Tag Archive: events
American Studies Colloquium Series
May 25: English Language Bias and the Generalizability Problem in the Face of Global Linguistic Diversity
May 25, 2023
According to different sources, there are between 6,000 to 8,000 languages spoken in the world today. However, many academic fields tend to rely on English as a model language and do not question the generalizability of findings from studies done with English speakers. This talkwill illustrate how English is in some respects unusual and how focusing on it exclusively might provide a biased picture of language and the human mind.
American Studies Colloquium Series
May 18: Understanding Appalachian Otherness
May 18, 2023
The Appalachian region of the US is a place surrounded in myth and stereotypes. This presentation explains the various scholarly and popular understandings of Appalachia, contrasting the definition of the region based upon geographic, economic, and cultural criteria, and discussing the differences between Northern and Southern Appalachia.
Year 2022/2023
May 9: Call of the Deep: Mermaids in Film and Fiction
May 9, 2023
We’ll talk mermaids old and new. The ones with lovely fins and the ones with sharp teeth. We’ll journey through the unruly waters of Greek mythology, medieval (AND communist!) Warsaw and the Mariana Trench. We’ll talk mermaid taxonomy and history. We’ll talk about Mami Wata and the Little Mermaid. And we’ll talk how natureculture continuum and gender binary are traversed and challenged through the immensely popular figures of mer-people.
Year 2022/2023
April 27: Sex under Western Gaze
April 27, 2023
Did women have better sex – or better anything – under socialism? What do Eastern Europeans think about how Ghodsee’s book “Why Women Have Better Sex under Socialism” presents “our” history? Join Dr. Ludmiła Janion to talk over these issues with Erasmus+ visiting scholar Prof. Kornelia Slavova.
Year 2022/2023
April 25: Blood, Guts, Quirks and Frames: Greek Myths in Video Games
April 25, 2023
Nearly three thousand years ago, in ancient Greece, mythological and semi-legendary reigned in people’s hearts: heroes, demi-gods, monsters and more. Nowadays, all these myths are still, if not more, popular. This lecture will take a look at how contemporary video games take inspiration from ancient myths, often giving in return not only better visuals, but new depth, new meaning, even whole new stories.
Year 2022/2023
April 20: Appropriations of Emily Dickinson: the Persistence of the Poet
April 20, 2023
Join us for a meeting with Charles Holdefer, the author of several novels and numerous short stories, one of which won the Pushcart Prize. We will speak about his most recent novel, “Don’t Look at Me” (2022), in which the protagonist discovers a cache of unknown letters from Emily Dickinson to her lover which includes a major, hitherto unknown poem.
Year 2022/2023
April 13: Meet author Menachem Kaiser and translator Monika Skowron
April 13, 2023
It is our pleasure to invite you to the meeting with Menachem Kaiser, the author of a critically acclaimed, award-winning debut memoir “Plunder” and Monika Skowron, the book’s translator into Polish. The unusual focus on property is a way for the author to critique rote, exploitative, and excessively sentimental “third generation” memoirs written by descendants of Holocaust survivors visiting the “old country”.
Year 2022/2023
March 30: Between Euterpe and Aurora: How the Greek Myths Live in Contemporary Music
March 28, 2023
Ancient mythologies are alive in the contemporary world and continue to inspire artists and musicians. This lecture will offer a look into the interpretations and reinterpretations of Greek mythos in contemporary popular (or not-so-popular) music. Together, we will listen to the reconstructions of ancient hymns and wonder why so people from different countries and cultures still listen to the Greek tales from thousands of years ago?
Year 2022/2023
31 marca: Co zrobić z Lydią Tár? Pokaz i dyskusja wokół filmu Todda Fielda
March 31, 2023
Nominowany do 6 Oscarów film Todda Fielda z brawurową rolą Cate Blanchett to prowokacyjne spojrzenie na współczesną kulturę i społeczne konflikty. Zapraszamy do rozmowy, w której skupimy się na politycznych interpretacjach “Tár” w kontekście przemian amerykańskiej wrażliwości.
American Studies Colloquium Series
March 28: The Flashy Girl from Flushing: The Nanny and its Influence on American Culture
March 28, 2023
During the lecture, David Slucki of Monash University is going to investigate the recent upsurge in interest in the iconic CBS sitcom “The Nanny” and what it has to teach us about contemporary American Jewish life, and American life more broadly. “The Nanny” marks a turning point for American Jewish culture, popular culture representations of Jews, and particularly Jewish women.
Year 2022/2023
Oscars Night
March 12, 2023
Together with the ASC Students’ Union, we would like to invite all Hollywood fans to celebrate the night of the 95th Academy Awards! Join for a lecture by Prof. Paweł Frelik, bet on the best movie, watch a movie together, and finally the streaming of the Oscar ceremony!
American Studies Colloquium Series
March 9: Violent Divisions: Family Separations, Industrial Accidents and other Disconnections among Refugee Workers in the American Food System
March 9, 2023
Globalization is often seen as a process of expanding connections between distant people, things and places. In this talk, however, focusing on processes of refugee resettlement in Greeley, Colorado, we are going to look at Rohingya refugees in the American food system to show how capitalism relies on a continuous process of violent separations.
Year 2022/2023
February 14: American Leadership in the war in Ukraine: Indonesian Perspective
February 14, 2023
Leadership Research Group has a pleasure of inviting all scholars and students to a conversation on the non-Western perspective on the war in Ukraine. Our guest will be Agastya Wardhana from Airlangga University and he will speak about the American leadership in the war in Ukraine from an Indonesian perspective.
Year 2022/2023
January 25: Meeting with the authors of “Pieśni Grozy: Straszne, mordercze i tajemnicze polskie pieśni ludowe”
January 25, 2023
Meet the authors of the book “Pieśni Grozy: Straszne, mordercze i tajemnicze polskie pieśni ludowe.” We are going to talk about how folklore still inspires artists, the process of creating illustrations and publications, and how folk art can be used in contemporary art.
American Studies Colloquium Series
January 19: Covid and a History of Racialized Asian Bodies in the US
January 19, 2023
Anti-Asian racism has been on the rise since the covid pandemic began. This talk by Selma Bidlingmaier examines the historical moments in US history that shaped the ideas that fuel anti-Asian racism. It focuses specifically on 19th Century scientific racism, coolie labor and the making of the white working class, and the 20th Century myth of the model minority.
American Studies Colloquium Series
January 12: Wild Blue Media: Encountering the Bookshelf, Underwater
January 12, 2023
What would media and literary studies look like, underwater? In this lecture, Melody Jue, the author of “Wild Blue Media: Thinking Through Seawater,” is going to show how the ocean can be a science fictional environment for defamiliarizing concepts, offering cold and briny contexts in which to rethink what it means to store and organize information.