2023 is the Year of Poland for the VSU Department of History

To celebrate five years of partnership with our colleagues at University of Gdańsk (UG), the History Department is promoting “2023 – the Year of Poland.” Visiting professors, study abroad, conference panels, publications, and trans-Atlantic classrooms are all part of this venture.

Dr. Tom Aiello will return from UG in December after teaching classes at UG. Two UG professors, Drs. Piotr Derengowski and Magdalena Nowak, will join us as Louis Brown Scholars in Spring and Fall 2023. Derengowski, Poland’s leading authority on the American Civil War, arrives in January to provide a Polish perspective on this conflict to our students, along with a survey class in U.S. History, plus the offer of a historical gaming club for our Honors’ College. Nowak arrives in Fall to help expand our new Public History track. Her UG focus on “historical tourism” is but one of many talents. Nowak also plans to teach a course on Modern Polish History and make presentations from her primary research focus – Polish-Ukrainian Relations.

_{Dr. Nowak visiting Dr. Dunn’s course at VSU}

The Year of Poland also features a panel for the Georgia Association of Historians (GAH), who will meet on our campus in February 2023. Derengowski and Nowak will join Dr. Paulina Napierała, who was a Blazer in 2000, and now a professor at the Jagiellonian University in Krakόw. VSU’s own Dr. Sebastian Bartos, born in Tomaszów Mazowiecki, completes the team, making this the first Polish panel to present at the GAH.

Scholarly efforts continue with Nowak and John Dunn. They co-presented at Totalitarianism Across History and Disciplines, an international conference which took place at VSU in November, and the scholarly duo are now preparing an article for publication. Bartos used his connections in Poland to bring this conference to VSU. Derengowski is working to complete an annotated diary of a Polish officer serving General Sherman as he was “marching through Georgia,” while Napierała will gather data for her book on the role of Black Churches in American politics.

The Department of History will also support a fourth study abroad program to connect Blazers with their UG counterparts, and learn about the long history of Gdańsk – where a ten-minute walk can take you from the Middle Ages to the Fall of Communism. Ms. Hannah Clark is poised to take advantage of the Double Eagle Exchange Program, a History discretionary account which supports VSU and UG students who wish to spend a term on each other’s campus. For those students who can’t afford study abroad, VSU and UG professors engage in online classroom presentations. Dr. Anna Mazurkiewicz, our first Polish Louis Brown Scholar, initiated these during COVID days, and they will continue in 2023. Recently UG and VSU students connected, despite a six-hour time difference, thanks to stalwart efforts by Nowak, and her VSU colleagues: Drs. Sarah FitzGerald, Melanie Byrd, and Professor Deborah Davis.

This exciting year is possible thanks to an excellent relationship with UG. Our Polish partners are “hungry” for connections with America. Professors from our College might consider spending a term teaching in Gdańsk. UG students are excellent, your class can be taught in English, and if you’d like to know more, check out: https://en.ug.edu.pl/

_{Dr. Nowak and Dr. Dunn presenting their research at the Totalitarianism Across History and Disciplines international conference hosted at VSU}