The Polish Studies Center Newsletter Indiana University • Bloomington, Indiana Spring 2005 Polish Center & Johnston Honored by Polish Foreign Minister Bill Johnston, Director of the Polish exhibitions, concerts, and many other on sabbatical leave, said that recognizing Studies Center, traveled to Warsaw last events. Over the years the Polish Studies the Center for the promotion of Polish October where he and the Center were Center at Indiana University has become culture was only part of the story. presented with the Foreign Minister’s a focal point of interest and provides “For more than a quarter century, the Award at a ceremony in the Presidential insight into the real mechanisms which Center, like other area studies at Indiana Palace. The significance of this award have kept Poland and its People going University, has been opening up the rest was described in a letter from Deputy despite historical and Ambassador of Poland in Washington economic challenges. DC, Bogusław Winid: This award has been “On October 6, 2004 the Minister of presented for over thirty Foreign Affairs of Poland, The Honorable years to individuals or Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz, awarded institutions which have the Diploma recognizing the Indiana worked very diligently University Polish Studies Center and the to promote Poland inspiring leadership of Professor Bill and enhance bilateral Johnston for outstanding work to promote cooperation. The Polish history and culture in the United Polish Studies Center States. at Indiana University Professor Johnston has tirelessly headed by Professor Bill continued to bring Poland and its Johnston ideally fulfills heritage closer to the American public by the award’s charter.” Bill Johnston (left) being presented the award by the Polish Foreign Minister, Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz. organizing various educational projects, Johnston described conferences, translation workshops, receiving the award as a great honor and further commented of the world to IU students and faculty on the inspiration from directors who as well as to the people of the state of IN THIS ISSUE: came before him: “The Foreign Ministry Indiana.” Award was a great honor for me and for IU-Bloomington Interim Chancellor Director’s Notebook 2 the Polish Studies Center. The Award Kenneth Gros Louis also commented on Tribute to John Findling 2 was given jointly to me and to the the contribution the Center has made to Spring Gender Conference 3 Center; but I feel it’s very important to the IU community and added that “the emphasize that I received it as current award underlines IU’s ties with so many A Report from the Streets Director of the Center. The award really different countries, and its relationship of Warsaw 4 belongs equally to all those previous with Poland predated the collapse of Letter from Ellie Valentine 5 directors who have gone before me and the Iron Curtain by many years.” The who together helped the Center become Letter from Kraków 6 Polish Studies Center was first opened what it is today. Above all, it is one further in October, l977. It initially served as an Events in 2004 7-8 accolade to Tim Wiles, who more than exchange partner with Warsaw University Faculty, Alumni, and any other individual was responsible for and contributed to the establishment of Student News 9-10 the Center’s prominence in US-Polish the American Studies Center at WU. An relations.” academic exchange was also established Spring 05 Events Calendar 11 Owen Johnson, the Polish Studies with Jagiellonian University in 2000. Center’s acting director while Johnston is 2 Polish Studies Center at Indiana University in place for years. The USIA grant that blossomed into a wide-ranging program of Director’s Notebook- had funded the IU-Warsaw University activities. This is my second assignment as Act- exchange would be phased out in a few Bill helped design two of the major ing Director of the Polish Studies Center. years. programs this past fall before departing for During my first stint, 15 years ago, We embarked on an ambitious pro- Poland. He arranged an informal read- Poland had just completed its famous gram for the Polish Studies Center, with ing of Czesław Miłosz’s poetry and prose, roundtable discussions and held its first weekly brown bag talks, and numerous when the great Polish Nobel Laureate post-communist elections, in which the special lectures and programs. A good passed away. The reading, co-sponsored communists were sent packing. The East deal of our focus was still on politics and by the Office of the Chancellor, drew an European spotlight, which had focused economics and history. appreciative audience to the Federal Room sharply on Poland for the ten years since Today the Polish Studies Center is in the Indiana Memorial Union. the rise of Solidarity, was diffusing across much stronger in the area of humanities, In November, we celebrated the 100th what was now becoming Central Europe, literature and culture, because that’s where anniversary of the birth of Witold Gombro- as Hungary, Czechoslovakia and East Ger- it can make its strongest contribution. wicz, perhaps the most important Polish many also headed into the uncertain world Each year we welcome a variety of gradu- prose writer of the last century. Included of democracy and capitalism. Alex Rabi- ate students and faculty from Poland. were a reading of his play, The Marriage, nowitch, then the Dean of International Our program this year might have a lecture by Grzegorz Jankowicz; readings Programs, attended a special White House been quieter, given the absence abroad by Bill from his new translation of the Gom- symposium on Poland and Hungary. of historian Marci Shore, political scientist browicz short story collection, Bacacay, All the changes that were taking place Jack Bielasiak, and PSC director Bill John- and a showing of the new film Pornografia, were forcing a restructuring of all of the ston. Fortunately, however, Bill made a based on Gombrowicz’s novel. contacts and exchanges that had been number of contacts before he left that have ----Owen V. Johnson He wrote an interest- John Findling Retires ing article, “Warsaw, in Early December 1984, is John E. Findling, whose association with Polish Studies a City Not Quite at Ease began in 1984/85, retired in December from the History Depart- With Itself,” for the IU ment in the Division of Social Sciences at Indiana University Newspaper, in which he Southeast. sought to explain to non- In 1984/85, he served as Associate Director of the American specialists the compli- Studies Center at Warsaw University, then partnered with IU’s cated situation that then Polish Studies Center, through a grant from the US Information prevailed in Poland. Agency. Poland was still under martial law. Findling received “Western academics, particularly Americans, played a crucial his B.A. from Rice in role at this time in providing uncensored cultural programs for 1963, and his M.A. the [Warsaw] university community and other intellectuals,” the (1965) and Ph.D. (1971) late Tim Wiles wrote, “by means of lecture series, film showings, John E. Findling from the University of acquiring foreign publications for the libraries, and so on. [John] Texas, where he wrote his was active on all these fronts. He and his wife and son moved dissertation on “The United States and Zelaya: A Study in the easily in Polish society, and he made a number of important con- Diplomacy of Expediency.” Between his M.A. and Ph.D. stud- tacts for our program. In spite of the political repression, under ies, he taught high school at the American-Nicaraguan School in his co-directorship the American Studies Center grew consider- Managua for two years. ably, to the point of offering a regular seminar series and supervis- He joined the faculty at IUSE in 1971 and was granted tenure ing a number of graduate students, several of whom were able to just four years later. He became acting chair of the Division of win fellowships for study in the U.S.” Social Sciences. Findling also worked with Polish scholars during the commu- Over time he developed a specialization in sports history, his nist period on a history of the United States. first article being “The Louisville Grays’ Scandal of 1877.” Even “I found that virtually nothing existed that I had to do,” today his home page has a link to webcams at Chicago’s Wrigley Findling recalled later. So he built on the initiatives and patterns Field. He has been a member of the North American Society for established by Mary McGann, when she served as associate direc- Sport History, where he served as a member-at-large on the tor, 1981-83. He and his family settled into a small apartment executive committee. He also developed a specialization in on Solec street, about fifteen minutes from the American Studies World’s Fairs, like sports, one of the “display events” by which a Center. It was so small, he wrote, “that we think entertaining will culture expresses itself. be somewhat difficult.” Findling’s biggest contribution to academe was in the com- Sleeping was challenging, too. “If we can get hold of a bining of his interests in World’s Fairs and sports with his skill as double bed, we would be happier and probably healthier, as we an author and editor. The list of his books is staggering. now sleep on a fold-out couch, which isn’t terribly comfortable as Three of them are single-authored: Chicago’s Great World’s a couch, let alone a bed,” he reported to the Office of International Fairs (1994); and Close Neighbors, Distant Friends : United Programs, shortly after his arrival. His wife Carol found a job States-Central American Relations (1987).