Center for American Studies, MCSU Lublin

American Studies at the crossroads! Dr Edyta Frelik represented CAS at the 10th World Congress of the Polish Institute of Arts & Sciences of America, held on June 12–13 in Lublin under the theme “Crossroads of Cultures.” Hosted in partnership with Maria Curie-Skłodowska University, this multidisciplinary event gathered over 150 presenters from Poland and abroad across 42 panels. Dr Frelik presented a paper entitled "Between Lublin and New York: Tadeusz Mysłowski’s Transatlantic Crossroads." The congress also featured a special exhibition devoted to the Paris-based Kultura literary journal. In the photo, Dr Edyta Frelik is joined by two fellow presenters and representatives of the Polish Association for American Studies: Prof. Marek Paryż, University of Warsaw, President of PAAS, and Prof. Mateusz Świetlicki, University of Wrocław. Prof. Paryż and Dr Frelik both serve on the PAAS Board, with Dr Frelik as Vice-President.

After years of working at Maria Curie-Skłodowska University, we finally got to meet the woman herself!
Last week, Dr. Lidia Kniaź-Hunek attended the Women in Tech Summit organized by Perspektywy Education Foundation. She listened to inspiring keynote speeches, joined engaging workshops, and connected with women from across the tech industry. Along the way, she met a humanoid robot and even posed for a photo with a convincing lookalike of Maria Skłodowska-Curie.

"And now for something completely different..." On May 29th Ewa Antoszek together with Ewa Przednowek had an immense pleasure to interpret the meeting "Borders of Imagination: Conversations on Literature and the World Tenderness, Language, Imagination" between the Nobel Prize Winner Olga Tokarczuk and Professor Anders Olsson, moderated by Justyna Czechowska. It was a true feast for the mind!

On Friday, dr. Ewa Antoszek took part in the official ending and announcement ceremony of the project “Key Concepts of American Culture” in High School no. 30 in Lublin. The project explored selected concepts of American culture through the analysis of film and visual culture, combining approaches from American Studies, cultural studies, and film studies. After short lectures/talks by both Weronika Kapuścińska and our students, Natalia Szczęśniak, Bartosz Kołodziejczyk, and Marcin Krzyszycha, the students created their own film clips inspired by the films they had watched during the project. Congratulations to all the participants and many thanks to Kamila Hrynkiewicz-Kuś for organizing the events and the invitation to participate in the project!

Between May 26th and 27th, Dr. Ewa Antoszek participated in Border Seminar 2026, “Conquest, Borders, Arts” at the University of Gdańsk. The seminar was organized by the International Border Studies Center and the Border Studies Lab. During the seminar, she discussed the issue of borders in Reyna Grande’s book, A Dream Called Home, and Agnieszka Zwiefka’s film, Silent Trees (2024), and actively contributed to interdisciplinary discussions. She also presented the project MigraMedia and educational tools to teach about borders and migration that have been developed in the project. Owing to the project’s funding, eight graduate students were able to participate in the seminar, including A.J. Dawidziuk, Anna Harasim, Michał Kondrak, Ola Noińska, Natalia Szczęśniak, Natalia Urawska, Angelika Ziomek and Angelika Żak. They contributed greatly to the event with their participation in presentations, discussions ,and a special performance. Let’s hope this event will help in their academic engagement, and encourage their further involvement in scholarly exchange and networking.

Between May 19th and 22nd, dr. Ewa Antoszek participated in the 14th International Conference on Chicano Literature and Latino Studies, “Transculturations: Encounters, Mestizajes, and Returns Between the Americas and Spain,” held at Universidad de Extremadura, Cáceres, Spain. The conference brought together scholars specializing in Chicanx, Latinx, transatlantic, and intercultural studies. Through her participation, Dr. Antoszek engaged with current research on cultural exchange, migration, identity formation, and transcultural processes connecting Spain and the Americas, while strengthening international academic networks and fostering opportunities for future collaboration.

The Center for American Studies at UMCS (Dr. Lidia Kniaź-Hunek) and the Department of Applied Linguistics (Dr. Małgorzata Paprota) invite you to a meeting with Sarah Brady (a former Fulbright English Teaching Assistant) organized as part of the “Ask an American” event series. The topic of the meeting will be higher education in the United States.
📅 May 28, 2026
🕐 6:00–7:00 PM
📍 Online (MS Teams)
🗣️ The meeting will be conducted in English.
🎟️ Free admission, registration required.
📩 To register, please contact the event co-organizer: dr Lidia Kniaź-Hunek at [email protected]

It was a pleasure to welcome ethnomusicologist Dr. Chris Ballengee from the Polish Academy of Sciences for “Sounding the Nation: Tracing the Roots of American Music,” organized as part of our Sounds of America lecture series.

During the lecture, Dr. Ballengee explored the complex history of North American music, highlighting its connections to transatlantic cultural exchange, race, and class. By combining musical examples with historical and social context, he demonstrated how sound and musical traditions can reflect broader cultural structures and identities.

We are incredibly grateful to Dr. Ballengee for sharing his expertise on American music with our students and faculty. We are already looking forward to more events devoted to American culture in the future!

On May 11th, Dr. Lidia Kniaź-Hunek visited the Institute of American Studies and Polish Diaspora at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, where she delivered an invited plenary lecture on Afrofuturism.

The talk introduced students to Afrofuturism as a cultural, artistic, and political framework present across media. For many attendees, it was their first encounter with the topic, which led to a lively discussion and numerous excellent questions after the lecture.

Thank you to Dr Maciej Smółka for the invitation!