Joanna Niżyńska, Director

Joanna Niżyńska has been Director of the Polish Studies Center since January 2015. As Associate Professor of Polish in the Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures, she approaches her field from a comparative perspective and pursues research that crosses disciplinary and national borders. Her longstanding interests in intersections between trauma, memory and the everyday are reflected in her monographs The Kingdom of Insignificance: Miron Bialoszewski and the Quotidian, the Traumatic, and the Queer (Northwestern UP, 2013) and German-Polish Postmemorial Relations: In Search of a Livable Past (co-edited with Kristin Kopp, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012). She is currently completing the manuscript of A History of Polish Literature and Culture: New Perspectives on the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries, a volume co-authored by a team of international scholars  (forthcoming with the U of Toronto Press, 2016).

Barbara Andraka-Christou, Assistant to the Director

Barbara Andraka-Christou is a Ph.D. Candidate in Law & Social Science at the IU Maurer School of Law. Her dissertation focuses on the pharmaceutical regulation of medication for treating drug addiction, as well as the medications' stigmatization and underuse within the U.S. criminal justice system. As part of her research, she evaluates regulations and perceptions of addiction medication abroad. Barbara also holds a J.D. from the IU Maurer School of Law. Having grown up as a heritage Polish speaker, Barbara has always been keenly interested in Polish culture and language. www.bandrakachristou.com