Polish Studies

Polish Studies

episodes

Interviews with scholars of Poland about their new books

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 …

Elizabeth B. White and Joanna Sliwa, "The Counterfeit Countess: The Jewish Woman Who Rescued Thousands of Poles During the Holocaust" (Simon & Schuster, 2024)

March 17, 2024

The Counterfeit Countess

Elizabeth B. White and Joanna Sliwa
Hosted by Piotr Kosicki

World War II and the Holocaust have been the subject of many remarkable stories of resistance and rescue, but The Counterfeit Countess: The Jewish Wom…

Sarah A. Cramsey, "Uprooting the Diaspora: Jewish Belonging and the Ethnic Revolution in Poland and Czechoslovakia, 1936-1946" (Indiana UP, 2023)

March 9, 2024

Uprooting the Diaspora

Sarah A. Cramsey

In Uprooting the Diaspora: Jewish Belonging and the Ethnic Revolution in Poland and Czechoslovakia, 1936-1946 (Indiana UP, 2023), Sarah Cramsey explor…

Roman Dziarski, "How We Outwitted and Survived the Nazis: The True Story of the Holocaust Rescuers, Zofia Sterner and Her Family" (Cherry Orchard, 2024)

March 3, 2024

How We Outwitted and Survived the Nazis

Roman Dziarski
Hosted by Ari Barbalat

In World War II's Poland, thirty year old Zofia Sterner and her husband Wacek refuse to be classified as Jews destined for extermination. Instead, the…

Serhiy Bilenky, "Laboratory of Modernity: Ukraine Between Empire and Nation, 1772-1914" (McGill-Queen's UP, 2023)

February 5, 2024

Laboratory of Modernity

Serhiy Bilenky

When the powers of Europe were at their prime, present-day Ukraine was divided between the Austrian and Russian empires, each imposing different polit…

Lenny A. Ureña Valerio, "Colonial Fantasies, Imperial Realities: Race Science and the Making of Polishness on the Fringes of the German Empire, 1840-1920" (Ohio UP, 2019)

January 2, 2024

Colonial Fantasies, Imperial Realities

Lenny A. Ureña Valerio
Hosted by Steven Seegel

In Colonial Fantasies, Imperial Realities: Race Science and the Making of Polishness on the Fringes of the German Empire, 1840-1920 (Ohio University P…

Magda Stroińska, "My Life in Propaganda: A Memoir about Language and Totalitarian Regimes" (Durvile, 2023)

December 21, 2023

My Life in Propaganda

Magda Stroińska
Hosted by AJ Woodhams

My Life in Propaganda: A Memoir about Language and Totalitarian Regimes (Durvile, 2023) is Magda Stroińska’s personal account of growing up with commu…

Is Poland Back on Track?  The Challenges for the New Government

December 18, 2023

Is Poland Back on Track?

Grzegorz Ekiert

In this episode of International Horizons, RBI's Director John Torpey interviews Grzegorz Ekiert, Chair of the Center for European Studies at Harvard …

The Idea of "Central Europe" from Naumann to Kundera

November 24, 2023

The Idea of "Central Europe" from Naumann to Kundera

Martyn Rady and Alexander Watson
Hosted by Charles Coutinho

Central Europe has long been infamous as a region beset by war, a place where empires clashed and world wars began. In The Middle Kingdoms: A New Hist…

Agata Fijalkowski, "Law, Visual Culture, and the Show Trial" (Routledge, 2023)

October 30, 2023

Law, Visual Culture, and the Show Trial

Agata Fijalkowski
Hosted by Alex Batesmith
Listen:

Addressing the relationship between law and the visual, this book examines the importance of photography in Central, East, and Southeast European show…

Martyn C. Rady, "The Middle Kingdoms: A New History of Central Europe" (Basic Books, 2023)

September 23, 2023

The Middle Kingdoms

Martyn C. Rady
Hosted by Charles Coutinho

Central Europe has long been infamous as a region beset by war, a place where empires clashed and world wars began. In The Middle Kingdoms: A New Hist…

Malgorzata Fidelis, "Imagining the World from Behind the Iron Curtain: Youth and the Global Sixties in Poland" (Oxford UP, 2022)

September 22, 2023

Imagining the World from Behind the Iron Curtain

Malgorzata Fidelis
Hosted by Jill Massino
Listen:

The Global Sixties are well known as a period of non-conformist lifestyles, experimentation with consumer products and technology, counterculture, and…

Katarzyna Person and Johannes-Dieter Steinert, "Przemysłowa Concentration Camp: The Camp, the Children, the Trials" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2023)

September 21, 2023

Przemysłowa Concentration Camp

Katarzyna Person and Johannes-Dieter Steinert
Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Listen:

Katarzyna Person and Johannes-Dieter Steinert's book Przemysłowa Concentration Camp: The Camp, the Children, the Trials (Palgrave MacMillan, 2023) exp…

Jacob Mikanowski, "Goodbye, Eastern Europe: An Intimate History of a Divided Land" (Pantheon Books, 2023)

August 11, 2023

Goodbye, Eastern Europe

Jacob Mikanowski
Hosted by AJ Woodhams
Listen:

Eastern Europe, the moniker, has gone out of fashion since the fall of the Soviet Union. Ask someone now, and they might tell you that Estonia is in t…

Jeffrey S. Kopstein and Jason Wittenberg, "Intimate Violence: Anti-Jewish Pogroms on the Eve of the Holocaust" (Cornell UP, 2018)

July 19, 2023

Intimate Violence

Jeffrey S. Kopstein and Jason Wittenberg
Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Listen:

Why do pogroms occur in some localities and not in others? Jeffrey S. Kopstein and Jason Wittenberg examine a particularly brutal wave of violence tha…

Jane Rogoyska, "Surviving Katyn: Stalin's Polish Massacre and the Search for Truth" (Oneworld, 2021)

July 9, 2023

Surviving Katyn

Jane Rogoyska
Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Listen:

Committed in utmost secrecy in April-May 1940 by the NKVD on the direct orders of Joseph Stalin, for nearly fifty years the Soviet regime succeeded in…