What They Brought / What They Changed: Material Culture and Polish Chicago International Online Conference | February 4-5, 2021. Please contact Tara Rutledge for the registration link and if you have any questions. This conference is supported by the Franke Institute for the Humanities, the Chicago Studies Program at the University of Chicago, and the Center for East European and Russian/Eurasian Studies.
DAY 1 Thursday, February 4, 2021
9:00-9:15AM Central Standard Time/4:00-4:15PM Central European Standard Time
Opening remarks by principal organizers: Bożena Shallcross, The University of Chicago and Agata Zborowska, The University of Warsaw
9:15-10:15AM / 4:15-5:15PM
Recipes for Identity
Chair: Bożena McLees, Loyola University
Sylwia Kuźma-Markowska, The University of Warsaw
Modernizing Polish-American Household: Polonia Women and Household Appliances in Interwar Chicago
Anna Sosnowska-Jordanovska, The University of Warsaw
Old world grandma’s coziness for cheap: Chicago’s Polish restaurants in customers’ review on yelp.com
Coffee Break
10:30AM-12:00PM / 5:30-7:00PM
Objectifying Polish Identity
Chair: Sasha Lindskog, The University of Chicago & University of Illinois at Chicago
Tomasz Łysak, The University of Warsaw
Decisive Objects: Zofia Rydet and Allan Sekula Photographing Polishness
Małgorzata Litwinowicz, The University of Warsaw
Written Things
George Gasyna, The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Florian Znaniecki’s Traces in Illinois
DAY 2 Friday, February 5, 2021
9:00-10:30AM / 4:00-5:30PM
Creating Chicago Spaces
Chair: Michał Wilczewski, The University of Illinois at Chicago
Dominic Pacyga, Columbia College
Poland Elsewhere: Creating a New Homeland in Chicago
Anatole Upart, The University of Chicago
Polonia Restituta: The Case of St. John Cantius Catholic Church in Chicago
Agata Zborowska, University of Warsaw
“Just let us pass out of the picture quietly”: The Void of Union Stock Yards
Coffee break
10:45AM-12:15PM / 5:45-7:15PM
Material Culture on Display
Chair: Eliza Rose, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Beth Holmgren, Duke University
How Modjeska Modeled Herself in Chicago: The American Stage Star and Polonia’s Patroness
Bożena Shallcross, The University of Chicago
Trees, the Gang of Three and the Polish Triangle
Adam Kola, Nicolaus Copernicus University
Memories and Memorials: On the Polish-Czech Material Reciprocity in Chicago
Lunch break
1:15PM / 8:15PM
Roundtable: Chicago’s Slavic Communities of Things
Chair: Eleanor Gilburd, The University of Chicago
Participants: Magdalena Moskalewicz (School of the Art Institute of Chicago), Angelina Ilieva (UChicago), Nada Petkovic (UChicago), Victoria Granacki (independent scholar), William Nickell (UChicago), Esther Peters (UChicago).