dr Jędrzej Burszta

Cultural studies scholar, ethnographer, Assistant Professor at the American Studies Center. Jędrzej Burszta received his M.A. degrees in cultural studies (Institute of Polish Culture, UW) and American studies (American Studies Center, UW). In 2019 he received his doctoral degree in cultural studies from the SWPS University in Warsaw for a dissertation examining the queer history of American science fiction literature. His research interests include American popular and alternative culture, speculative fiction, retrofuturism, queer studies, ethnography of memory. He has worked in research projects investigating queerness in Polish history and society. At the American Studies Center, he offers courses about popular culture, science fiction and fantasy, queer theory, cultural studies and anthropology.

Roles in the ASC

Adjunct Faculty Liaison

Co-coordinator of the American Studies Colloquium Series (with Dr. Marta Usiekniewicz)

Co-head of the Speculative Texts and Media Research Group

Member of Gender/Sexuality Research Group

Achievements

National Science Center research grant, Psychedelic Culture in Poland: Practices and Discourses (SONATA, 2024–26)

Publications

with Anna Kurowicka. “Repetition with a Difference: House of the Dragon and the Queer Temporalities of Fantasy.” Science Fiction Film and Television 17.3 (2024): 321–337.

“The Joy of Queer Science Fiction Reading, or: Will Queers Destroy Science Fiction?” Przegląd
Kulturoznawczy 59.1 (2024): 5–20.

“Religious individualism and how young religious LGBT+ persons approach parenthood in Poland.” LUD: Organ Polskiego Towarzystwa Ludoznawczego 106 (2022): 208–232.

“Samuel R. Delany.” In Fifty Key Figures in Cyberpunk Culture, eds. Anna McFarlane, Graham J. Murphy, and Lars Schmeink. 49–54. New York: Routledge, 2022.

“Three circles of male homosexual life in state-socialist Poland.” Queers in State Socialism. Cruising 1970s Poland, edited by Tomasz Basiuk and Jędrzej Burszta, 11–22. Routledge, 2020.

“«Do czego się było przyznawać, jak nie istniał homoseksualizm?» Różowy język w narracjach pamięci o męskiej homoseksualności w PRL”. Interalia: pismo poświęcone studio queer, 14 (2019): 7–27.

Courses (selected)

Theories and Practices of Culture

Popular Culture and Queer Representation

American New Wave Science Fiction

Altered States of Being: Psychedelic Culture in the US (OGUN)

Politics and Aesthetics of American Fantasy

BA Seminar: Subversion and Transgression in American Popular Culture

Hobbies/non-academic interests

Creative writing (fiction, theater), swimming, Star Wars