Studies Courses
• Language Instruction
• Poland-Related Courses
• Faculty

The Center coordinates an exchange program with Warsaw University that brings many Polish faculty and students to Indiana and sends at least one Indiana University faculty member and graduate student to university-supported exchange positions in Warsaw each year. Also, it sponsors lectures at several Indiana campuses located in centers of Polish-American population, including South Bend, Fort Wayne, and Indianapolis. Cultural programs of the Center include lectures, concerts, film showings, and Polish holiday activities at which students, faculty and townspeople meet and have opportunity to converse in Polish. Academic activities include courses by faculty visiting from Poland, and workshps and conferences sponsored jointly with departments such as Slavics, History, Jewish Studies, Political Science Journalism, and the School of Business.@

The Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures

The Department offers courses designed to meet a wide range of needs and interests in Polish and other Easter European Languages. Advanced language courses are designed not only for the department's majors, but also for students specializing in other disciplines, particularly in the social sciences, natural sciences, and other languages and literatures. The department offers literature and culture courses that require no knowledge of a Slavic or East European language and that can be taken by any student interested in the East European area.

Polish Study Courses

Polish 363-4/563-4 Survey of Polish Literature & Culture I-II @

COURSE DESCRIPTION: I: Polish literature in English translation from its origins to the end of the nineteenth century in its historical and socio-political context. II: Polish literature in English translation from the end of the nineteenth century to the present in the larger European context. Knowledge of Polish not required.
COURSE INSTRUCTOR:

Language Instruction

Polish 101/Polish 501: Elementary Polish I @

COURSE DESCRIPTION: The first semester course in beginning Polish is intended for students who have had no background in Polish. This is a rigorous course that will introduce basic grammar concepts and simple conversational language. A considerable amount of time will be spent on pronunciation practice and reading comprehension in order to prepare students for P102/P502. Students enrolling in this course are expected to spend no less than ~45 minutes a day in out-of-class study time. patterns and building an active vocabulary. 4 credits
COURSE INSTRUCTOR: Howard C.

Polish 102/Polish502: Elementary Polish II @

COURSE DESCRIPTION: The second semester course in the beginning Polish sequence will expand upon grammar concepts learned in the first semester course. Students will be exposed to several 'real life' situations and will be able to function on a simple level in daily spoken Polish. The video course "Uczmy sie polskiego" will be used on a weekly basis. This interactive course has been designed to present students with realistic daily situations and to give them a chance to see how a 'native speaker' would react in such situations. Writing skills learned will include informal and formal letter writing and simple reporting of events.
COURSE INSTRUCTOR: Howard C.

Polish 201-202/Polish503-504: Intermediate Polish II@@

COURSE DESCRIPTION:The course teaches modern standard Polish used by college educated speakers in Poland. Structure and vocabulary acquisition through written exercises, study of word formation, drills, reading and discussion of short stories.
COURSE INSTRUCTOR: Cavar M.

Polish 301-302/Polish 505-506: Advanced Intermediate Polish I @

COURSE DESCRIPTION: Morphological, lexical, and syntactical analysis of a broad spectrum of textual materials with special emphasis on meaning. Development of oral and written fluency and comprehension.

Poland-Related Courses

History J200: World War I @@

COURSE DESCRIPTION: The social-economic, political, and psychological strains of the war traumatized European society, produced the violent ideological movements of communism and fascism, and sowed the seeds for World War II. This course will examine World War I in detail from four main perspectives: diplomatic/military; socioeconomic; personal, and cultural.
COURSE INSTRUCTOR: Shore M.

History J300: Isaac Deutscher's"Non-Jewish Jew" @

COURSE DESCRIPTION: Isaac Deutscher was raised to become a great Talmudic scholar. Instead he became a Polish communist and later a renegade Trotskyite, expelled from the Polish Communist Party in 1932. In February 1958, now living in emigration in England, he told the story of "the non-Jewish Jew" to the World Jewish Congress. There is a Jewish tradition—Deutscher began, citing Spinoza, Heine, Marx, Luxemburg, Trotsky and Freud—of breaking with Jewish tradition.
COURSE INSTRUCTOR: Shore M.

History B323 History of the Holocaust @@

COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course will survey the historical events and intellectual developments leading up to, and surrounding the destruction of European Jewry during World War II. We will examine the Holocaust against the backdrop of modern Jewish and modern German history.

History D300: The Jews of East Europe @

COURSE DESCRIPTION: For centuries, the largest and most influential center of Jewish civilization was housed in the shtetls of Eastern Europe. Not only did the Jewish community of Eastern Europe play a formative role in the history of the region as a whole, but its influence on Jewish culture and identity can still be felt today. Through an examination of the history, culture and politics of the Jews in Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine and Russia, we will see how the "Jews' paradise" of the sixteenth century gradually became the "prison of nations" in the nineteenth century. Some of the topics to be covered include Jewish communal organization, messianic movements, the development and spread of Hasidism, daily life in the shtetl, Yiddish secular culture, and Jewish responses to radical politics. 3 credits
COURSE INSTRUCTOR: Veidlinger J.

History D327: Between Feudalism and Modernity: The Twilight of the Habsburgs 1780-1918@

COURSE DESCRIPTION: Enlightened despotism; Metternichian system; struggle for German unification; Habsburg culture and civilization. German-Austrian, Hungarian, Czechoslovak, South Slavic, Rumanian, and Polish nationalism. Industrialization; Christian socialism and Austro-Marxism; murder at Sarajevo; destruction of the empire; its legacy to Europe. 3 credits.
COURSE INSTRUCTOR: Shore M.

History D328: Eastern Europe in the 20th Century @ @

COURSE DESCRIPTION:A journey through the strange and fascinating land of Eastern Europe. The story of the changes experienced by Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, etc. in an area that was often a mixing bowl, seldom a melting pot, and in a few cases a time bomb. World War I; the peace settlements in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, etc. Parliamentary democracy vs. military dictatorship; irredentism; economic transformation; Nazi domination; Munich; Soviet seizure of power. National communism of Tito, Gomulka, Kádár, etc. Soviet and Western rivalry in Eastern Europe.
COURSE INSTRUCTOR: Bucur-Deckard M.

Political Science Y340: East European Politics @

COURSE DESCRIPTION:War in Kosovo! Economic collapse in Russia! Former Communists in NATO! -- these are the headlines from East Europe over the past year. Yet these simple statements hide a complex reality. The collapse of communism in 1989 brought forth a new political euphoria: peace and democracy in the world were the expected outcomes. Since then, the countries of East Europe have sought to build stable democracies and affluent market economies. In this transition to democracy, they have encountered many problems -- including a bloody war in the Balkans, the revival of ethnic and national hate, and economic chaos and hardship. Still, some of the East European states are well on the way to success.
COURSE INSTRUCTOR: Bielasiak, J.

Russian 353 Central European Cinema@

COURSE DESCRIPTION: Broad cultural overview of Central European cinema, highlighting major developments of cinema in Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, and the former Republics of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia in the post-Stalin era. Special attention will be given to the individual style and aesthetics of several major film directors.
COURSE INSTRUCTOR: Kiziria D.

Faculty

Bielasiak, Jack - Professor, Department of Political Science, Indiana University, Bloomington@ @

Ph.D., Cornell University, 1975
Phone: (812)855-5662 / Fax: (812)855-2027 / E-Mail: bielasia@indiana.edu
MAJOR INTERESTS: Comparative politics and international relations with major emphasis on the transformation of communist societies and political structures in East Europe; political participation and decision-making processes and the political crises in Poland.
POLAND RELATED SCHOLARSHIP:
BOOKS

• Polish Politics: Edge of the Abyss, with Simon, M., New York: Praeger, 1984.
• Poland Today: The State of the Republic, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1981.

ARTICLES/CHAPTERS

• "Determinants of public opinion differences on EU accession in Poland." in Europe-Asia Studies, Dec, 2002
• "Past and Present in Transitional Voting: Electoral Choices in Post-Communist Poland," with Blunck, D. in Party Politics, 8, 2002, pp. 563-585
• "Poland's Transition as Political Repolarization," Hungarian Studies Quarterly, 14:2, Fall, 2000, pp. 259-273
• "Poland's Politics" in Sabrina Ramet, ed., Eastern Europe: Politics, Culture and Society Since 1939 Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998
• "Solidarity's Self-Organization, The Crisis of Rationality and Legitimacy in Poland," in East European Politics and Societies, vol. 4(3) 1990.
• "The Dilemma of Political Interests in the Post-Communist Transition," in Polish Road from SocialismW. Conner and Ploszojski, eds., Sharpe, 1992.
• "Institution Building in a Transformative System: Party Fragmentation in Poland's Parliament," in Comparative Legislative Studies Lawrence Lanley, ed., International Political Science Association, 1993.
• "The Limits of Reform: The Political Economy of `Normalized Poland,'" in Political Implications of Economic Reform in Communist Systems, Donna Bahry and Joel Moses, eds., New York University Press, 1990.
• "Recruitment Policy, Elite Integration and Political Stability in People's Poland," Maurice Simon and Roger Kanet, eds., Policy and Politics in Gierek's Poland, Boulder, Colorado, Westview Press, 1980, pp. 95-134
• "Polish Politics: The Permanence of Crisis," American Politcal Science Association, Washington DC, August 28-31, 1980

COURSES

• East European Politics

Bucur-Deckard, Maria - Assistant Professor, Department of History, Indiana University, Bloomington @@@

Ph.D., Illinois University, 1996
Phone: (812) 855-1993 / Fax: . . . / E-Mail: mbucur@indiana.edu
MAJOR INTERESTS: Southeast Europe, modern Europe, and gender.
POLAND RELATED SCHOLARSHIP:
EXHIBITIONS

• Behind the Iron Curtain: Poster Art from Poland and Romania, with Wiles, T., Bloomington, Indiana University, 2000

COURSES

• Eastern Europe in the 20th Century

Feldstein, Ronald - Professor, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Indiana University, Bloomington @

Ph.D., Princeton University, 1973
Phone: (812) 855-9906 / Fax: . . . / E-Mail: feldstei@indiana.edu
MAJOR INTERESTS: Accentology; morphophonology; historical phonology.
POLAND-RELATED SCHOLARSHIP:
DISSERTATION

• "The Prosodic System of Common Slavic"

COURSES

• Polish 201
• Polish 503