dr hab. Sylwia Kuźma-Markowska

Sylwia Kuźma-Markowska is a historian and Associate Professor at the American Studies Center, University of Warsaw. She specializes in twentieth century social and cultural history of the United States and Poland and transnational history. Her areas of research include: women’s and gender history, transnational history of reproduction and public health, history of social movements, and history of immigration. She has been a recipient of several research grants and stipends (Fulbright Senior Award, Kosciuszko Foundation fellowship, National Science Center OPUS grant, National Program for the Development of Humanities grant). Currently Professor Kuźma is pursuing research on the transnational history of the Polish anti-abortion movement (1970s-1990s).

Role at the ASC

Director for Students’ Affairs of the Institute of the Americas and Europe (IAiE) – Head of the Educational Unit

Achievements

Fulbright Senior Award, Department of History, University of Maryland, research project “Transnational Engagements of the Anti-abortion Movement in Late Communist and Post-Communist Poland (1970s 1990s)”, 2024-2025

The National Science Center, Poland; Principal Investigator, research grant for the project “Polish Immigrant and Second Generation Women in the United States: Private and Intimate Lives (1890-1940)”, 2020-2024

Kosciuszko Foundation research fellowship, Department of History, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, the United States; research project “Family, Home, and Beyond: Polish Immigrant Women in Chicago (1890s-1930s)”, Jan-Mar 2020

Ministry of Science and Higher Education, Poland, scholarship for the most meritorious young scientists (Stypendium dla wybitnych młodych naukowców), 2012-2015

Fellowship (Visiting Professor), Nanovic Institute for European Studies, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana, the United States, Aug-Dec 2012

Publications

“Informing the ‘broad masses’: Early-twentieth-century birth control debates and activism in the Polish-American community.” Gender & History 2023, 00:  1–17, https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0424.12750

with Natalia Jarska, "Explaining the Calendar: The Catholic Church and Family Planning in Poland, 1930-1957." Historical Journal 2023, 66/3 (666-688), https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X23000018

“Achieving Their Goals and Adopting New Norms: Polish Immigrant Women and American Institutions in Early Twentieth-Century and Interwar Chicago.” Journal of American Ethnic History 2022, 41/4 (5–36), https://doi.org/10.5406/19364695.41.4.01

with Laura Kelly, „Anti-abortion Activism in Poland and the Republic of Ireland c.1970s–1990s.” Journal of Religious History 2022, 46/3 (526-551), https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9809.12870

with Agata Ignaciuk. “Family planning advice in state-socialist Poland, 1950s–1980s: Local and transnational exchanges” Medical History 2020, 64/2 (240-266).

Courses (selected)

History of the United States II

American History and Society

History of Women in the United States

Histories of Reproduction in the United States

Key Methods in American Studies (history section)