Who I am:

I am an associate professor in the Department of English at Stony Brook University on Long Island. My own work has focused on Comparative Slavic studies, including interests in Polish and other East European, Soviet and post-Soviet cinemas, gendered notions of identity, nationalism, colonial and post-colonial studies, Orientalist discourses. I am the author of „Between East and West: Polish and Russian Travel to the Orient,” and of numerous journal articles and book chapters related to my areas of research. I am also a native of Poland. I graduated with an MA from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan. I did my graduate work at Yale.

My Fulbright grant focuses on:

While in Poland, I will engage primarily in teaching, but also in research at the Centre for East European Studies at the University of Warsaw. I will be focusing on issues related to post-coloniality and decolonization both in the courses I am offering this academic year and in my research activities.

I decided to apply for a Fulbright grant because:

A Fulbright Fellowship I received at the onset of my academic career took me to the Institute of Audiovisual Studies at the Jagiellonian University. My stay in Krakow allowed me to interact with some of the top scholars in the area of film studies in Poland, and provided a formative and lasting experience. I decided to apply for a Fulbright grant in the 2024-25 cycle in order to once again have a chance to interact with colleagues in Poland, but also to build on my extensive experience of teaching in the tradition of liberal arts in the United States in the context of developing courses for Polish students.

After completing my Fulbright grant I would like to:

The academic year I am going to spend at the Centre for East European Studies at the University of Warsaw will enrich me both as a teacher and as a comparative Slavic scholar. I am going to refocus some of the cultural studies courses I teach at Stony Brook to have a chance to talk more about East-Central and Eastern Europe. I would very much like to publish a book-length study on Polish-Ukrainian relations.