Anna Niedzwiedz, Kosciuszko Foundation Visiting Professor at the University at Buffalo (The State University of New York), Polish Studies Program, will talk on the symbolism of Kraków in connection with the image of Pope John Paul II in Polish culture. She will discuss various sources that establish a mythical vision of Kraków in the Polish national tradition. Her analysis will connect this concept with descriptions of spontaneous public actions following the death of John Paul II.
Niedzwiedz works at the Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology at Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland, where she earned her doctoral degree in 2003. She has taught cultural anthropology at Jagiellonian and at the Collegium Civitas in Warsaw, Poland, in addition to conducting research on Polish religiosity. Her talk, titled "Mythical Vision of a City: Kraków as a 'Pope's City,' " is sponsored by the Skalny Center for Polish and Central European Studies and the Department of Religion and Classics at the University of Rochester.
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