Meet the visiting graduate students from Poland on the Joanna DeMone Award at the University of Toronto for 2024-25!
Michalina Wesołowska
I am a doctoral student at the Doctoral School of Languages and Literatures and a researcher in the Children’s Literature & Culture Research Team at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland. My academic interests focus on children's literature translation studies and adaptation studies. In my PhD dissertation, I examine the English and Polish storyworlds surrounding L.M. Montgomery's character, Anne Shirley.
During my research in Toronto, I am mapping the storyworld related to Anne Shirley. I explore the reception of L.M. Montgomery's work through various forms of textual transformations, adaptations, and rewritings. The Joanna DeMone Award has provided me with a unique opportunity to deepen my knowledge of both Canadian and Polish literature. While at the University of Toronto, I am conducting extensive library research and visiting locations connected to L.M. Montgomery.
Monika Kopcik
I am a doctoral student at the University of Warsaw, specializing in poststructuralist genre theory and East-Central European modernism. My dissertation focuses on the cultural mobility documented in the letters of the Polish composer Karol Szymanowski. I aim to demonstrate that correspondence provides a unique insight into the trajectories of artistic transfers that shaped identity formation in modern nation-states.
During my time at the University of Toronto, I will examine how the spatio-temporal aspects of letter writing influenced the discourse of identity among the mobile artistic intelligentsia of interwar Poland. I am grateful to the Joanna DeMone Award for providing me with the support of Polish Studies scholars and access to the excellent UofT libraries. While in Toronto, I will write chapter of my dissertation, which situates the understudied artistic networks of East-Central Europe within the context of global modernism.
The Complete Recipient List of the Joanna DeMone Award at the University of Toronto
1. 2016-17 Izabela Pakuła, SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities
2. 2017-18 Agnieszka Łaszczuk, University of Warsaw
3. 2018-19 Anna Jaworska, University of Warsaw
4. 2018-19 Mateusz Pytko, University of Warsaw
5. 2018-19 Klaudia Rosińska, Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw
6. 2021-22 Sylwia Borowska-Kazimiruk, University of Warsaw
7. 2021-22 Agata Chwirot, Adam Mickiewicz University
8. 2022-23 Mateusz Kucab, Jagiellonian University
My name is Mateusz Kucab, and I am a PhD student at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. My research focuses on American and Polish poetry written by women, specifically through a comparative analysis of the poetry of Emily Dickinson, Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Halina Poświatowska.
The Joanna DeMone Fellowship has allowed me to deepen my research on American poetry and gather valuable materials on women's poetry from the 19th century. This opportunity has enabled me to examine the circumstances of women writers in Poland, the United States, and Canada. Currently, I am working on a research paper on women poets in Ontario.
9. 2023-24 Małgorzata Nowak, Adam Mickiewicz University
I am a PhD candidate at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, in the Faculty of Polish and Classical Philology. My research is focused on the problem of evil in the Romantic era, comparative literature (oriented mainly to Polish and British Romanticism), the Romantic breakthrough, and the history and criticism of literary translation. I published articles in significant journals related to Polish literary studies and contributed chapters to various monographs.
During my stay in Toronto, I worked on the project The Bible and the Romantics: Juliusz Słowacki and George Gordon Byron. The Joanna DeMone Award helped me immensely. It was an extraordinary opportunity because of the access to the various library resources not available in Poland. The University of Toronto Library surpasses Polish institutions in its offerings on publications related to Anglo-Saxon Romanticism and Biblical studies.
10. 2023-24 Honorata Sroka, University of Warsaw
I am a PhD student of the literary discipline at the University of Warsaw, affiliated with the Center for Avant-Garde Studies (Jagiellonian University, Krakow). My research interests include European avant-garde, specifically, the intermedia art of Franciszka and Stefan Themerson, as well as the experimental life-writing practices and archives of the avant-gardes.
My PhD research is centred on the archives of the avant-gardes. The objective of my project is to examine the autobiographical sources of painter Franciszka and writer Stefan Themerson. The Themerson Archive is one of the biggest avant-garde archives in Europe. During my participation in the Joanna DeMone Award, I conducted a library query focused on the research of avant-garde archives as well as experimental life-writing practices and methodologies used to analyze these sources.
11. 2023-24 Łukasz Kiełpiński, University of Warsaw
I am a PhD Candidate in the Doctoral School of Humanities at the University of Warsaw. Currently, I am the Principal Investigator in "Perły nauki” (Pearls of Science) research project "Filmmaking as an Identity Project. Autobiographical Images through the Lens of Affect Theory," funded by the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education. I participated in the School of Criticism and Theory 2023 at Cornell University. My academic interests involve contemporary cinema, affect theory, and visual studies.
My research project focuses on the theoretical conceptualization of "structures of feeling" as manifested in contemporary Polish cinema after 2015. Drawing on affect theory, discourse analysis, and visual studies, I aim to demonstrate that a significant shift in sensibility has occurred in recent Polish cinema. Thanks to the Joanna DeMone Award, I was able to strengthen my theoretical framework, linking New Sincerity aesthetics with the latest developments in Polish cinema.
12. 2024-25 Monika Kopcik, University of Warsaw
13. 2024-25 Michalina Wesołowska, Adam Mickiewicz University