Welcome to the new 2006 – 2007 school year! I’d like to extend a special welcome to new students and faculty members who have an interest in Polish Studies.

This year the Polish Studies Center celebrates thirty years of its existence. As usual, we are preparing a wide range of scholarly, artistic, and social events. The highlight of the year will be a conference devoted to postwar Polish–German relations (see the information on our website), which will take place in April 2007.

We’ll kick off the year with our traditional Polish Picnic, which will be held on Saturday September 9th. For details see the "Calendar" link on this website.

Last year was a banner year for the Center. Above all, we were delighted to welcome Professor Justyna Beinek, the new Assistant Professor of Polish Language and Literature in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures. Professor Beinek’s presence reinvigorated Polish Studies at IU; we were especially delighted to see record enrollments in her Survey of Polish Literature class in Spring 2006. This year as last, Professor Beinek will be supported by Tomasz Bilczewski, who will rejoin us in the fall thanks in part to funding from the Kosciuszko Foundation. As well as language classes, Beinek and Bilczewski will co-teach a class entitled "Body/Text: Representing the body in Polish literature and culture."

Last year we also hosted numerous eminent visitors, including translator and Slavist Margarita Nafpaktitis of the University of Virginia, cultural historian Larry Wolff of Boston College, theater director Marek Chodaczynksi of Warsaw’s famous Impossible Theatre, leading Polish-Jewish writer Henryk Grynberg, and Kris van Heuckelom from the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium, specialist in Bruno Schulz. The highlight of the year was a whole-day celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Solidarity Movement, in which resident IU scholars such as Jeff Isaac and Jack Bielasiak were joined by scholar Irena Grudzinska-Gross of Boston University, journalist Konstanty Gebert (who writes under the pen-name of Dawid Warszawski) of Gazeta Wyborcza, and Jaroslaw Lasinski, Consul-General at the Polish Consulate in Chicago.

I’d also like to take this opportunity to extend my thanks to the many IU departments and units across the university with whom the Polish Studies Center has collaborated. Last year these included the Russian and East European Institute, the Office of International Programs, the Department of Political Science, the Department of History, the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, the Jacobs School of Music, and the Robert A. and Sandra S. Borns Jewish Studies Program. We also acknowledge the frequent support of the Horizons of Knowledge series. We look forward to further collaboration with these and other units this coming year.

Lastly, I’m pleased to report that the Polish Studies team of Andy Hinnant (administrative assistant), Mira Rosenthal (graduate assistant), and Ula Knepper (librarian) will be reunited in the coming year to run the Center and help organize our various events.

I invite you to explore the rest of this website (and keep checking for updates in events), to visit the Center, located at 1217 E. Atwater Ave. on the Bloomington campus, and above all to attend our events. I look forward to seeing you at the picnic!

Bill Johnston