The Polish Studies Initiative (PSI) at The Ohio State University is excited to announce the winners of the 2023 Grant and Scholarship Competitions. PSI was established in 2012 under the umbrella of the Center for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies with sponsorship from partners across The Ohio State University (OSU), including the College of Social Work, CONSIRT, the Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures, the Department of Political Science, and the Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and the Office of International Affairs. The mission of PSI is to advance the interdisciplinary study of Poland, support student and faculty research and study abroad, and to organize events focused on Poland.

Below are this year's recipients:

2023 Polish Studies Initiative Scholarship

• Wynne Poticher, Undergraduate in Anthropological Science and Psychology
  • Wynne will be participating in the Mortuary Archaeological Field School in Giecz, Poland which is led by CSEEES affiliate faculty member, Dr. Amanda Agnew.

2023 Polish Studies Initiative Grant

• Dr. Naomi Brenner, Associate Professor in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures
  • Dr. Brenner's project will explore the links between Yiddish and Polish popular fiction in the 1930s by examining an accusation that the Yiddish novel Sabine: roman fun a kranken shvester was a translation of Polish writer Witolda Gutowskiego’s sprawling novel Siostra Marja, which appeared in Warsaw from 1931-1933. In the late 1930s, Gutowskiego took the Haynt, the publishers of Sabine, to court for copyright infringement. Currently, there is not any scholarship in English or Yiddish that discusses this case. 
• Mara Frazier, Curator of Dance in Special Collections and Area Studies at The Ohio State University Libraries
  • Frazier will be licensing the rights to stage Missa Brevis, a Mexican-American choreographer’s response to post-World War II Poland. In 1957, choreographer and dancer, José Limón, traveled with his dance company to Europe on a performance and propaganda tour sponsored by the United States Department of State. After the tour, Limon wrote of being deeply moved and inspired by the resilience of the Polish people during the company’s visits to the cities of Poznań, Katowice, Warsaw, and Wrocław. In response, he created Missa Brevis, an ensemble dance work that became a major influence on American modern dance.

Congratulations to this year's winners, we look forward to hearing about your adventures abroad and research in the Fall 2023 semester.

For more information about PSI please visit the PSI webpage or contact the PSI coordinator, Alicia Baca at baca.31@osu.edu.

If you are interested in supporting PSI at OSU please consider donating today! More information can be found on the PSI donation page.