Dr. Orest Semotiuk at the ISHS Conference in Kraków

From July 7 to 11, 2025, Dr. Orest Semotiuk is participating in the 35th International Society for Humor Studies (ISHS) Conference.

During the “Online Humor” panel, the researcher delivered a lecture titled “Grim Reaper Meme in Armed Conflicts: Origin and Evolution”.

More information about the conference is available at: https://ishs2025.pl/.

Dr. Orest Semotiuk during the lecture. Photo: private archive.

Dr Olha Tkachenko at the Warsaw East European Conference

From June 30 to July 2, 2025, Dr Olha Tkachenko participated in the 21st Warsaw East European Conference (WEEC), organized by the Centre for East European Studies at the University of Warsaw.

This year’s conference was titled “Time of Global Turbulence: Challenges for Central and Eastern Europe”. Dr Tkachenko presented a paper entitled “Revealing and Counteracting Russian Narratives in Ukrainian Media. Case of YouTube” during the panel “Responding to Hybrid Threats: Disinformation and Democratic Resilience”.

Dr Tkachenko’s research is conducted within the framework of the project “Decolonization processes in Ukraine’s YouTube segment after February 24, 2022”, project no. 2024/08/X/HS2/00066, funded by the National Science Centre of Poland (Miniatura programme).

Dr Olha Tkachenko during a lecture. Photo: Iryna Polets-Gerus.
Dr Olha Tkachenko during a lecture. Photo: Iryna Polets-Gerus.

Results of the competition for the position of post-doc (2) in the project “Faces of Smuggling in the Polish-Slovak Borderland between 1918 and 1949”

We would like to inform you about the results of the competition for the position of post-doc (2) in the project “Faces of Smuggling in the Polish-Slovak Borderland between 1918 and 1949” ref. no. 2023/51/D/HS3/01105 affiliated at the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences. After the evaluation of the submitted documents and the interview the competition committee decided to employ Dr. Dariusz Nikiel  in this position.

Visit of Dr. Lara Sorgo at the ISS PAS

From 2 to 13 June 2025, the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences (Instytut Slawistyki PAN) welcomed Dr Lara Sorgo of the Institute of Ethnic Studies in Ljubljana as part of the PLURILINGMEDIA COST Action project. During her Short-Term Scientific Mission, Dr Sorgo had an excellent opportunity to learn about media in minority languages and their revitalisation, and to exchange ideas with fellow researchers.

Dr Lara Sorgo during a lecture for PhD students. Photo: private archive.

During her visit, Dr Sorgo gave a lecture to students of the Anthropos Doctoral School. In her lecture, titled “Between Policy and Practice: The Slovenian Model of Minority Protection”, she provided an overview of Slovenia’s minority protection model and presented empirical findings from research projects focusing on education, public administration and the media. Particular attention was paid to how radio, television, print, and digital media meet the needs of minority communities, with structured measures and practical challenges being highlighted.

ISS PAS organised a roundtable on minority language media. This scientific exchange provided a valuable opportunity to share ideas and obtain constructive feedback from experts in different research fields on MLM. Particular emphasis was placed on the role of minority language media in further developing and upgrading the theoretical framework of Dr Sorgo’s research.

Dr Lara Sorgo during a seminar at the Institute of Slavic Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences. Photo: Wiktoria Nylec.
In the photo from left to right: Dr Lara Sorgo, Prof. Karolina Bielenin-Lenczowska, and Prof. Nicole Dołowy-Rybińska. Photo: Wiktoria Nylec.
Participants of the seminar on minority language media. Photo: Wiktoria Nylec.
Prof. Nicole Dołowy-Rybińska during a seminar at the Institute of Slavic Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences. Photo: Wiktoria Nylec.

 

Invitation to a seminar on minority language media, 10.06.2025 r.

We cordially invite you to a seminar on minority language media, which will take place on 10 June at 14:00 in the seminar room of the Institute of Slavic Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences and online.
Dr Lara Sorgo from the Institute of Ethnic Studies (Inštitut za narodnostna vprašanja) in Ljubljana (Slovenia) will host the seminar. Dr Sorgo’s research focuses on the Italian minority in Slovenia.
The seminar is organized within the framework of the COST Action PLURILINGMEDIA, and is connected to Dr Sorgo’s STSM residency at the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences (1–14 June 2025).
It will provide a platform for sharing experiences and reflections on the role of the media in preserving and developing minority languages, and in strengthening the collective identity of minority communities

The seminar will be held in English.

Please apply online to participate in the seminar by contacting the IS PAN Secretariat at: sekretariat@ispan.edu.pl

Call for Expressions of Interest – MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships at the Institute of Slavic Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences (ISS PAS)

The Institute of Slavic Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences (ISS PAS) invites expressions of interest from postdoctoral researchers who wish to apply for the prestigious Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowships (MSCA PF, Horizon Europe) with ISS PAS as their host institution.

We are looking for talented and ambitious scholars from around the world who are eager to conduct cutting-edge research in a stimulating academic environment in the heart of Warsaw, Poland.

The Institute of Slavic Studies PAS is a leading research institution in Central and Eastern Europe with over 70 years of scholarly tradition. We conduct interdisciplinary studies on Slavic languages, cultures, histories, literatures, societies, and identities. We offer a dynamic and internationally engaged research community, access to extensive library and archival resources. We hold the prestigious HR Excellence in Research award, recognizing our commitment to providing a supportive and transparent research environment for researchers at all stages of their careers.

What We Offer

  • Support in preparing and submitting your MSCA PF application (including internal review and mentoring)
  • A stimulating research environment within a multidisciplinary team of experts
  • Full access to ISS PAS’s infrastructure, library, and academic network
  • Opportunities for publication, conference participation, and career development
  • Office space and administrative support during the fellowship
  • Assistance with relocation and integration in Warsaw

Who Can Apply

We are seeking excellent researchers of any nationality who:

  • Hold a PhD degree at the time of the MSCA PF deadline (10 September 2025)
  • Have a maximum of 8 years of research experience after obtaining their PhD
  • Have not resided or carried out their main activity in Poland for more than 12 months in the 36 months prior to the call deadline
  • Propose a research project aligned with ISS PAS’s thematic areas
  • Visit our website to explore the list of potential supervisors (https://ispan.waw.pl/default/en/about-the-institute/departments/)

Preferred topics

  • History of Central Europe after World War II, forced migrations, landscape anthropology, and thing studies
  • Sociolinguistics, contested languages, language minority studies
  • Migration and refugee studies, critical border studies
  • Jewish Studies

Timeline

  • Deadline for expression of interest at ISS PAS: 30 June 2025
  • MSCA PF call deadline (EU): 10 September 2025
  • Selected candidates will receive full support in preparing their MSCA PF application.

How to Apply

Please send the following documents (in one PDF file) to horyzont@ispan.edu.pl with the subject: “MSCA PF – Expression of Interest – Your Name”:

  • CV (max. 2 pages)
  • Short description of your research idea (max. 2 pages)
  • Brief statement explaining why you wish to work at ISS PAS

For more information about our research profile, visit: https://ispan.waw.pl/default/en

For more information about MSCA PF, visit: https://marie-sklodowska-curie-actions.ec.europa.eu/actions/postdoctoral-fellowships

Seminar with Jane K. Cowan, May 21, 2025

We invite you to a scientific seminar organized by the Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology of the University of Warsaw and the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences. The event will take place on May 21, 2025 at 10:30 a.m. at the Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology of the University of Warsaw (Warsaw, Żurawia 4, room 108).

During the meeting, anthropologist Jane K. Cowan (University of Sussex) will give a lecture entitled “Tracking Claims for Macedonia between Field and Archive, Present and Past: Methodological Reflections from an Anthropologist in the Archives”.

The seminar will be held in English.

Live streaming will be available on the YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtU-Bl_H13aial5u-nF4eCw?app=desktop

Description:

Starting in 1983, I carried out anthropological research on the performance of gender in social dancing in the small market town of Sohos in the contested region of Macedonia that became part of Greece’s “New Lands” in 1912. The majority of Sohoians were Greek-identified but bilingual (currently Greek-speaking but in the past, primarily speakers of a Bulgarian dialect). Over the twentieth century, the complicated position of such “ambiguous” persons within dominant national narratives of Greece’s ethnic “homogeneity” had given rise to trauma, silenced histories, accommodations and new identifications. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the region saw the re-emergence of claims for Macedonian minority rights and recognition. Yet most Sohoians distanced themselves from such claims, insisting “we are not a minority!” Discussing with a Greek historian the historical formation of Sohoian identities in this post-Ottoman, now Greek border region, he suggested that I visit the League of Nations Archives in Geneva: there, I might discover whether any Sohoian families had participated in the “voluntary and reciprocal” emigration agreed between Greece and Bulgaria at Neuilly in 1919. After two weeks in the archives in September 1996, I developed a research project that grappled with Western Europeans’ involvement in the formulation of new ‘regimes of difference’ within Balkan and East European states and in the international supervision of the minorities treaties those “Minority States” had been compelled to sign, as well as the responses of minorities and their champions through petitions.

In this presentation, I will speak as “an anthropologist in the archives”: tracing my research trajectory to the archives and describing what I “saw” there with my anthropologically-trained eyes. As in ethnographic fieldwork, my archival research started with some well-developed theoretical questions, then proceeded with a willingness to be diverted if the empirical data “surprised” me. The latest phase of my research was prompted by such a surprise, when I found a file of petitions revealing collaborations between Bulgarian and international women’s organisations regarding demands for protections for Macedonian minorities. That led me to the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) archives; I am currently exploring interwar collaborations—variably friendly, fraught and conflictual– between mostly North European and North American WILPF activists and the female leadership of women’s organizations in Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Greece, particularly around questions of minorities and Macedonia. My talk will explore the role of serendipity, surprises and the importance of following the question(s), and the evidence, wherever they lead, moving (when necessary) between the field and the archive.

Biography:

Jane K. Cowan is professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of Sussex. A specialist of Greece, Cowan’s early work investigated gender, dance, sociability and embodiment, based on fieldwork in northern Greece. Since the late 1990s, with a focus on the region and “question” of Macedonia, she has explored the nexus of rights claiming and international supervision. Her work spans investigations of minority petitioning to the League of Nations’ Minorities Section and, with Julie Billaud, contemporary human rights auditing at the Universal Periodic Review. Most recently, she is researching the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF): specifically, transnational collaborations between WILPF and leaders of women’s organizations in the Balkans concerning minorities and the Macedonian Question. She recently completed her term as President of the Society for the Anthropology of Europe (2022 –2024).

PLURILINGMEDIA General Conference: Call for Applications

   

We are pleased to announce that first PLURILINGMEDIA conference will take place 4th –5th December 2025 in Warsaw. Attached is the Call for Applications, with a deadline of 1st June.

Link to the application form is available here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1usS_76iiD2qCGKUUlLGCdSlo-O3QMFmVpoKuZTj12DQ/viewform

The main theme of the conference is Media and Language Vitality, reflecting Working Group 3 as the lead organisers. The conference will be hosted by the Institute of Slavic Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences, under the leadership of PLURILINGMEDIA WG3 Leader, prof. Nicole Dołowy-Rybińska and Vice-Leader, prof. Sanita Martena.

There are no registration fees for the event and presenting participants will have their costs reimbursed, as per COST Association – European Cooperation in Science and Technology rules.

Zawacka NAWA – Internships and Study Visits at ISS PAS

In connection with the announcement of the Zawacka NAWA – Arrivals Offer program, which aims to deepen international academic cooperation through individual arrivals to Poland of students, doctoral students, academic teachers and researchers, we cordially invite foreign researchers to carry out internships and study trips at the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

Detailed information on the Zawacka program is available on the NAWA website: https://nawa.gov.pl/en/international-cooperation-and-exchange/zawacka-nawa/incoming

Those interested in participating in the program submit applications to partner institutions in their countries according to their rules and deadlines. Researchers interested in implementing their project at the Institute of Slavic Studies PAS (host institution) are asked to contact us to determine a possible form of cooperation.

The Welcome Center at the Institute of Slavic Studies PAS offers assistance and mediation in such arrangements and provides detailed information about the program. Please contact Marcin Skupiński from the Welcome Center of IS PAN – welcome@ispan.edu.pl. Applications to ISS PAS will be accepted until August 31, 2025.

Ukrainian Winter is Behind Us

The series of lectures on interdisciplinary Ukrainian studies called Ukrainian Winter, which began on January 29, 2025, ended on the first day of March. The series of lectures was jointly organised by the Ivan Franko National University in Lviv in cooperation with the Institute of Slavic Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences, Vision Ukraine Netzwerk: Bildung, Sprache und Migration and the UCL Ukrainian Society.

The Ukrainian Winter series gathered over 300 registered participants and consisted of 14 lectures by Ukrainian and international scholars on a wide range of topics related to Ukrainian culture, history and society. The inaugural lecture on decolonization processes in Ukraine was given by Myroslav Shkandrij, Professor Emeritus at the University of Manitoba.

From the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences, a lecture entitled “Decolonial Content on Ukrainian YouTube: Revealing «kakaya raznitsa» and Blurring Cultural Boundaries with Russia” was delivered by dr Olha Tkachenko on February 21, 2025.

Lecture by Dr. Olha Tkachenko. Photo: private archive.
Institute of Slavic Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences

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