Polish Studies at Rice University

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

The Institution

Rice University, consistently ranked one of America's best teaching and research universities, has 2,700 undergraduates and 1,850 graduate students. The students come from all 50 states and about 70 countries; the undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is 6-to-1, the University per student endowment is the fifth largest among American universities

Polish Study Courses

SLAV 320 Contemporary Polish and Central European Politics and Culture @

COURSE DESCRIPTION: Intensive study of Polish and Central European popular culture, literature, and the changing tides of politics. Emphasis on the post-communish period. Taught in English.
COURSE INSTRUCTOR: Skorczewski, D.

SLAV 411 Modern Polish Poetry in Translation @

COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course presents the living poets of Poland, from Nobel Prize winners Czeslaw Milosz (1980) and Wislawa Szymborska (1996) to their youngest competitors, Krzysztof Koehler and Maciej Swietlicki. The course explores how resistance and collaboration, Catholicism and Communism, have shaped and continued a major literary tradition of Europe basing on a selection of poetry in English translations.
COURSE INSTRUCTOR: Skorczewski, D.

Language Instruction

PLSH 101-2 Introduction to Polish I, II @

COURSE DESCRIPTION: Introductory study of Polish with emphasis on speaking and reading. A selection of textbooks and other materials (audio, video, Internet) are used in this beginners' course in the language of Polanski and the Pope.
COURSE INSTRUCTOR: Skorczewski, D.

SLAV 242-243 Polish Drama I-II @

COURSE DESCRIPTION: The reading of Polish nineteenth-and twentieth-century plays with a view to improving students' comprehension of Polish. Equivalent to Second Year Polish. Taught in Polish.
COURSE INSTRUCTOR: Skorczewski, D.

Poland-Related Courses

SLAV 309 Slavic Cultures @

COURSE DESCRIPTION: Interdisciplinary introduction to the main currents of Russian, Czech, and Polish cultures. Key moments in history, social trends, music and the arts, the construction of national mythologies through literature.
COURSE INSTRUCTOR: Skorczewski, D.

SLAV 412 Central and Eastern European Film @

COURSE DESCRIPTION: Based on a selection of the best films by the best directors of the region (Forman, Holland, Kieslowski, Polanski, Szabo, Wajda), this course presents a Central-Eastern European filmmaking against a background of a totalitarian political system.
COURSE INSTRUCTOR: Skorczewski, D.

Faculty

Thompson, Ewa M., Professor, Professor of Slavic, Rice University @@

B.A., University of Warsaw
M.A., Sopot Conservatory of Music
Ph.D., Vanderbilt University
Phone: 713 348-4874 / Fax: . . . / E-Mail: ethomp@owlnet.rice.edu
MAJOR INTERESTS: Russian and Polish literature and culture
POLAND RELATED SCHOLARSHIP:
EDITORIAL WORK

• Editor, Sarmatian Review, Polish Institute of Houston, Inc.

BOOKS

• Witold Gombrowicz, (Katowice: University of Silesia Press, 2002). Translated into Polish by Anna Sierszulska.
• Witold Gombrowicz , (Twayne, 1979).

BOOK REVIEWS

• Continuity and Change in Poland: Conservatism in Polish Political Thought by Rett R. Ludwikowski in Sarmatian Review 13: 1, 1993

RECENT ARTICLES AND BOOK CHAPTERS

• "Leopold Tyrmand, peryferyjność i ruch konserwatywny w Ameryce," (Leopold Tyrmand, American Conservatism and Peripheral Subordination) translated into Polish by Tomasz Kunz, in Życie w przekładzie, edited by Halina Stephan (Krakow: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2002), 131-147
• "On Zygmunt Krasinski's UNDIVINE COMEDY," Chesterton Review, XXVII, 4 (November 2001): 495-501.
• "Życie Na Niby, Czyli Polonistyka w USA," (Pretend Living, that is, Polish Studies in the USA) in Postscriptum, nos.1-2, vol. 9 (2001): 124-129.
• "The Political Activation of Social Groups," in Richard F. Staar, editor, Transition to Democracy in Poland, 2nd ed. (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998), 75--92.
• "Why the Conservative Tradition Is an Important Philosophical Option in Polish Intellectual Life," Periphery, vol. 3, Nos. 1/2 (1997), 30?35.

Mucha, Wacław, Language Consultant, School of Continuing Studies, Rice University

Ph.D., Silesian University, Sosnowiec, 1982
Phone: (713) 348-3219 / Fax: . . . / E-Mail: mucha@rice.edu
MAJOR INTERESTS: Contemporary Russian and Polish literature and culture. New methods of teaching of Russian and Polish.
POLAND RELATED SCHOLARSHIP:
EDITORIAL WORK

• Member of the Editorial Advisory Committee, the Sarmatian Review, Huston, TX

Kimmel, Marek, Professor, Department of Statistics, Rice University @@

Ph.D., Silesian Technical University, 1980
Dr. hab. Jagiellonean University, 1997
Phone: (713) 348-5255 / Fax: . . . / E-Mail: kimmel@stat.rice.edu
MAJOR INTERESTS: Population dynamics, branching processes, statistical genetics, molecular evolution.
POLAND RELATED SCHOLARSHIP:
EDITORIAL WORK

• Member of the Editorial Advisory Committee, the Sarmatian Review, Huston, TX

Visting Faculty

Rybicki, Jan, 1996-97 Kosciuszko Foundation Visiting Professor Professor of Polish Studies

Wilczek, Piotr, 1998-99 Kosciuszko Foundation Visiting Professor of Polish Studies

Koehler, Krzysztof, 1997-98; 1999-2000 Kosciuszko Foundation Visiting Professor of Polish Studies

Skorczewski, Dariusz Andrzej, 2001-2003 Kosciuszko Foundation Visiting Professor of Polish Studies

Polański, Andrzej, Visiting Peofessor of Statistics

Poland-related Resources

• Center for the Study of Languages: The Slavic Page@
  In Slavic Studies, the university offers Polish language and literature. In particular, First Year Polish is offered every year; Advanced Polish is taught as an Independent Study course.