Entitled "Exile as Destiny: Czesław Miłosz and America", the project also features a conference presented alongside the exhibition, with poets Tomas Venclova and Adam Zagajewski, scholars Andrzej Franaszek, Bogdana Carpenter (University of Michigan), Irena Grudzinska Gross (Princeton), Krzysztof Czyzewski (Borderlands Foundation), Jerzy Jarzebski (Jagiellonian University), Marek Zaleski (Institute for Literary Research, Polish Academy of Sciences), Bozena Shallcross (University of Chicago) and Mark Danner (UC Berkeley) sharing their impressions and experiences of Miłosz's life and works through both their personal acquaintance with the poet and scholarly research. The aim is to explore Miłosz's intellectual legacy and the nature of cultural life under totalitarianism. Issues of translation are also among the topics covered, along with discussions on Miłosz in film based on documentary films and Tadeusz Konwicki's adaptation of "The Issa Valley".
Columbia University and the Los Angeles Central Library hosted two major events dedicated to the Nobel Prize-winning poet in celebration of the Miłosz Year - the 100th anniversary of the poet's birth.
Columbia University's Department of Slavic Languages and the East Central European Center, along with the Bakhmeteff Archive of Russian and East European History and Culture, the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society, and the Polish Student Society present an evening of Miłosz's poetry. The reading on October 27, 2011 at the Butler Libarary opens an exhibition titled Czesław Miłosz - Correspondence, Books and Memorabilia.
The exhibition of the poet's correspondence, books, and memorabilia held at the Bakhmeteff Archive of Russian and East European History and Culture will be the second event at Columbia University celebrating Miłosz's Centennial Year established by UNESCO. The opening of the exhibition about the winner of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1980 will coincide with a multilingual reading of his poetry recited by members of the Columbia University community. Professor Alan Timberlake, the Director of East Central European Center will open the event. Dr. Anna Frajlich-Zajac of the Department of Slavic Languages will address the question of the significance of the presented exhibition items. After that, members of the Columbia community will be given the opportunity to read their favourite Milosz poems in translation in the language of their choice.
Harvard Professor Helen Vendler, a friend of the poet in his lifetime, is an honourary guest at the event.
The exhibition will run through the end of the year.
On the 8th of November, the Mark Taper Auditorium at the Los Angeles Central Library hosts a seminar inspired by Miłosz's ideas and writings on exile and borderlands. From Tijuana to Gaze to Bosnia: Rethinking Borders in a 21st Century World brings together a number of scholars and activists from the US, Europe and Mexico to discuss the nature of borders in a global world fraught with fears of terrorism. It poses the question of how to redefine borderlands as zones of co-existence and dialogue.
Featured panelists include Krzysztof Czyźewski, Dorit Cypis, Marcos Ramírez ERRE, Josh Kun, Rubén Martínez, and Ofelia Zepeda. The seminar in Los Angeles has been made possible by special funding from the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, part of the 2011 Milosz Year.
Dorit Cypis
Krzysztof Czyżewski is a social activist, theater producer, essayist, and publisher, and the founder and director of the Borderland Foundation (Fundacja Pogranicze) in Sejny, Poland (near Poland’s border with Lithuania).
Dorit Cypis is an award-winning visual artist and photographer, as well as a professional mediator. Her explorations on identity as psychological and political, individual and collective, have been presented at museums and public venues internationally since 1980. Foreign Exchanges, founded by Dorit in 2007, is an initiative offering tools for conflict engagement and relationship building by blending tools of aesthetics and conflict transformation. Her photographs provide the visual backdrop for the conference.
Josh Kun is a professor in the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California where he also directs The Popular Music Project of The Norman Lear Center. His research and publications focus on the arts and politics of cultural connection, with an emphasis on popular music, the cultures of globalisation, the US-Mexico border, and Jewish-American musical history.
Rubén Martínez is an author, teacher and performer. He is the author of a trilogy of books on immigration and globalization: The Other Side: Notes from the New L.A., Mexico City and Beyond; Crossing Over: A Mexican Family on the Migrant Trail and The New Americans: Seven Families Journey to Another Country.
Dr. Ofelia Zepeda is of native American Tohono O'odham heritage, born and raised in Stanfield, Arizona. She is currently a Regents' Professor of Linguistics at the University of Arizona where she works on the O’odham language and on language issues. She is also a poet in both languages.
Marcos Ramírez ERRE was born in 1961 in Tijuana, Mexico. He is considered one of the preeminent artists in the region, and the senior figure in the burgeoning Tijuana artist community. He creates large-scale public installations informed by a political and social consciousness and is a longtime explicator and arbiter of the cross-border dialogue.
See more on the event in Los Angeles and participating panelists at www.lfla.org
See more on the event in New York at ece.columbia.edu
Czesław Miłosz - Correspondence, Books and Memorabilia opens on the 27th of October, 2011 at the Butler Library, 535 West 114th St., New York, NY (5:30 p.m.).
From Tijuana to Gaze to Bosnia: Rethinking Borders in a 21st Century World takes place on the 8th of November, 2011 at the Mark Taper Auditorium of the Los Angeles Central Library, 630 West Fifth Street, Los Angeles, California (7:00 p.m.).
"The Milosz Papers" exhibition at Yale University runs between the 24th of October, 2011 - 17th December, 2011. Conference takes place between the 4th-5th of November , 2011.
Yale University, New Haven, CT.
"Milosz and America" is organised by the Polish Cultural Institute in New York in cooperation with the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University, the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Yale University, and the Polish Book Institute.
For more information see: polishculture-nyc.org
Source: press releases, Polish Cultural Institute in New York
See more events related to Czesław Miłosz and the Miłosz Year organised as part of the cultural programme of the Polish EU Presidency in 2011