We are pleased to invite you to a discussion around Stany Podzielone Ameryki with:

dr Łukasz Pawłowski, the author of the book and the co-host of “Podcast Amerykański”

dr hab. Agnieszka Graff, prof. UW (American Studies Center)

dr Jan Smoleński (American Studies Center)

Thursday, October 24, 2024
5 PM

Attendees will be granted 3 OZN points.

Where?

Dobra 55, room: 2.118
(the building features some mobility accommodations: ramp and lift)

Facebook event

What?

Republican Senator from South Carolina Lindsey Graham announced on Fox News that “there would be riots in the streets” if Donald Trump is convicted in one of his criminal trials. Mike Huckabee, Republican governor of Arkansas, said that the 2024 elections will be the last to be “decided by ballots rather than bullets” if Trump loses his presidential bid due to the legal problems. In his appearance at now-defunct Infowars, former National Security Adviser to President Donald Trump general Michael Flynn said: “we’re moving towards the sound of the guns here, folks. And the sound of the guns is freedom.” Ironically, the sound of guns we’ve heard were the ones aimed at his former boss during two assassination attempts by—even more ironically—people who at least until recently identified with the Republican Party.

Should ubiquitous warnings about possible political violence in the US be taken seriously? How do deepening divisions affect the political landscape and the political process in the US? What are the sources of polarization? And what are the stakes of the upcoming elections in polarized America?

Who?

dr Łukasz Pawłowski is a psychologist and sociologist currently working at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as the Acting Director at the Department of Strategy. He is the co-host of the  award-winning weekly podcast on American politics and society “Podkast amerykański” (American podcast) and the author of Druga fala prywatyzacji (The Second Wave of Privatization”, 2020) and Stany podzielone Ameryki (“Divided States of America, 2024) as well as numerous articles in Polish and foreign media including: “Gazeta Wyborcza”, “Onet”, “Polityka” and “Financial Times”.

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.