As part of the "Perspectives from the Peripheries: The New Approaches" workshop over the 17th & 18th March, IARCEES and MUSSI invite you to join us for this Keynote on the 18th March by Izabela Morska, Professor in the Institute of English and American Studies at the University of Gdańsk, Poland.
On January 13, 2019, Paweł Adamowicz, Gdansk's progressive mayor and advocate for inclusion, was murdered in a shocking act of political violence by a man shaped by systemic neglect and radicalization. This keynote examines how failures in education, the prison system, and mental health care contributed to the assassin’s path, even as judicial debates over his responsibility obscured deeper societal issues. This lecture explores the intersection of personal tragedy, systemic injustice, and political polarization in an increasingly divided world.
BIO
Izabela Morska is a Professor in the Institute of English and American Studies at the University of Gdańsk, Poland, and the author of 15 books in various genres, including fiction, nonfiction, poetry, essays, and academic works, such as Glorious Outlaws: Debt as a Tool in Contemporary Postcolonial Fiction (2016).
One of the most prominent figures in Polish literary life in independent Poland, she is the author of the memoir Znikanie (Vanishing, 2019), which explores the dark side of the medical system. Her latest book, Troika (2024), is a novel that delves into Eastern Europe's queer history, highlighting pivotal moments of change through the interconnected lives of diverse characters and themes of identity, survival, and socio-political impacts on personal histories.
In addition to her doctoral and postdoctoral degrees from the Polish Academy of Sciences and the University of Gdańsk, she holds an MFA in English and Creative Writing from Mills College, California. From 2003 to 2006, she was a visiting scholar at the Institute for East European and Eurasian Studies and Beatrice Bain Research Group at UC Berkeley. At the University of Gdańsk, she lectures on the cultural and historical contexts of American literature and conducts creative writing workshops.
Prof. Morska participates in panels and discussions on topics such as migration, women's rights, civil rights in the EU, and LGBT rights in Eastern Europe. Her latest research investigates the court files regarding the murder of Paweł Adamowicz, the transformative mayor of Gdańsk, in January 2019. For this project, she has been awarded a 2025 scholarship from the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.
