On 9th and 10th December, at the University of Warsaw, there will be an action called “UW congratulates Olga Tokarczuk”. Members of the UW academic community will have an opportunity to congratulate Nobel Prize laureate. The author of “The Books of Jacob” (Księgi Jakubowe) or “Flights” (Bieguni) graduated from the UW Faculty of Psychology.

On 10th December, during the Nobel Prize award ceremony at Konserthuset Stockholm, Olga Torakczuk will obtain the award. Polish writer is recognised as one of the most distinguished representatives of modern literature in Poland and the world. She holds many Polish and international awards. In 2018, she won the Man Booker International Prize for her novel “Flights” (Bieguni). This book also won the Nike Award, Poland’s top literary prize, in 2008. In 2015, Olga Tokarczuk received another Nike Award for the impressive historical novel “The Books of Jacob” (Księgi Jakubowe).

In 1987, Olga Tokarczuk graduated from the University of Warsaw Faculty of Psychology. She is the 15th woman to receive the literature prize and the 6th from Poland. Among the laureates are also other two graduates of UW, namely Henryk Sienkiewicz, and Czesław Miłosz.

On the occasion of Nobel prize-giving to Olga Tokarczuk by the Nobel Prize Committee, UW undertakes the action “UW congratulates Tokarczuk”. It aims to encourage students and employees of the university to express their congratulations to the outstanding writer. One can do this by taking a photo using a specially prepared photo frame. The frame refers to Tokarczuk’s works and includes a quotation of the writer’s letter to Prof. Marcin Pałys, UW rector.

Each person taking part in this activity is invited to share their photos on social media using hashtags UWcongratulatesTokarczuk and NobelPrizeLaureateisfromUW. The UW Press Office organises the action.

Photos can be taken on 9th December at 9:00-10:00 on the UW main campus near the Old Library building and the main gate. On 10th December at 11:00-13:00 in front of the University of Warsaw Library entrance.

The Swedish Academy had decided to award the 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature to Olga Tokarczuk “for a narrative imagination that with encyclopedic passion represents the crossing of boundaries as a form of life.” The Nobel Prize in Literature for 2019 went to the Austrian writer, Peter Handke.

The Nobel Prize award ceremony will be held at 16:30 in Stockholm. It will be streamed live on the Nobel Prize website nobelprize.org.

 

One can follow the action on the university profiles and social media.

https://twitter.com/UniWarszawski

https://www.facebook.com/fanpageUW

https://www.instagram.com/uniwersytetwarszawski/

 

More information:
https://www.uw.edu.pl/akcja-uw-gratuluje-oldze-tokarczuk/

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.