The Institute of American Studies and Polish Diaspora

Información

The Institute of American Studies and Polish Diaspora was established in 2004. It emerged from the consolidation of various programs already in existence (Chair of American Studies, Center for Canadian Studies, Chair of Latin American Studies, Chair of the History of International Migration Movements and Chair of Sociology of Nation and Ethnic Relations). 
  
The Chair of American Studies was founded in 1991 as an interfaculty research institution of the Jagiellonian University with the aim of teaching Polish students about different issues concerning the United States. In 1995 a program of doctoral studies was launched and in March 2000 the first Ph.D. dissertation was defended.
   
The Institute now functions within the Department of International and Political Studies. The aim of the Institute is to further academic interdisciplinary research in American, Latin-American, ethnic, migration and Polish Diaspora studies.
   
The Institute offers the following programs of cultural studies for Polish students: American studies (undergraduate and postgraduate), Latin-American studies (postgraduate), studies in ethnicity and nationalism (postgraduate).
    
The Institute currently employs 24 academic staff.
   
The director of the Institute is Professor Adam Walaszek.

Activities One of the Institute publications is Ad Americam. Journal of American Studies published annually in English by Jagiellonian University Press .

The Institute has recently organized widely successful academic conferences that attracted well-known scholars from around the world. The last three international conferences have examined the controversies surrounding America’s role in the world:  American Foreign Policy. Theory and Practice (2007), American Ethnicity. Rethinking Old Issues, Asking New Questions (2008) and U.S. and the World. From Imitation to Challenge (2009).