From Poles in America to Polish-Americans 3301-KA1505
The course is devoted to the study of major historical, social and cultural phenomena concerning Polish Americans. It offers an outline of the history of their settlement in the USA, with an analysis of the pull and push factors behind the migration and the results of cultural transition following immigration. The time span covers the beginning of the 17th century through the present. Attention is divided between the perspectives on the public and private: family life, the position of women, the situation of second-generation-immigrant children versus the intuitional and organizational life of the community, encompassing religion, education, work, journalistic, literary, and artistic activity. Coursework is based on the examination of a variety of authentic and rare texts of culture, including Polish Americans' early writings, press and book publications, photographs, documentaries as well as latest fiction, including texts written by Leopold Tyrmand and Czesław Miłosz. Also, the course contains a critical and theoretical focus by presenting the applicable findings of such luminaries as Florian Znaniecki, William Thomas, and Werner Sollors. To expand the scope of study, the course offers an analysis of Polish Jews' contribution to American culture, for example, that of Anzia Yezierska, Mary Antin, and Eva Hoffman.
Type of course
Learning outcomes
A student will acquire basic information about:From Poles in America to Polish-Americans and will develop his/her analytical skills.
Bibliography
Primary sources:
Czupka, Julian. Obrazki z Ameryki. Wilkes-Barre, PA: Górnik, 1897.
Grzeloński, Bogdan, ed. Ameryka w pamiętnikach Polaków: Antologia. Warszawa: Interpress, 1988.
Hoffman, Eva. Lost in Translation: A Life in a New Language. London: Vintage, 1998.
Miłosz, Czesław. Visions from San Francisco Bay. Transl. by Richard Lourie. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, cop. 1982.
Nesterowicz, Melania. Sprzedawaczka z Broadwayu. Detroit: Unity Press, 1937.
Niemcewicz, Julian Ursyn. Podróże po Ameryce, 1797-1807. Wrocław: Ossolineum 1959.
Piechota, Magdalena, ed. Jaka Ameryka?: Polscy reportażyści dwudziestolecia międzywojennego o Stanach Zjednoczonych. Lublin: Wydaw. UMCS, 2002.
Pietrzyk, Leslie. Pears on a Willow Tree. London: Granta Books, 1998.
Pobóg, Iza. "Ich syn - nowela na tle amerykańskich stosunków." Gazeta Polska w Chicago March 24, 1910.
Riis, Jacob August. How the Other Half Lives: Studies among the Tenements of New York. New York: Hill and Wang, cop. 1957.
Staś, Helena. "Na falach życia, czyli Moc Zmartwychwstania." Gazeta Polska w Chicago, April 6 - May 16, 1907.
Staś, Helena. Na ludzkim targu. Chicago, 1910.
Strempek Shea, Suzanne. Hoopi Shoopi Donna. New York: Washington Square Press, 1996.
Thomas, William, and Florian Znaniecki. The Polish Peasant in Europe and America: A Classic Work in Immigration History. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1996.
Tyrmand, Leopold. Tu w Ameryce - czyli dobre rady dla Polaków. Londyn : Polska Fundacja Kulturalna, 1975.
Tyrmand, Leopold. Zapiski dyletanta. Warszawa: "Most", 1991.
Waldo, Artur. L. Czar Miasta Kościuszko. Chicago: Dziennik Zjednoczenia, 1936.
Yezierska, Anzia. Bread Givers: A Struggle between a Father of the Old World and a Daughter of the New: A Novel with an introd. by Alice Kessler Harris. New York: Persea Books, cop. 1975.
Secondary sources:
Bukowczyk, John Joseph. And My Children Did not Know Me: A History of the Polish-Americans. Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1987. (Minorities in Modern America).
Bukowczyk, John Joseph, ed. Polish Americans and Their History: Community, Culture, and Politics. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh, 1996.
Brożek, Andrzej. Polish Americans, 1854-1939. Warsaw: Interpress, 1985.
Gladsky, Thomas S., Adam Walaszek, and Małgorzata M. Wawrykiewicz, eds. Ethnicity, Culture, City: Polish-Americans in the USA: Cultural Aspects of Urban Life, 1870-1950 in Comparative Perspective. Warszawa: Oficyna Naukowa, 1998. Seria (Biblioteka Polonijna; 33).
Gladsky, Thomas S., Adam Walaszek, and Małgorzata M. Wawrykiewicz, eds. Princes, Peasants, and Other Polish Selves: Ethnicity in American Literature. Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1992.
Gladsky, Thomas S., and Rita Holmes Gladsky. Something of My Very Own to Say: American Women Writers of Polish Descent. Boulder: East European Monographs: Columbia University Press, 1997. (East European Monographs no. 494).
Grzeloński, Bogdan. To New York, Chicago and San Francisco: Polish American Biographies. Transl. by Emma Harris. Warsaw: Interpress, 1986.
Haiman, Miecislaus. Polish Past in America, 1608-1865. Chicago: The Polish Museum of America, 1991.
Majewski, Karen. Traitors & True Poles: Narrating a Polish-American Identity, 1880-1939. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2003.
Renkiewicz, Frank, ed. The Poles in America, 1608-1972. Dobbs Ferry, NY: Oceana Publications, 1973.
Renkiewicz, Frank, ed. The Polish Presence in Canada and America. Toronto: The Multicultural History Society of Ontario, 1982.
Walaszek, Adam, ed. Polska diaspora. Kraków: Wydaw. Literackie, 2001.
Walaszek, Adam. Światy imigrantów. Tworzenie polonijnego Cleveland, 1880-1930. Kraków: Nomos, 1994.
Zaborowska, Magdalena. How We Found America: Reading Gender through East European Immigrant Narratives. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1995.
Additional information
Additional information (registration calendar, class conductors, localization and schedules of classes), might be available in the USOSweb system: