Dear Friends of PSI,

We hope that you had a restful Thanksgiving break and have been staying warm as the temperatures begin to drop. As some of you may know, Giving Tuesday is today, and the Polish Studies Initiative is participating in this global day of shared humanity and generosity.

The PSI staff and advisory committee are so thankful for the support of our donors who have helped us to support Polish Studies here at Ohio State. In the next 24 hours, we’re aiming to raise $750 to help us fund a full grant for our next competition cycle. Raising money for a PSI grant will support projects that expand the reach of Polish Studies not only at Ohio State, but across the field of Slavic Studies as well. 

While there are many causes to donate to today, we hope that you will consider donating to PSI. Even if you cannot do so at this time, we would appreciate it if you could spread the word about our campaign so that others can learn about the work that we do and the experiences and projects that are supported by PSI!

Donate to PSI today!

On behalf of the Polish Studies Initiative, I'd like to thank all of our kind donors and those who shared our fundraiser with their friends and colleagues for their support in this endeavor. In total we were able to raise $1,404 to support our annual grant and scholarship competitions. We're so excited to see what future experiences and projects your generous gifts will support in the future!

Be sure to keep an eye on both the Polish Studies Initiative and the Center for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies' websites to hear more about future campaigns and events related to PSI!

Z poważaniem,

Alicia Baca
Polish Studies Initiative Program Coordinator
CSEEES Outreach Coordinator

We've got just a few days left in the campaign! If you didn't catch the last update, we've reached enough donations to fund a full PSI scholarship! We can't thank you all enough for your support and we're excited to see what future experiences abroad we'll be able to fund. 

Before this campaign wraps up, we have one last alumni story to share with you all. Dr. Julia Keblinska is a former grant recipient and has just completed a postdoctoral research appointment at the East Asian Studies Center at The Ohio State University. She holds a PhD in Chinese (with a Designated Emphasis in Film & Media) from the University of California, Berkeley. Previously, she had been an “Archival Imaginations” fellow of the Ohio State Global Arts and Humanities Society of Fellows and a postdoc focused on crisis in East Asian and East European postsocialist transitions at Ohio State’s Center for Historical Research.

PSI Alumni Stories: Dr. Julia Keblinska (2022 PSI Grant Recipient)

I received a PSI grant in my first year as a postdoc at OSU, where I came to begin a comparative project on late socialism and media culture in Eastern Europe and East Asia. My graduate work had focused primarily on China, but the position at OSU gave me the opportunity to broaden the scope and sophistication of my research. My PSI-funded summer research trip to Poland allowed me to discover how “Pulp Socialism,” the vibrant popular culture that proliferated in the socialist Chinese late 70s and 1980s, functioned in Poland. I met with collectors, explored their archives, and became familiar with the new books and articles, both journalistic and academic, that chronicle popular culture in late socialist Poland. In addition to deepening my knowledge of Polish media history, I introduced Polish collectors, researchers, and artists to my ongoing China projects. 

I worked with a team of book artists at the Book Art Museum in Łódź to create a short book on “Paper Archive,” a sourcebook project on Chinese print culture that I am co-developing with a colleague. As I worked with both younger artists and veteran book-binders who had worked on “second run” (“drugi obieg,” i.e., the Polish equivalent of samizdat) publications in the socialist period, I found compelling resonances in the book design traditions of these two postsocialist nations. Socialist print culture, which was vibrant, includes book, but also comics, magazines, and even such ephemera as train tickets; it can give us compelling glimpses into the rich everyday cultural life of societies we generally understand primarily through the lens of censorship and privation. In both Poland and China, collectors, memoirists, and popular authors remain nostalgically fascinated with the socialist objects of daily life. Thanks to PSI, I am ready to apply the critical skills that I have developed in my work on Chinese media to engage thoughtfully with the landscape of media memory in Poland in a new book project on the Polish 1980s.

We'd love to fund more grant projects like Julia's! Please keep sharing the campaign with your friends and colleagues as it ends on Sunday, May 5!

We're excited to share that as of today, we have reached $1,000 which means that we have received enough donations to fully fund a future PSI scholarship! Thank you to everyone who has helped us reach this goal! We're excited to see what experiences your generous gifts will help us support down the road. 

We've got 4 days left in our campaign and we'd be thrilled to fund a full grant ($1,500) in addition to the scholarship. Please keep spreading the word and share the fundraise link with everyone you know! 

We've reached 35% of our fundraising goal! Thank you again to everyone who has donated so far. We're very excited to see what experiences your gifts will support in the future. This week's alumni story comes from Joe Ernst who was a 2022 PSI scholarship recipient. Joe is an alumnus of Ohio State where he earned a BA in Russian Studies and a BS in Business. He later earned a MA in Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies and a MPA in Public Administration at the same institution and currently works as the Academic Program Coordinator at Ohio State's Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures.

PSI Alumni Stories: Joe Ernst (2022 PSI Scholarship Recipient)

Two years ago, the Polish Studies Initiative funding I received enabled me to deepen my understanding of Slavic languages, peoples, and cultures by funding my trip to Poland.

Of my two main goals, being to improve my Polish speaking abilities and conduct research on and with Polish queer activists, I managed to make progress that I never could have managed without this award. My Experience in Poland with activists filled my research with first-hand accounts that only time in-country could provide, and my passion for the language only grew from being surrounded by its native speakers.

This award also gave me the opportunity to make life-long friends, a chance to work with Ukrainian refugees, and a mountain of beautiful memories.

The PSI award gave me the chance to go to Poland, where I never would have been able to go otherwise. This trip allowed me to add to my master’s research in a way that made the project more relevant, as well as allowing me to argue for the perspectives of those with lived experience in my research area. This experience then was an important element in my earning of my two master’s degrees, as I used research conducted via PSI award in both my Slavic masters and my Public Affairs masters.

As the current Academic Program Coordinator for the Slavic Department at OSU, my experience in Poland is something I draw upon regularly, whether in understanding current situations on the ground in the region, or simply in a sense of cultural understanding. 

My career as a student and professional benefited greatly from the Polish Studies Initiative, and I can only encourage others to seek to benefit from it as well!

We've got just 13 days left until the end of our campaign! Feel free to share the Buckeye Funder link with everyone you know and stay tuned for more alumni updates.

Today is Day of Giving at Ohio State, a day when our Buckeye community unites to uplift students through critically needed scholarship support. Access to affordable education can provide countless students with life-changing opportunities and as you think about where to send support, we hope that you will consider donating to PSI's grant and scholarship campaign! PSI has supported more than 50 grant and scholarship recipients from departments and units across the university and your gift can help us continue to fund the international experiences and projects that make our Polish studies community so vibrant. 

Thank you to all of our generous donors so far! Be sure to share the link to our campaign, the more eyes on it the better!

We're nearly a week into our campaign! First and foremost, thank you so much to our donors. We've already reached 15% of our goal and we could not have done that without your generosity! Be sure to keep spreading the word as it will help us to support projects like the one proposed by 2023 grant recipient, Mara Frazier. Ms. Frazier is an Assistant Professor and Curator of Dance at the Lawrence and Lee Theatre Research Institute at the Ohio State's Thompson Library Special Collections. For her proposal, she brought José Limón’s 1957 dance Missa Brevis to Ohio State. Read her story below to learn about how PSI helped to fund this project.

PSI Alumni Stories: Mara Frazier (2023 PSI Grant Recipient)

My project directed Polish Studies Initiative funds towards a performance of José Limón’s 1957 dance masterwork, Missa Brevis, set to the music of Zoltán Kodály. With co-directors Valarie Williams in the Department of Dance and Julie Brodie at Kenyon College, I helped to realize the work with a mixed group of 26 undergraduate students from Ohio State and Kenyon College. They learned the dance, engaged with Thompson Special Collections materials, and performed the dance at Ohio State, Kenyon College, and the historic Memorial Theatre in Mount Vernon, Ohio. A public talk at Ohio State and two free masterclasses for Fort Hayes High School and Mount Vernon allowed us to share the essence of Missa Brevis, the communal togetherness and resilience of Polish society after World War II. Funding from the Polish Studies Initiative grant covered our music licensing fees, an essential need for the project.

As curator of Dance in Thompson Library Special Collections Lawrence and Lee Theatre Research Institute, I activate dance and movement materials through performances, classes, lectures, and supporting teaching and research. Staging dance works like Missa Brevis from the Labanotation score is at the heart of my teaching, research, and curatorial work—but it can’t be done without grant funding. I am grateful that the PSI was open to funding this engaged, creative arts project. Not only has it advanced my research and teaching goals, but along the way, I learned about Polish history and the vibrant Slavic studies community at Ohio State.

Stay tuned for more updates and stories from our PSI alumni in the coming weeks!

Wawel Castle (Kraków, Poland) taken by Joe Ernst, 2022 PSI scholarship recipientThank you for visiting the PSI Buckeye Funder page! Stay tuned for more updates and stories from our PSI alumni to learn about how funding from this initiative has impacted their academic careers and scholarship.

If you happen to be in the Columbus area this weekend, we hope that you join us for our lunchtime screening of José Limón’s Missa Brevis presented by Mara Frazier (Ohio State U., 2023 PSI grant recipient) at this year’s Midwest Slavic Conference! PSI is proud to be one of the co-hosts for this year’s event and registration for this year’s conference is available here.