Weird Fictions Research Group invites you to the last workshop this semester by
Joanna Kaniewska (University of Warsaw)
and Agnieszka Kotwasińska (University of Warsaw)

Sounds of Dune(s): Music-landscaping in Cinema

This event is a part of the Weird Music series organized by the Weird Fictions Research Group members and their invited guests.

Wednesday, June 8, 2022
at 5:30 p.m.

You can get 2 OZN points for participating in this event.
Check how to collect OZN points online here.

Where?

This is an online event and you need to register at a.kotwasinska@uw.edu.pl to participate. Deadline for registration is Monday, June 6, 2022. We will send the registered participants a Zoom link a day before the workshop.

FACEBOOK EVENT

What?

In this workshop we’ll talk about Frank Herbert’s Dune and its many adaptations (both real and unrealized). We’ll listen to the scores of two cinematic Dunes (1984 and 2021) in order to see how music and sound are used to bridge sensory gaps in cinematic experiences, and how to write about such synaesthetic encounters in our research.

Who?

Joanna (Asia) Kaniewska is a subtitler by day and an independent researcher by night. She graduated from University of Warsaw with MA in Japanese Studies and American Studies and is currently working towards enrolling in the Doctoral School of Humanities. She’s been a part of Weird Fictions Research Group since its very beginnings in 2018. Her academic interests include popular music, Japanese and American popular culture, science fiction, and weird studies. Sometimes, she writes about them on her blog “dziewiętnaście czwartych” (“nineteen fourths”) or talks about them in her radio show “dancing in dystopia.”

Agnieszka Kotwasińska is an assistant professor at the American Studies Center, where she offers courses in American literature, genre literature, horror cinema, and new media. She specializes in Gothic and horror studies, gender studies and queer theory, and feminist new materialism(s). Her current research interests center on literary and film canon formation, embodiment in the so-called low genres, reproduction of death in horror narratives, weird fiction(s) and schizoanalysis. Loves the latest Dune, but does not love Chalamet.

American Studies Colloquium Series

December 19: Between The Mundane and the Heroic: Vietnamese Presence in State Socialist Poland

December 16, 2024

We are delighted to invite you to the fifth lecture of the American Studies Colloquium Series in the 2024/2025 Fall semester! This talk will examine the depictions of the (North) Vietnamese as freedom fighters within the context of the state socialist public sphere and the everyday life of Vietnamese students in Poland across generations. From idealized wartime reportages to mixed-race couples, the Vietnamese presence was marked by a multifaceted experience of adaptation, challenges, opportunities, and dynamic, interactive bonds with Polish society. This history continues to exert a profound influence on the contemporary Vietnamese diaspora and Polish-Vietnamese relationships.

Year 2024/2025

December 18: The Trump Transition – What is New and What is Not

December 14, 2024

Leadership Research Groupis inviting all those who would like to put the Trump transition to a presidential scholarship context and better understand the Trump transition decisions, the prospects for the future in domestic and foreign policy areas they bring, and the impact that Trump leadership may have on the political scene in Washington to a talk followed by a Q&A session by Professor Stephen Farnsworth.

Year 2024/2025

December 17: We Want Change NOW! The Feminist Manifesto in Theory and Practice

December 13, 2024

During the workshop “We Want Change NOW! The Feminist Manifesto in Theory and Practice”, Aleksandra Julia Malinowska, a doctoral candidate at the University of Warsaw,will delve into the history of feminist manifestos and their pivotal role in the women’s movement in the United States. We’ll explore how activists of the second wave of feminism used grassroots publications to raise awareness, voice the demands of emerging women’s groups, and build communication networks between organizations spread across the country. Together, we’ll analyze the literary techniques that make the manifesto genre a powerful tool for inspiring activist mobilization beyond the pages of the text.

American Studies Colloquium Series

December 12: Technological Imaginaries and the Universal Ambitions of Silicon Valley

December 12, 2024

Drawing on her new book, Appropriate, Negotiate, Challenge: Activist imaginaries and the politics of digital technologies (University of California Press), in this talk Ferrari shows how these discourses, which she calls “technological imaginaries”, shape how we experience digital technologies. She discusses how, for the past 30 years, Silicon Valley tech actors have produced and popularized a specific way of thinking about digital technologies, which has become mainstream. This dominant technological imaginary brings together technocratic aspirations and populist justifications. While arising out of the peculiarities of Silicon Valley and of the American 1990s, this dominant imaginary has posited its universality by presenting its tenets as if they were global, unbiased, and equally suitable for everyone, everywhere. She argues that to really curb the socio-political influence of Big Tech companies we also need to understand, critique, and resist the power of their technological imaginary.

News

ASC Library has received funding from the Social Responsibility of Science

December 12, 2024

ASC Library has received funding from the Social Responsibility of Science (SON) program — “Support for Scientific Libraries,” implemented by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education.