Polish Studies at University of Michigan

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

Center for Russian and East European Studies (CREES)

Polish Study Courses

HIST 482 Many Polands: A history of multiculturalism in northeastern europe. @

COURSE DESCRIPTION: The study of polish history and culture and that of the Jews who have lived in poland for about a millenium.
COURSE INSTRUCTOR: Porter, B.

HIST 745 Seminar in Polish and East European History @

COURSE DESCRIPTION: This seminar is designed for doctoral students who would like to carry out a major research project dealing with the history of northeastern Europe (understood to include the territories now delineated by Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, or Romania).
COURSE INSTRUCTOR: Porter, B.

International Business 568. Business Issues in Transitional Economies @ @

COURSE DESCRIPTION: The course examines the principal issues encountered by foreign and local businesses in economies moving from a centrally planned to a capitalist market system.

POLISH 325. Polish Literature in English to 1890. @

COURSE DESCRIPTION: The course surveys the development of Polish literature in terms of individual authors and major literary movements from the beginning until 1890. Individual critical analysis of texts required. A knowledge of Polish is NOT required. All readings in English translation.
COURSE INSTRUCTOR: Carpenter B.

POLISH 326. Polish Literature in English: 1890 to Present. @

COURSE DESCRIPTION: The course covers the period from 1890 until the present. It surveys the development of Polish authors and major literary movements. Individual critical analyses of texts required.
COURSE INSTRUCTOR: Carpenter B.

POLISH 425. Polish Literature in English. @

COURSE DESCRIPTION: The course surveys the development of Polish literature in terms of individual authors and major literary movements from the beginning until 1900. Individual critical analysis of texts required. A knowledge of Polish is NOT required. All readings in English translation.
COURSE INSTRUCTOR: Carpenter B.

POLISH 426. Polish Literature in English. @

COURSE DESCRIPTION: This is a continuation of Polish 425, although there is no prerequisite. The course covers the period from 1890 until the present. It surveys the development of Polish authors and major literary movements. Individual critical analyses of texts required. A knowledge of Polish is NOT required. All reading in English translation.
COURSE INSTRUCTOR: Carpenter B.

Polish 621. Directed Reading of Polish Literature @

COURSE DESCRIPTION: The course surveys the development of Polish literature in terms of individual authors and major literary movements from the beginning until 1890. Individual critical analysis of texts required. A knowledge of Polish is NOT required. All readings in English translation.
COURSE INSTRUCTOR: Carpenter B.

Polish 832. Seminar in Polish Literature @@

COURSE DESCRIPTION: The course is designed as a workshop in literary translation from Polish into English. It includes a variety of texts: novels, short stories, drama, memoirs, criticism and poetry. The choice of texts will accommodate the students' particular interests and individual translation projects. Special attention will be paid to problems of voice, syntax, idioms, word choice, sound patterns, metrics and cultural idiosyncrasies.
COURSE INSTRUCTOR: Carpenter B.

Language Instruction

POLISH 121/122 First-Year Polish. @

COURSE DESCRIPTION: Introductory course presenting basic grammatical information and vocabulary. Course is geared toward active language use through oral drills and conversational practice. Conversations and discussions include a cultural component to familiarize students with Polish language. literature and culture through translation, music, and video presentations.
COURSE INSTRUCTOR: Malachowska-Pasek E.

POLISH 221/222 Second-Year Polish. @

COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course builds on work done in POLISH 121/122, First-Year Polish, and assumes a practical knowledge of the grammatical structure of the language. Emphasis is placed on developing increased competence in speaking and writing, asecondly on reading skills. .
COURSE INSTRUCTOR: Westwalewicz P.

POLISH 321/322 Third-Year Polish. @@

COURSE DESCRIPTION: The course contents cover the following range of issues: food and drink, health, travel, leisure activities holidays, living styles, news. All exercises and activities will be related to these topics. Students will practice vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, and intonation of Polish language. Its particular emphasis is on conversational Polish.
COURSE INSTRUCTOR: Malachowska-Pasek E.

POLISH 421/422 Fourth-Year Polish I, II. @@

COURSE DESCRIPTION: Fourth-Year Polish aims at developing both reading and spelling fluency by building idiomatic skills and studying culture as it is reflected in linguistic patterns and grammatical structures.
COURSE INSTRUCTOR: Westwalewicz P.

POLISH 450. Directed Polish Reading @

COURSE DESCRIPTION: The course is designed for students who wish to read Polish texts in the original. Readings are selected individually by students in consultation with the instructor, and they cover different fields including literature, art, philosophy, journalism, and history.
COURSE INSTRUCTOR: Carpenter B.

Polish 622. Directed Reading in Polish Literature @

COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course is designed for students who have completed two years of Polish language. Assignments will consist of reading in the Polish original of texts in various fields according to the needs of the student: literature, folklore, linguistics,social sciences, etc.

Poland-Related Courses

HIST 331. Eastern Europe in the 20th and 21th Centuries @

COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course will explore the dramatic history of northeastern Europe (the lands now included within Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary) from 1918 to the present day. The people of this region experienced glorious moments such as the birth of independent nation-states after WWI and the overthrow of communism in 1989, but they also suffered through decades of oppression by regimes of both the right and the left. Most horrifically, they stood at the very center of the mid 20th century's violence, enduring the full terror of WWII, the Shoah, and Stalinism.
COURSE INSTRUCTOR: Porter B.

HIST 383. Modern Jewish History to 1880 @

COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course surveys Jewish history in Europe, America, and the Middle East from the mid-seventeenth century to the 1870s. It begins with the emergence of West European Jews from cultural and social isolation, discusses their political emancipation, and traces their efforts to modernize Jewish ritual and belief. The focus then shifts to Eastern Europe, where the world of tradition persisted much longer. The lectures on Eastern Europe will focus on the religious and social character of Jewish life in Poland and Russia, the development of Hasidism, and the first glimmerings of enlightenment in the mid-nineteenth century.
COURSE INSTRUCTOR: Endelman T.

HIST 438. Eastern Europe from 1500 to 1900 @

COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course surveys Jewish history in Europe, America, and the Middle East from the mid-seventeenth century to the 1870s. It begins with the emergence of West European Jews from cultural and social isolation, discusses their political emancipation, and traces their efforts to modernize Jewish ritual and belief. The focus then shifts to Eastern Europe, where the world of tradition persisted much longer. The lectures on Eastern Europe will focus on the religious and social character of Jewish life in Poland and Russia, the development of Hasidism, and the first glimmerings of enlightenment in the mid-nineteenth century.
COURSE INSTRUCTOR: Porter B.

HIST 652 Studies in East European History @

COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course provides an intensive survey of the scholarly literature on the history of northeastern Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries, including roughly the territory now delineated by Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania.
COURSE INSTRUCTOR: Porter, B.A.

SLAV 225. Arts and Cultures of Central Europe @

COURSE DESCRIPTION: The course is an introduction to the rich cultures of the peoples of Central Europe (Croats, Czechs, Hungarians, Jews, Poles, Serbs, and Slovaks) seen against the background of two world wars, communism and its recent disintegration. Culturally vibrant, Central Europe reveals the tragic destiny of twentieth-century civilization which gave rise to two totalitarian systems: fascism and communism.
COURSE INSTRUCTOR: Carpenter B.

FACULTY

Carpenter, Bogdana Professor, Department of Slavic Language and Literatures, University of Michigan @

Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley, 1974
Phone: (734) 763-5715 / Fax: (734) 647-2127 / E-Mail: bogdana@umich.edu
MAJOR INTERESTS: Professor Carpenter's research focuses on 20th century Polish literature with special interest in poetry and translation. Her other interests include Polish and European avant-garde, and modern European drama and poetry.
POLAND RELATED SCHOLARSHIP:
PUBLICATIONS

• "Zbigniew Herbert, the Poet as Witness," The Polish Review, 32 (1987), 5-14.
• "Monumenta Polonica: The First Four Centuries of Polish Poetry,"Ann Arbor: Michigan Slavic Publications, 1989.

BOOKS

• Translation: Zbigniew Herbert, Selected Poems of Zbigniew Herbert, Oxford University Press, Incorporated, 1977
• Poetic Avant-Garde in Poland, 1918-1939,University of Washington Press, 1983
• Translation: Zbigniew Herbert, Report from the Besieged City and Other Poems, HarperCollins Publishers, 1985
• Monumenta Polonica: The First Four Centuries of Polish Poetry, Michigan Slavic Publications, 1989
• Translation: Zbigniew Herbert, Still Life with Bridle, HarperCollins Publishers, 1991
• Translation: Zbigniew Herbert, Mr. Cogito, HarperCollins Publishers, 1993
• Translation: Zbigniew Herbert, Mister Cogito, HarperCollins Publishers, 1995
• Translation:Zbigniew Herbert, Elegy for the Departure and Other Poems, HarperCollins Publishers, 1999
• Translation:Zbigniew Herbert, The King of the Ants, New York: Ecco Press, 1999
• Czeslaw Milosz's To Begin Where I Am. Selected Essays. Edited and Introduced by Bogdana Carpenter and Madeline Levine. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2001.

COURSES

• Polish Translation Workshop
• Polish Literature in English to 1890.
• Polish Literature in English: 1890 to Present
• Seminar in Polish Literature

Endelman, Todd Professor, Department of History, University of Michigan @ @

Ph.D. Harvard University, 1976
Phone: (734) 764-7308 / Fax: . . . / E-Mail: endelman@umich.edu
MAJOR INTERESTS: The social history of the Jews in Western Europe and Anglo-Jewish history.
POLAND RELATED SCHOLARSHIP:
COURSES

• Modern Jewish History to 1880

Malachowska-Pasek, Ewa Professor, Department of Polish Language and Literatures, University of Michigan @@

M.A., Polish Philology, University of Warsaw, 1987
Phone: (734) 647-2132 / Fax: . . . / E-Mail: ewamm@umich.edu
MAJOR INTERESTS:
POLAND RELATED SCHOLARSHIP:
COURSES

• First-Year Polish
• Third-Year Polish

Michalowski, Piotr Professor, Department of Ancient Near Eastern Studies, University of Michigan @

Ph. D., Yale University, 1976
M.A., University of Warsaw, 1968
Phone: (734) 764-0314 / Fax: (734) 747-0157 / E-Mail: piotrm@umich.edu
MAJOR INTERESTS: Polish Culture
POLAND RELATED SCHOLARSHIP:
EDITED MONOGRAPHS

• Translation (from the Polish) of Stefan Amsterdamski, Between Experience and Metaphysics, Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science 35, Dortrecht-Boston, 1975.

BOOKS REVIEWS

• Oriental Studies in the Sixty Years of Independent Poland,Warsaw, 1983

Porter, Brian Associate Professor, Department of History, University of Michigan @ @

Ph.D., University of Winsconsin, 1994
Phone: (734) 764-6803 / Fax: . . . / E-Mail: baporter@umich.edu
MAJOR INTERESTS: 19th and 20th century Poland.
POLAND RELATED SCHOLARSHIP:
HONORS

• Received the Oskar Halecki Prize from the Polish Institute for Arts and Sciences in America for best new book on East European History for When Nationalism Began to Hate (Oxford, 2000).

PUBLICATIONS

• "Patriotism and Prophecy in 19^th Century Poland" The Catholic Historical Review
• "Thy Kingdom Come: Patriotism and Prophecy in 19th century Poland,"The Catholic Historical Review, 89, 2 (2003):213-238.
• "Explaining Jedwebne: The Perils of Understanding," The Polish Review 47:1 (2002), 23-26.
• "Marking the boundaries of the Faith: Catholic Modernism and the Radical Right in early Twentieth-Century Poland," Edwin Mellon Press, 2001.
• "The Catholic Nation: Religion, Identity, and the Narratives of Polish History," The Slavic and East European Journal 45:2 (March, 2001).
• "The End of Communism and the Polish Round Table of 1989," United States Institution for Peace, 2000.
• "The Construction and Deconstruction of Nineteenth-century Polish Liberalism" St. Martins, 1999, 37-64.
• "Democracy and Discipline in Late Nineteenth-century Poland," Journal of Modern Historiy 71:2, 1999, 346-93.
• "The Social Nation and it Future: English Liberalism and Polish Nationalism in late Nineteenth-century Warsaw," American Historical Review 101:5, 1996, 1470-92.
• "Who is a Pole and Where is Poland? Territory and Nation in the Rhetoric of Polish National Democracy before 1905," Slavic Review 51,1992, 630-53.

BOOKS

• When nationalism began to hate: Imagining modern politics in nineteenth-century Poland, Oxford University Press, 2000

COURSES

• Many Polands: A history of multiculturalism in northeastern europe.
• Eastern Europe in the 20th and 21th Centuries.

Westwalewicz, Piotr Lecturer, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Michigan @ @

Ph.D., University of Michigan, 1998
Phone: (734) 764 5355 / Fax: . . . / E-Mail: pwestwal@umich.edu
MAJOR INTERESTS: Russian & Polish Literature .
POLAND RELATED SCHOLARSHIP:
COURSES

• Second-Year Polish
• Fourth-Year Polish

Zaborowska Magdalena Assistant Professor, Department of American Culture & Center for Afroamerican and African Studies, and Coordinator for the Poland Site, "Global Feminisms Project" (Institute for Research on Women and Gender), University of Michigan @ @

Ph.D., University of Oregon, 1992
M.A., Warsaw University, 1987
Phone: (734) 763-1460 / Fax: . . . / E-Mail: mzaborow@umich.edu
MAJOR INTERESTS: 20th century immigrant literatures; East European immigrant women writers; race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and (trans)national/-Atlantic identity in the novel; American identity and the city; architecture, erotics, urban and social space.
POLAND RELATED SCHOLARSHIP:
PUBLICATIONS

• "Three Passages through (In)Visible Warsaw," in Harvard Design Magazine v13, ): 52-59, Winter/Spring 2001
• "The Height of (Architectural) Seduction: Reading the 'Changes' through Stalin's Palace of Culture in Warsaw, Poland," in Journal of Architectural Education special issue, "Political Change and Physical Change" Chusid, J.M. ed., Cambridge: MIT Press, v54.4, ): 205-217,.May 2001

Zubrzycki Genevieve, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Michigan @

Ph.D., University of Chicago, 2002
Phone: (734) 764-7501 / Fax: (734) 763-6887 / E-Mail: genez@umich.edu
MAJOR INTERESTS: Theories of nationalism, religion, culture and politics, collective memory and the politics of commemoration, social change and historical and comparative sociology.
POLAND RELATED SCHOLARSHIP:
PUBLICATIONS

• "The Broken Monolith: The Catholic Church and the 'War of the Crosses at Auschwitz' (1998-99)," in Religion und Nation: Beiträge zu einer unbewältigten Geschichte/Nation and Religion: An Unfinished History, ed. Geyer M. and Lehmann H. Wallstein-Verlag: Göttingen, 2003.
• "The Classical Opposition Between Civic and Ethnic Models of Nationhood: Ideology, Empirical Reality and Social Scientific Analysis," Polish Sociological Review, 3: , 275-295, .2002.
• "'We, the Polish Nation': Ethnic and Civic Visions of Nationhood in Post-communist Constitutional Debates," Theory and Society, 30: 5: , 629-668, 2001.
• "De la nation ethnique ?la nation civique: enjeux pour l'Église catholique polonaise," Social Compass, 44: 1: , 37-51, 1997.
• "Changement social et construction identitaire: État, Église et identit?nationale au Québec et en Pologne," in La nation dans tous ses états: Le Québec en comparaison, Bouchard G. and Lamonde Y. eds. . Paris-Montréal: L'Harmattan , 221-250.1997.

META-FACULTY - Faculty who have studied and/or taught at Polish institutions of higher education

Pasek , Zbigniew J. Assistant Research Scientist, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Michigan @

M.S., Warsaw University of Technology, 1978 Ph.D., University of Michigan, 1993
Phone: (734) 763-9976 / Fax: (734) 647-7303 / E-Mail: zbigniew@engin.umich.edu
MAJOR INTERESTS: Manufacturing automation; machine control; machine tool design; open architecture control; system-level configuration.
POLAND RELATED SCHOLARSHIP:
PUBLISHING

• On-line Editor of Periphery, a Journal of Polish Affairs

WEBSITEs

• Krzysztof Kieslowski and His Films
• Polskie hymny narodowe
• Polskie Konstytucje

Golec Stanislaw , Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Univesity of Michigan @

M.D., Medical Academy, Lublin, 1981
M.P.H., 1998, University of Michigan
Phone: (734) 764-5348 / Fax: (734) 936-7868 / E-Mail: sgolec@umich.edu
MAJOR INTERESTS: Mental health economics and Transcultural psychiatry.

Zochowski Michal Assistant Professor, Department of Physics, Univesity of Michigan @

Ph.D., University of Warsaw, 1995
Phone: (734) 647-5552 / Fax: . . . / E-Mail: michalz@umich.edu
MAJOR INTERESTS: Formation of spatio-temporal patterns, nonlinear systems, and neural integration

• Poland, Warsaw: - Through the Office of International Programs, the University offers specialy designated Study Abroad courses at the Council on International Educational Exchange CIEE's Study Center at the Warsaw School of Economics. Coursework includes: Polish language and four area studies classes. Michigan students who attend these courses are eligible for $1,000 or $1,200 semester scholarships. @@