The ASC’s Gender/Sexuality Research Group is proud to share the third (and final, for now) season of our very own podcast! “Oswoić gender,” hosted by Dr. Anna Kurowicka and Dr. Marta Usiekniewicz, aims to present research in gender and sexuality studies done at the University of Warsaw. 

In the eight-episode series we cover topics ranging from the intersection of medical anthropology and gender studies, animal studies and feminist theories as seen by the youngest gender studies researchers, genre literature studies, masculinities in Polish literature, gender and migration, diversity and equality strategies at the university, as well as the challenges of writing histories of problematic queer figures.

Find us in your favorite podcast app and subscribe to our podcast!

Each new episode will be released on Wednesday, announced on the ASC’s social media, and available on platforms including Spotify, Podcasters, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, Google Podcasts, and YouTube. Episodes will be also published on the Gender/Sexuality Research Group’s dedicated website, which will be launched soon.

The aim of this (mostly) Polish language podcast is to acquaint listeners with the diversity of research conducted within gender and sexuality studies. In each episode we show how the issues of gender and sexuality are manifested in cultural and social life. We also promise a good dose of humor and recommendations, because what would a popular science podcast be without homework?

This season will feature a slew of informative and entertaining conversations with Julia Kubisa, Magdalena Radkowska-Walkowicz, and ASC’s own Przemysław Górecki, Aleksandra Malinowska, Anna Grzybowska. Season three includes three book club episodes with Agnieszka Kotwasińska, Karolina Krasuska, and Marta Usiekniewicz herself, who are talking about their new books. The final special episode of the season is an English-language conversation with Huw Lemmey and Ben Miller, author of “Bad Gays: A Homosexual History,” hosts of the Bad gays podcast, and keynote speakers at our upcoming student conference “Status quo/Status queer.”

List of episodes

The podcast was made possible by funding from the “Promotion of scientific research in the public domain” project under the Excellence Initiative Research University program at the University of Warsaw.

Julia Machnowska was responsible for the sound production and editing, while Magdalena Sowul provided the studio space and music.

American Studies Colloquium Series

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

December 19, 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 18, 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 17, 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.