Past Courses

3 hours. A survey of major movements and genres in Polish Cinema from the 1920s up to the present, including early Polish and Yiddish film, Polish School of Filmmaking in Lodz, New-wave, Comedy films of the socialist period, World War II in film, the Polish School of Animation, and contemporary Polish film post-1989. Taught in English. Films screened with English subtitles. Creative Arts, and World Cultures course.

3 hours. This course will take you on a journey into the European cinematic world of troubled history, acts of empathy, artistic collaborations and fascinating biographies, exploring the multidimensional and complicated relationship between cinema and history. History can be depicted or reenacted on screen, but also registered as it unfolds, to be relived in a different time and place. Cinema as it is framed by this course is a collective experience of history, memory and identity, a site of emotional and political engagement, a battleground and a weapon, that is both passionate and inclusive. We will watch works by Chantal Akerman, Harun Farocki, Andrzej Munk, Gillo Pontecorvo, Margarete von Trotta, and Ken Loach, among others. Same as GER 207 and SPAN 207. Prerequisite(s): ENGL 160. Creative Arts course, and World Cultures course.

3 hours. These two questions—how to read Slavic literature and why—are of a great importance to everybody who wants to familiarize themselves with Polish and Russian literature. This introductory class, however, will also relate to any other reading experience, not only limited to the Slavic culture. We are going to learn how to read literary texts, how to name basic devices used by authors, and, first and foremost, how to talk about our reading experience in a professional manner. We will read (in English) classic short texts from 19th and 20th century to understand how they were written. This class is required for Polish and Russian majors but all students interested in comprehending and talking about literature will profit from its analytical slant. Previously listed as SLAV 324. Prerequisite (s): POL 104, RUSS 104, or equivalent, or consent of instructor. Required course for the Polish/Russian Major.

3 hours. This course will consider the political, social, and cultural transformations of the historic Polish lands from 966 CE to the present. We will take as our starting premise that the history of Poland is the history of a multicultural and multiethnic society. As a result, we will study the various people, social groups, and cultures that have shaped Polish history over the past millennium. Beginning with the first Polish state under the Piast dynasty, we will continue with the union of Lithuania and the formation of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the period of partitioning by the German, Austrian, and Russian empires and the rise of Polish nationalism, the interwar politics of Polish independence, life under occupation during World War II and the Holocaust, communism and its collapse in 1989, and the more recent post-socialist state.Same as HIST 234. Prerequisite(s): ENGL 161. Individual and Society, and Past course.

3 hours. What do ghosts and specters mean to us, and how do ghost stories help communities and individuals to engage with memory, guilt, and responsibility? With fears of the unknown, or hopes of salvation? How can haunting be understood as a metaphor for the presence of the past in our lives, or for the responsibility that the living have toward the dead, or toward the Other? Polish literature is filled with ghosts, and as we travel from the 15th century Kingdom of Poland to Warsaw in 2014, we will meet Golems, ghosts, vampires, specters and zombies who have captured the Polish imagination, and contributed to shaping the cultural landscape of Poland. Taught in English. Prerequisite(s): ENGL 160. Creative Arts Course.

4 hours. Can art and literature remember? This course offers a study of post-World War II works of Polish art and literature, treating them as records of historical experience, specific forms of remembering and recollecting, witnessing, testifying, and transmitting. We will compare female and male narratives, lament and parody, first-hand accounts with the fabric of mediated or secondary memory, minimal and intimate gestures with monumental and public acts of memory. Among the authors discussed are Miron Białoszewski, Marek Bieńczyk, Bożena Keff, Andrzej Wróblewski, Anna Baumgart, Wojciech Wilczyk, Zbigniew Libera, and Dorota Masłowska. Same as SLAV 460. May be repeated up to 2 time(s), with consent of the instructor, and if topics vary. Prerequisite(s): Junior standing or above; or consent of the instructor.

4 hours.

3 hours.

3 hours. Taught in English. Films screened with English subtitles. Creative Arts, and World Cultures course.3 hours. Taught in English. Films screened with English subtitles. Creative Arts, and World Cultures course.

3 hours. Taught in English.World Cultures course.

3 hours. Iran, Honduras, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Brazil, South Africa: what can these places tell us about Poland? In this course we will examine the ways Polish reporters talk about the world, civilization, conflict, community and individual. Contrary to popular belief, Polish literature has frequently extended its focus beyond the country’s borders. We will ask ourselves what Polish writings about the world abroad say about Poland and its writers. In this course we will analyze the thin line between fiction and creative non-fiction writing. Does it exist? What makes a non-fiction text literature? What is the extent of artistic liberties in reportage? Finally, we will write our own literary reportages using techniques and knowledge developed by the masters of the Polish School.

3 hours. This course will consider the political, social, and cultural transformations of the historic Polish lands from 966 CE to the present. We will take as our starting premise that the history of Poland is the history of a multicultural and multiethnic society. As a result, we will study the various people, social groups, and cultures that have shaped Polish history over the past millennium. Beginning with the first Polish state under the Piast dynasty, we will continue with the union of Lithuania and the formation of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the period of partitioning by the German, Austrian, and Russian empires and the rise of Polish nationalism, the interwar politics of Polish independence, life under occupation during World War II and the Holocaust, communism and its collapse in 1989, and the more recent post-socialist state. Prerequisite(s): ENGL 161. Individual and Society, and Past course.

3 hours. This course is an introduction to post-war Polish literature. By the end of World War II, Poland emerged as a new socialist republic, on the eastern side of the so-called iron curtain. But it emerged a fractured country: no Jews, traumatized and damaged by war, and with much tension between socialists and its opponents, but at the same time with many of its romantic ideals still intact. These circumstances and its dissonances made for a vibrant landscape of voices in art and literature and, for many, literature and philosophy became fundamental means of coping with reality. But how does one write in a totalitarian state? How does one remain humane? How does one create new values? And if one cannot stay in the country, how does one write in another culture, when one’s language becomes unrooted? And how does one write the layers of memories and forgetting that linger and resurface? This course examines such topics as existence, the absurd, memory, exile, nostalgia, totalitarianism, trauma. We will be reading such writers as Miron Białoszewski, Sławomir Mrożek, Czesław Miłosz, Hanna Krall, Tadeusz Różewicz, Witold Gombrowicz, Wisława Szymborska, Andrzej Stasiuk, Jerzy Ficowski, Tadeusz Konwicki and Olga Tokarczuk. No knowledge of Polish is required. The class is taught in English and all texts will be available in translation. Creative Arts and World Cultures course.

3 hours. This course will explore intriguing tensions between science and fantasy, progress and superstition through the lens of small narratives. We will enter the magnificent republic of dreams inhibited by mad scientists, curious observers, robots, devils and time travelers and investigate what is the nature of this technological anxiety. We will also learn how short story works as a genre and examine different ways in which authors such as Lem, Gombrowicz, Grabiński, Wat and Mrożek engage with issues of science, progress and the supernatural. Taught in English. Creative Arts, and World Cultures course.

3 hours. Interpretation of Slavic literary texts from different theoretical points of view and various methodological perspectives. Previously listed as SLAV 324. Prerequisite(s): POL 104 or RUSS 104 or the equivalent, or consent of the instructor.

3 hours. A survey of major movements and genres in Polish Cinema from the 1920s up to the present, including early Polish and Yiddish film, Polish School of Filmmaking in Lodz, New-wave, Comedy films of the socialist period, World War II in film, the Polish School of Animation, and contemporary Polish film post-1989. Taught in English. Films screened with English subtitles. Creative Arts, and World Cultures course.

“Borderlands”, “Bloodlands”, The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Poland/Polin, Yiddishland, and the Avant-Garde of the 1920s: All are physical or cultural territories that have come into being at and through the intersection of Polish and Jewish cultures. How are these territories, and historically Polish lands, imagined in Polish and Yiddish literature and film of the 19th to 21st centuries? We will study these works in conversation with contemporary theories of diaspora, pluralism, peripheral modernisms, minor literature, and memory. Taught in English. Polish majors will be required to complete some assignments in Polish. Prerequisite(s): SLAV 224; or consent of the instructor. Can substitute SLAV 224 with permission.

3 hours. This course will consider the political, social, and cultural transformations of the historic Polish lands from 966 CE to the present. We will take as our starting premise that the history of Poland is the history of a multicultural and multiethnic society. As a result, we will study the various people, social groups, and cultures that have shaped Polish history over the past millennium. Beginning with the first Polish state under the Piast dynasty, we will continue with the union of Lithuania and the formation of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the period of partitioning by the German, Austrian, and Russian empires and the rise of Polish nationalism, the interwar politics of Polish independence, life under occupation during World War II and the Holocaust, communism and its collapse in 1989, and the more recent post-socialist state.Same as HIST 234. Prerequisite(s): ENGL 161. Individual and Society, and Past course.

3 hours. In this course we will enter the vibrant and anguished world of 20th-century Polish prose with an introduction to literary works by futurist Aleksander Wat, Auschwitz survivor Tadeusz Borowski, poet and acerbic social critic C.K. Norwid, modernist innovator Bruno Schulz, contemporary Polish author and psychologist Olga Tokarczuk, and others. In this combined lecture and seminar course, we will discuss the modern text as both a hardworking machine, and an embodiment of desire. Topics in this course include Positivist, Futurist, avant-garde and neo-Romantic movements in Polish literature; witness literature; the post-1989 literature of small homelands; and the role of literary theologies in a secular modern world. Reading short stories and novels written in Poland in the turbulent 20th century, we will consider narratives that offer escape from the modern world, into the worlds of fantasy, absurdity, or nostalgia; and narratives whose purpose is precisely to prevent escape from the shock or disillusionment of the 20th century, asking the reader to consider his or her own embededness in modern systems. We will read stories that seek to educate and that call for ethical engagement by their readers; that bear witness to trauma; that seek to adapt and recuperate elements of tradition in a post-traditional world; and narratives that explore the possibilities for constituting alternative, transnational and post-national identities, in a Poland experiencing the ravages of the 20th century. Taught in English. Creative Arts and World Cultures course.

3 hours. Science and magic are like two flips of a coin: one is inherently depended on the other. “Science comes from the ambition to rule the world and therefore it’s a continuator of magic” – Polish philosopher Antoni Kępiński once said. For him both magic and science serve as tools to gain power. Yet, in Polish culture it is the fear of technology not magic that is a reoccurring trope, and most works of art from 19th century up till now privilege the supernatural and irrational over scientific and rational. Throughout the course of the class will explore intriguing tensions between science and magic, progress and superstition, rational and irrational through the lens of horror stories, crime and science fiction and fantasy. We will enter the world inhibited by mad scientists, eccentric artists, robots, devils and time travelers to investigate what is the nature of technological anxiety in Polish culture, and to learn how short story as a genre works. We will examine different ways in which authors such as Lem, Gombrowicz, Grabiński, Wat, Mrożek and others, engage with issues crucial for modern civilization. No knowledge of Polish is required. The class is taught in English and all short stories will be available in translation. Creative Arts, and World Cultures course.

4 hours. The class is about one of the most influential Polish philosopher and literary critic, Stanisław Brzozowski (1878-1911), whose impact on contemporary Polish culture can’t be overestimated. We will read several of his pivotal texts to understand his position in European Modernism, and his relationship with the Polish tradition. All readings are in Polish (we will try to translate his pieces into English) and basic knowledge of philosophical language and Polish literary tradition is required. Taught in Polish.

4 hours. Not everybody in Poland in the 1950s served Communism. One of the most flamboyant examples of disobedience was Leopold Tyrmand who, during several months of 1954, kept a journal in which a radical criticism of Stalinism went hand in hand with detailed descriptions of the everyday life in Warsaw. Tyrmand’s Diary 1954 is one of the most insightful first-hand testimonies to the spirit of civil and artistic disobedience under Communism in Poland, in the few months after Stalin’s death. The diary will be read along with other seminal texts on the relationship between politics and literature, fashion in the 1950s, and intellectual analyses of Communism. All readings in English, for those who know Polish, a chance to do an extra work.

3 hours. HIST 433. This course looks at the movement of people into and out of the territory encompassing modern Poland. It focuses on the migration trajectories of ethnic Poles, Ukrainians, Jews, Lithuanians, Russians, and others from the earliest times to the present. We look at local and regional migration patterns, at political migrants–including those fleeing failed national uprisings, at Polish efforts to establish “colonies” abroad in Argentina, Brazil, and Canada, and at the steady flow of economic migrants to the United States, Australia, and South Africa in the years leading up to World War I. The course ends with a consideration of the most recent wave of Poles to the United Kingdom and the effects on the Polish domestic situation of these continuing waves of out-migration.

3 hours. This course will follow Ghosts, Zombies and the Undead on their journey through 800 years of Polish literature in three languages, exploring the haunted realms of Polish culture. What do ghosts and specters mean to us, and how do ghost stories help communities and individuals to engage with memory, guilt, and responsibility? With fears of the unknown, or hopes of salvation?  How can haunting be understood as a metaphor for the presence of the past in our lives, or for the responsibility that the living have toward the dead, or toward the Other? Polish literature is filled with ghosts, and as we travel from the 15th century Kingdom of Poland to Warsaw in 2014, we will meet Golems, ghosts, vampires, specters and zombies who have captured the Polish imagination, and contributed to shaping the cultural landscape of Poland.  Our readings include work by poets Jerzy Ficowski, Tadeusz Rozewicz, Boleslaw Lesmian and Jan Kochanowski; dramatists Tadeusz Kantor, Sh. Ansky, Stanislaw Wyspianski and Adam Mickiewicz; and prose writers Andrzej Stasiuk, Igor Ostachowicz, Y.L. Peretz, and Jan Potocki. All readings will be in English translation with the option to read in the original language. Taught in English.

3 hours. This course will consider the political, social, and cultural transformations of the historic Polish lands from 966 CE to the present. We will take as our starting premise that the history of Poland is the history of a multicultural and multiethnic society. As a result, we will study the various people, social groups, and cultures that have shaped Polish history over the past millennium. Beginning with the first Polish state under the Piast dynasty, we will continue with the union of Lithuania and the formation of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the period of partitioning by the German, Austrian, and Russian empires and the rise of Polish nationalism, the interwar politics of Polish independence, life under occupation during World War II and the Holocaust, communism and its collapse in 1989, and the more recent post-socialist state. Prerequisite(s): ENGL 161. Individual and Society, and Past course.

3 hours. A survey of major movements and genres in Polish Cinema from the 1920s up to the present, including early Polish and Yiddish film, Polish School of Filmmaking in Lodz, New-wave, Comedy films of the socialist period, World War II in film, the Polish School of Animation, and contemporary Polish film post-1989. Taught in English. Films screened with English subtitles. Creative Arts, and World Cultures course.

3 hours. This course will explore intriguing tensions between science and fantasy, progress and superstition through the lens of small narratives. We will enter the magnificent republic of dreams inhibited by mad scientists, curious observers, robots, devils and time travelers and investigate what is the nature of this technological anxiety. We will also learn how short story works as a genre and examine different ways in which authors such as Lem, Gombrowicz, Grabiński, Wat and Mrożek engage with issues of science, progress and the supernatural. Taught in English. Creative Arts, and World Cultures course.

3 hours. For much of the 20th century, East-Central Europe was characterized as the site of bitter ethnic feuds, political instability, and economic underdevelopment. These problems were often portrayed as characteristics that made the region—the lands lying between Germany and Russia—distinct from the rest of Europe. The purpose of this course is to examine the historic origins of some of the region’s “problems” and to challenge contemporary understanding of their uniqueness. The course looks at the history of the people of East-Central Europe in the modern period, tracing the origins of its ethnic and religious diversity, the role of historic “memory” in fueling modern crises, and the evolution of national and political consciousness. Prerequisite(s): ENGL 161. Individual and Society, and Past course.

3 hours.  Taught in English. Creative Arts, and World Cultures course.In this course we will enter the vibrant and anguished world of 20th-century Polish prose with an introduction to literary works by futurist Aleksander Wat, Auschwitz survivor Tadeusz Borowski, poet and acerbic social critic C.K. Norwid, modernist innovator Bruno Schulz, contemporary Polish author and psychologist Olga Tokarczuk, and others.  In this combined lecture and seminar course, we will discuss the modern text as both a hardworking machine, and an embodiment of desire.Topics in this course include Positivist, Futurist, avant-garde and neo-Romantic movements in Polish literature; witness literature; the post-1989 literature of small homelands; and the role of literary theologies in a secular modern world.  No prerequisites. All texts will be read in English translation, with the option to read in the Polish original.

3 hours. Taught in English.World Cultures course. How are the urban spaces of Warsaw transformed into landscapes of resistance, heroism and abandonment in novels and films about the Warsaw Uprisings? What role did the literary salon of 19th century St. Petersburg, the Polish shtetl or small town, the centrally-planned socialist steelworks, and the Warsaw cabaret scene play in producing Polish culture, and in shaping Polish communal identities? Why does Lithuania play such a central role in the Polish literary imagination? By exploring landscapes, places and spaces both real and imagined, that hold special meaning and resonance in the Polish communal and cultural imagination, this course offers a broad introduction to Polish Culture as something that is constantly in flux, constantly being re-imagined and re-performed in the present.

Course Poster

MTRF, 9:00-11:55am  (4 week session)

3 hours.  Taught in English. World Cultures course. Exploring different disciplines of culture, the aim of this course is to show, how key topics in Poland’s cinema, visual arts, comic, music, poetry, drama and novel are redefined by the generation of young contemporary artists. Our main focus will be issues such as rewriting history (Communist-era Poland, the Warsaw Uprising, and Poland’s Jewish past), gender roles (masculinity, femininity and family), and life in the city.  We will look into the world of fashion, street art, punk rock and hip hop music and the way these plays out in the historical and sociological context. Discover the works of Wojciech Smarzowski, Małgorzata Szumowska, Dorota Masłowska, Michał Witkowski, Marcin Świetlicki and Zbigniew Libera, among others. No knowledge of Polish is required!

4 hours. Gombrowicz is one of the most intriguing writers of European Modernism. Spending most of his mature life in exile (Argentina, Germany, France) and deprived of the traditional means of making his career as a national writer (he was unknown abroad and banned in Poland,) Gombrowicz was forced to develop a unique dialectics of writing. On the one hand, this dialectics was aimed at familiarizing the foreign and the exotic (especially in Argentina) while it also exposed him to the uncanny and absurd in life. His ability to morph political exile into an existential venture with no self-assuring back plan was one of the most interesting features of his post-war work, brought to the fore in the most spectacular way in the Diary, the text upon which this course will focus. Removed from the black-and-white fields of true and false or facts and fictions, the three volumes of the Diary reveal a writer who creates himself through a series of surreal provocations and who exposes the reader to an unexpected experience of reading. Studied alongside other key figures of European Modernism, such as Cioran, Bataille, and Sartre, the Diary, a work without comparison in Polish literature, reveals Gombrowicz’s philosophical acumen as well as his literary bravura. As such, the Diary is an indispensable text to understand the breadth of intellectual and artistic tensions within European Modernism. Taught in English.

3 OR 4 hours. Taking its inspiration from Jacques Derrida’s essay “The Eyes of Language”, this course will seek to explore how the concept of a “Third Language”, between theology and materialism, can be useful in the study and description of modernist literary and critical texts.  What does a text written in the “third language” look like? What does it sound like?  Our study will consider 20th century works that are invested in summoning this adversity, and in opening up the conceptual space and the interaction, within the parameters of the text itself, between non-sacred and sacred.  Drawing on theoretical work by Walter Benjamin, Gershom Scholem, Giorgio Agamben, Eric Santner and Emmanuel Levinas, and Derrida, we will explore the potential validity of the concept of “writing in the Third Language”, building a vocabulary of specific narrative strategies and formal techniques. Together we will test this concept against the work of modern Polish, Yiddish and German-language writers, including Aleksander Wat, Itzik Manger, Moyshe Kulbak, Franz Kafka, Melech Ravitch, Bruno Schulz,  and S.I. Witkiewicz. Theoretical and formal concepts explored will include: the dialectical image; the abyss, “language as such” or “pure language”, the Face and the Name; theatricality, gesture and mask; modern messianism; and the figures of clown, Devil, charlatan, magician and fool.  Taught in English. Polish majors will be required to complete some assignments in Polish. Prerequisite(s): SLAV 224; or consent of the instructor.

3 OR 4 hours. Specific topics are announced each term. Same as CEES 433. 3 undergraduate hours. 4 graduate hours. May be repeated. Students may register in more than one section per term. Prerequisite(s): 3 hours of European history or consent of the instructor.

3 hours. Exploration of political, socioeconomic, and cultural developments since the first Polish state, the union with Lithuania, the struggle for independence, and Communist rule to the present.  Prerequisite(s): ENGL 161. Individual and Society, and Past course.

3 hours. Interpretation of Slavic literary texts from different theoretical points of view and various methodological perspectives. Previously listed as SLAV 324. Prerequisite(s): POL 104 or RUSS 104 or the equivalent, or consent of the instructor.

3 hours. Introduction to the major themes and techniques of Polish film art; comparative survey of narrative film and literature. Taught in English. Films screened with English subtitles. Creative Arts, and World Cultures course.