Polish Studies

Polish Studies

episodes

Interviews with scholars of Poland about their new books

Rachel O'Sullivan, "Nazi Germany, Annexed Poland and Colonial Rule: Resettlement, Germanization and Population Policies in Comparative Perspective" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

October 16, 2024

Nazi Germany, Annexed Poland and Colonial Rule

Rachel O'Sullivan
Hosted by Kelly McFall

Nazi Germany, Annexed Poland and Colonial Rule: Resettlement, Germanization and Population Policies in Comparative Perspective (Bloomsbury, 2023) exam…

Nick Lloyd, "The Eastern Front: A History of the Great War, 1914-1918" (Norton, 2024)

October 6, 2024

The Eastern Front

Nick Lloyd
Hosted by Charles Coutinho

Writing in the 1920s, Winston Churchill argued that the First World War on the Eastern Front was "incomparably the greatest war in history. In its sca…

Waitman Wade Beorn, "Between the Wires: The Janowska Camp and the Holocaust in Lviv" (U Nebraska Press, 2024)

September 27, 2024

Between the Wires

Waitman Wade Beorn
Hosted by Kelly McFall

Waitman Wade Beorn's book Between the Wires: The Janowska Camp and the Holocaust in Lviv (University of Nebraska Press, 2024) tells for the first time…

David M. Driesen, "The Specter of Dictatorship: Judicial Enabling of Presidential Power" (Stanford UP, 2021)

September 23, 2024

The Specter of Dictatorship

David M. Driesen
Hosted by Susan Liebell

At the end of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin was asked whether we have a republic or a monarchy. He replied “A Repub…

Jack Palmer, "Zygmunt Bauman and the West: A Sociology of Intellectual Exile" (McGill-Queen's UP, 2023)

September 22, 2024

Zygmunt Bauman and the West

Jack Palmer
Hosted by Matt Dawson

Jack Palmer’s Zygmunt Bauman and the West: A Sociology of Intellectual Exile (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2023) invites us to reconsider a figure…

What is Going on with Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe?

August 30, 2024

What is Going on with Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe?

Milada Vachudova and Tim Haughton
Hosted by Licia Cianetti

After being the posterchild of democratization, today Central and Eastern Europe is often seen as the region of democratic backsliding. In this episod…

Adam Zamoyski, "Izabela the Valiant: The Story of an Indomitable Polish Princess" (William Collins, 2024)

August 24, 2024

Izabela the Valiant

Adam Zamoyski
Hosted by Piotr Kosicki

Princess Izabela Czartoryska was a towering figure of late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century European cultural and intellectual life. Married a…

Janine P. Holc, "The Weavers of Trautenau: Jewish Female Forced Labor in the Holocaust" (Brandeis UP, 2023)

August 4, 2024

The Weavers of Trautenau

Janine P. Holc
Hosted by Ari Barbalat

Beginning in late 1940, over three thousand Jewish girls and young women were forced from their family homes in Sosnowiec, Poland, and its surrounding…

William W. Hagen, "Anti-Jewish Violence in Poland, 1914-1920" (Cambridge UP, 2018)

June 19, 2024

Anti-Jewish Violence in Poland, 1914-1920

William W. Hagen
Hosted by Ari Barbalat

Widespread anti-Jewish pogroms accompanied the rebirth of Polish statehood out of World War I and Polish-Soviet War. In Anti-Jewish Violence in Poland…

Glenn Dynner, "The Light of Learning: Hasidism in Poland on the Eve of the Holocaust" (Oxford UP, 2024)

June 5, 2024

The Light of Learning

Glenn Dynner
Hosted by Zalman Newfield

In The Light of Learning: Hasidism in Poland on the Eve of the Holocaust (Oxford University Press, 2024), Glenn Dynner tells the story of an unexpecte…

Jan Grabowski, "On Duty: The Role of the Polish Blue and Criminal Police in the Holocaust" (Yad Vashem, 2024)

May 27, 2024

On Duty

Jan Grabowski
Hosted by Ari Barbalat

"The Polish Police, commonly called the Blue or uniformed police in order to avoid using the term “Polish,” has played a most lamentable role in the e…

Judy Batalion, "The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler's Ghettos" (William Morrow, 2021)

May 27, 2024

The Light of Days

Judy Batalion
Hosted by Ari Barbalat

Witnesses to the brutal murder of their families and neighbors and the violent destruction of their communities, a cadre of Jewish women in Poland--so…

Adi Mahalel, "The Radical Isaac: I. L. Peretz and the Rise of Jewish Socialism" (SUNY Press, 2023)

May 26, 2024

The Radical Isaac: I. L. Peretz and the Rise of Jewish Socialism

Adi Mahalel

In The Radical Isaac: I. L. Peretz and the Rise of Jewish Socialism (SUNY Press, 2023), Adi Mahalel presents Yiddish and Hebrew writer I. L. Peretz (1…

Agnieszka Pasieka and Paweł Rodak, "Rethinking Modern Polish Identities: Transnational Encounters" (U Rochester Press, 2023)

May 10, 2024

Rethinking Modern Polish Identities

Agnieszka Pasieka and Paweł Rodak
Hosted by Piotr Kosicki

Anti-Semitic or philo-Semitic? Backward or modern? Locally rooted or diasporic? “Polishness” is too often flattened to an oversimplified list of eithe…

"The US Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945, Volume IV" (Indiana UP, 2022)

May 6, 2024

The US Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945

Dallas Michelbacher and Alexandra Lohse
Hosted by Ari Barbalat

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945, Volume IV (Indiana UP, 2022) examines an under-researched se…

Jessica C. Robbins, "Aging Nationally in Contemporary Poland: Memory, Kinship, and Personhood" (Rutgers UP, 2020)

April 14, 2024

Aging Nationally in Contemporary Poland

Jessica C. Robbins
Hosted by Piotr Kosicki

How embedded are the dignity and personhood of the elderly in the collective memory of their nation? In Aging Nationally in Contemporary Poland: Memor…

Maria Snegovaya, "When Left Moves Right: The Decline of the Left and the Rise of the Populist Right in Postcommunist Europe" (Oxford UP, 2024)

April 13, 2024

When Left Moves Right

Maria Snegovaya
Hosted by Jeff Adler

In her new book, When Left Moves Right: The Decline of the Left and the Rise of the Populist Right in Postcommunist Europe (Oxford University Press, 2…

Why Should We Preserve Memory of the Holocaust?

April 2, 2024

Why Should We Preserve Memory of the Holocaust?

Wolciech Soczewica

Wojtek Soczewica has led the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation since 2019, near the site of the killing fields. The Foundation aims at the preservation of…

Alexej Lochmatow, "Public Knowledge in Cold War Poland: Scholarly Battles and the Clash of Virtues, 1945–1956" (Routledge, 2023)

April 1, 2024

Public Knowledge in Cold War Poland

Alexej Lochmatow
Hosted by Meghan Cochran

In the years after World War II, Polish scholars and scientists faced a complex and deeply personal political reality, the result of a long and violen…

The Polish-British Business Landscape

March 21, 2024

The Polish-British Business Landscape

Michael Dembinski

In this episode Richard interviews not an entrepreneur but a business journalist with detailed knowledge of the Polish and British business landscape …