REFLECTIONS ON MIGRATION, MEMORY, AND DIASPORA IN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

Please join the Harriman Institute and the East Central European Center for a presentation featuring John Guzlowski, Professor Emeritus, Eastern Illinois University and Marta Cieslak, Curatorial Assistant, Buffalo Architecture Center.

John Guzlowski, Professor Emeritus, Eastern Illinois University and poet and writer will read a selection of his poems from Echoes of Tattered Tongues: Memory Unfolded (2016) and reminisce about immigration and life. He will be joined by Marta Cieslak, Curatorial Assistant, Buffalo Architecture Center and researcher on migration, memory, and public space.

John Z. Guzlowski has published work in a wide range of genres: poetry, prose, literary criticism, reviews, fiction and nonfiction. His work has appeared in numerous national journals and anthologies, and in four prior books. Born in a refugee camp in Germany after World War II, Guzlowski came to America with his family as a Displaced Person in 1951. His parents had been Polish slave laborers in Nazi Germany during the war. In much of his work, Guzlowski remembers and honors the experiences and ultimate strength of these survivors. Guzlowski received his B.A. in English Literature from the University of Illinois, Chicago, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in English from Purdue University. He is Professor Emeritus of English Literature at Eastern Illinois University, and currently lives in Lynchburg, Virginia.

Marta Cieslak received her Ph.D. in American Studies at the Department of Transnational Studies at the State University of New York at Buffalo. She also holds Master’s Degrees in Polish Literature and Language and in American Studies from the University of Warsaw. Her research interests evolve around the questions of migration, national identities, and nation building. In her academic work, she focuses on transnational connections between the United States and Poland. She is currently a Curatorial Assistant at the Buffalo Architecture Center, where, among other things, she is now curating an exhibition on Buffalo as a city of migrations.

Tuesday, April 12, 2016
6:30 pm
Marshall D. Shulman Seminar Room (1219 IAB, 420 West 118th St.) 
 

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