PAHA's 76th Annual Meeting

PAHA’s 76th annual meeting was be held in Chicago as part of the 133rd yearly meeting of the American Historical Association from January 3–6, 2019.

The theme for the AHA conference is “Loyalties.” As explained in the general CFP “… loyalties function on multiple levels. Individually, or in groups, humans commit themselves to communities, loved ones, principles, a leader, a nation, a religion, an ideology, or an identity.”

PAHA Chair of the Program Committee: Anna Muller, Ph.D.; anmuller@umich.edu, University of Michigan-Dearborn

Download PAHA's 76th Annual Meeting Program in PDF Format.

Chicago and Lake Michigan, Photo by Maja Trochimczyk

2019 Annual Meeting Program 

76th Annual Meeting of Polish American Historical Association

All Sessions will be held in the Hilton Chicago, 720 S. Michigan Ave, Chicago, Illinois, 60605. PAHA's meeting is organized in association with the 133rd Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association.

To get to the hotel from the O'Hare Airport take the Blue Line train to Jackson stop and walk 0.6 miles southeast. To get to the hotel from  Midway Airport take the Orange Line train to the Roosevelt stop and walk 0.5 miles north to 720 S. Michigan.

Session 1: Building the Polish Diaspora: Polish Communities Abroad

Thursday, January 3, 2019: 1:30 PM-3:00 PM

Hilton Chicago, Conference Room 4K

Chair: Pien Versteegh, Avans University of Applied Sciences

Papers:

  • From Popular to Personal: Polish-American Influence at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference - Denis Clark, University of Oxford
  • Building the Diaspora: Circulations of Ideas and Practices between French and American Polonia during the Cold War - Florence Vychytil-Baudoux, Centre Français de Recherce en Sciences Sociales
  • Jones Island Milwaukee Kaszube Fishermen and Loyalty Bonds to St. Stanislaus Church  - Ann Gurnack, University of Wisconsin-Parkside
  •  Comment: The Audience

                                            PAHA Board Meeting in Chicago, Photo by Maja Trochimczyk

PAHA Board Meeting Part 1

Thursday, January 3, 2019: 3:30 PM-5:00 PM

Hilton Chicago, Conference Room 4L

Presider: Anna Mazurkiewicz, University of Gdańsk

 Lake Michigan, Photo by Maja Trochimczyk

Session 2: Loyalty to a Patriotic Ideal? And If So, Which? Memory Politics and Cultural Politics in Post-World War II Poland

Friday, January 4, 2019: 8:30 AM-10:00 AM

Hilton Chicago, Conference Room 4K

Chair: Michal Janusz Wilczewski, University of Illinois at Chicago

Papers:

  • “Her Soul Was That of a Heroine”: Polish Warrior Women in 19th-Century American Literature - Jill Noel Walker Gonzalez, La Sierra University
  • Satiric Rogues: Satire between Protest and Team Building in Stalinist Poland - Elizabeth Wenger, independent scholar
  • Between Gender Blindness and Nationalist Herstory: Writing Women's History in Times of Illiberal Revisionism in Poland - Weronika Grzebalska, Polish Academy of Sciences
  • Active National Forgetting and Sexual Violence in Poland during and after the Second World  War as Seen through the Works of Andrzej Wajda - Meghann T. Pytka, Northwestern University
  • Comment: The Audience

                             

                       Sculpture by Magdalena Abakanowicz in Chicago, Photo by Maja Trochimczyk

Session 3: Lifelong Affection: Americans in East Central Europe from World War I to the End of the Cold War

Friday, January 4, 2019: 10:30 AM-12:00 PM

Hilton Chicago, Conference Room 4K

Chair: Anna Muller, University of Michigan–Dearborn

Papers:

  • William J. Tonesk: Polish-American Quests in East Central Europe, 1920s–40s - Anna Mazurkiewicz, University of Gdańsk
  • Hugh S. Gibson: An American Diplomat in Warsaw, 1919–24 - Vivian Reed, Western Oregon University
  • Gene Deitch: An American Illustrator in Prague, 1959 to the Present - Francis D. Raška, Charles University
  • Comment: The Audience

                           

                                         Lake Michigan, Photo by Maja Trochimczyk

Session 4: Conflicted Loyalties and/or Pragmatism

Friday, January 4, 2019: 1:30 PM-3:00 PM

Hilton Chicago, Conference Room 4K

Chair: Anna D. Jaroszyńska-Kirchmann, Eastern Connecticut State University

Papers:

  • Conflicting Loyalties: Sexual and Ethnic Identity among Polish Immigrant Gay Men in Chicago - Hubert Izienicki, Purdue University Northwest
  • Loyalty and Pragmatism: US Naturalization Rates of New Polish Immigrants - Mary Patrice Erdmans, Case Western Reserve University
  • Comment: The Audience

                         

                              Chicago and Lake Michigan, Photo by Maja Trochimczyk

Session 5: Polish Soldiers' Loyalty in Transnational Context

Friday, January 4, 2019: 3:30 PM-5:00 PM

Hilton Chicago, Conference Room 4K

Chair: James Pula, Purdue University Northwest

Papers:

  • Between Civilization and Barbarians: Loyalty of Slavic and Roman Soldiers in the Second Half of the 6th Century - Łukasz Różycki, Adam Mickiewicz University
  • False Stones or Diamonds in the Rough? Polish and American Mercenary Officers in the Egyptian Army, 1833–83 - John P. Dunn, Valdosta State University
  • Negotiated Loyalties: Poles and the Polish Cause on the Battlefields of the American Civil War - Piotr Derengowski, University of Gdańsk
  • Loyalty to Your Country, to Your Men, or to Oneself? The Question of Surrender in the Polish Military during World War II - Jan Szkudliński, Gdynia City Museum
  • Comment: The Audience

                        

                                      South Chicago, Photo by Maja Trochimczyk

Session 6: Reconstructions, Processes, and (Invented) Traditions

Saturday, January 5, 2019: 8:30 AM-10:00 AM

Hilton Chicago, Conference Room 4K

Chair: Mary Patrice Erdmans, Case Western Reserve University

Papers:

  • Kosloski’s Kashub Commodities: Tradition, Scarcity, and Why We Value Wilno Furniture - Joshua Blank, independent scholar
  • Staying Polish? Changing Ethnic Sentiments of Polish Migrants in the United States - Pien Versteegh, Avans University of Applied Sciences
  • The New Ethnicity Movement and Polish Americans: It's Coming, Going, Significance, and Consequences - Donald Pienkos, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee
  • Comment: The Audience

                              

                                    St. Stanislaw Kostka Church with Girls in Gorale Costume

Session 7: Different Faces of Polishness

Saturday, January 5, 2019: 10:30 AM-12:00 PM

Hilton Chicago, Conference Room 4K

Chair: Anna Mazurkiewicz, University of Gdańsk

Papers:

  • The Warsaw Positivists and the Racial Redefinition of Polishness in the Second Half of the 19th Century - Marta Cieslak, University of Arkansas at Little Rock
  • Social Theory of the Peasant Migrant and the Problem of Universalism in Polish History - Kathleen Wroblewski, University of Michigan
  • Polonizing an Anglo Community - James Pula, Purdue University Northwest
  • Comment: The Audience

                         

                                 A South Chicago street,  Photo by Maja Trochimczyk

Session 8: American Ethnics in the Post-World War II Decades

Saturday, January 5, 2019: 1:30 PM-3:00 PM

Hilton Chicago, Conference Room 4K

Chair: David A. Gerber, State University of New York at Buffalo

Papers:

  • Urban Renewal and the Response of American Ethnic Groups, 1949–74 - Anna D. Jaroszyńska-Kirchmann, Eastern Connecticut State University
  • Racial Reason and Post-World War II Italian American Assimilation in Boston’s North End - James Pasto, Boston University 
  • Italian Americans and the Limits of White Ethnic Liberalism in Postwar Immigration Reform Campaigns - Danielle Battisti, University of Nebraska at Omaha
  • Individual Effort, Not Quotas: American Jews against Affirmative Action in the 1970s and 1980s - Eric Morgenson, State University of New York, University at Albany
  • Comment: David A. Gerber, State University of New York at Buffalo

                         

                              Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church in South Chicago

Session 9: War, Displacement, and Polish Communities

Saturday, January 5, 2019: 3:30 PM-5:00 PM

Hilton Chicago, Conference Room 4K

Chair: Angela Pienkos, Polish Center of Wisconsin

Papers:

  • "For Us Americans of Polish Descent, War Broke out on September 1st, 1939": The Divided Loyalties of the Sienkiewicz Youth Circle - Andrew Kless, University of Rochester
  • Defining Poland through Music: American Musical Celebrations of the Centennial of Poland’s Regained Independence - Maja Trochimczyk, Moonrise Press, Los Angeles

  • The Foundations of the Polish Diaspora in Exile after World War II: Cultural Identity and Loyalty of the Polish Emigres in Resettlement - Agata Błaszczyk, Polish University Abroad

  • Comment: The Audience

Annual  PAHA Awards Banquet 

Saturday, January 5, 2019, at 7 p.m. 

Chopin Theater, 1543 W Division St, Chicago, IL 60642

Tickets are $45 per person; the awardees attend for free.

To reserve your seat for the Awards Banquet, register for the conference

and pay the Awards Banquet Fee, please visit our website:

https://polishamericanstudies.org/text/19/registration.html

                        

                                         A Chicago street view, photo by Maja Trochimczyk

PAHA Board Meeting Part 2

Sunday, January 6, 2019: 9:00 AM-10:30 AM

Hilton Chicago, Conference Room 4K

Presider: Anna Mazurkiewicz, University of Gdańsk