CFP: 3rd International Conference in Polish Studies

[Beth Holmgren]

CALL FOR PAPERS

The Copernicus Endowment for Polish Studies at the University of
Michigan welcomes proposals for papers and presentations at the 3rd
International Conference in Polish Studies, to be held September
16-18, 2010, in Ann Arbor.

The field of Polish studies in North America has been utterly
transformed over the past decade. There are now more people than ever
studying Polish language, literature, culture, history, society, and
politics, and the overwhelming majority of them entered the profession
after the fall of communism. With this new generation of scholars have
come new forms of scholarship. The broad cluster of methodological and
theoretical innovations collected under the rubric of Cultural Studies
has brought to light a range of previously unexplored topics and
introduced to our work a heightened degree of self-reflexivity. Work
on gender and sexuality, for example, has not merely introduced new
analytical categories and new themes, but shifted the way we
understand the broad narratives of Polish history, culture, and
society. Although Polonists have a long history of working across
disciplinary boundaries, the vectors of interdisciplinarity have been
shifting in recent years to bring together perspectives that were not
always in dialogue. The moves towards comparative work and a new focus
on transnational processes have not so much eclipsed Polish studies as
forced us to critically examine the concept of the “Polish Nation” and
to re-conceptualize it in more productive ways.

The Steering Committee is particularly interested in receiving
proposals that cut across disciplinary boundaries. Novel approaches to
Polish Studies, in both theory and practice, will be favored over
papers that merely attempt to fill “gaps” in available scholarship.
Advanced graduate students and junior scholars are especially
encouraged to submit proposals.

Please submit an abstract of 250-500 words as a Microsoft Word (.doc
or .docx) file by email to polishstudies at ctools.umich.edu. Abstracts
will be accepted until January 30, 2010.

Upon acceptance, attendees at the conference will be asked to
contribute a non-refundable registration fee of USD 100. Limited
financial assistance is available as needed, though participants are
first asked to exhaust resources for conference travel at their home
institutions. Please submit the request for conference funding
together with your proposal.

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