Dr Katarzyna Kwapisz Williams
PhD (University of Lodz); Diploma of Education (University of Wroclaw); MA (University of Wroclaw); BA (University of Wroclaw)
Deputy Director, Centre for European Studies
ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences
T:
+61 02 6125 9896
Areas of expertise
- Cultural Studies 2002
- Migrant Cultural Studies 200208
- Multicultural, Intercultural And Cross Cultural Studies 200209
- Comparative Literature Studies 200524
- Drama, Theatre And Performance Studies 190404
- Other Literatures In English 200508
- Other Language, Communication And Culture 2099
Research interests
My research focuses on migrant cultures and diaspora, particularly life narratives, issues of displacement and transcultural experience. I am also interested in memory studies, memorialization and the politics of memory. I have published extensively on European diasporic literatures and cultures in Australia, global literatures in English and literary theory, including a book on changes in literary production and reception (Deforming Shakespeare: Investigations in Textuality and Digital Media, 2009). Recently, I have been working on a series of publications on the nexus between migration, memory and identity.
Biography
I am Deputy Director at the Centre for European Studies, Australian National University. Before joining the ANU, I was Assistant Professor at the Faculty of International Studies and Politics, University of Lodz (Poland), where I worked in research and teaching roles in cultural studies, Anglophone literatures and cultures, literary anthropology and translation.
As Visiting Fellow I worked at the University of Ghent (Belgium), Freie Universität Berlin (Germany), University of Bamberg (Germany), Vaxjo University (Sweden), Monash University (Australia) and the Maastricht Center for Transatlantic Studies, Teikyo University (Netherlands).
I have extensive experience in teaching and educational administration, and course development at undergraduate and graduate levels. I co-authored graduate and postgraduate studies programmes in Europe and Australia.
I am a strong advocate of language education. Since 2019 I have been President of the ACT Bilingual Education Alliance, I regularly volunteer as language educator (Libraries ACT and community language schools) and I worked as a literary and academic translator (published).
Researcher's projects
Publications – in progress
Peer-reviewed journal articles:
- “A Great Migration of Wretched People: The East and its Reconciliation with the Past and Postcolonialism”
- “WWII memory in Australia: Holocaust exhibition in Australian War Memorial” for Memory Studies. With Sulamith Graefenstein.
- “Memory and Populism in Eastern Europe” for Journal of Contemporary European Studies.
Invited talks and keynote speeches – recent
- 21 Aug 2018, Memory of Prague Spring, the Embassy of the Czech Republic in Canberra
- 23 March 2018, Death and Memory, VicForum at Cultural Diversity Week, Melbourne, Digital Humanity: Exploring our Ecosystem
- 24 Nov 2017, Transnational Cultures of Australia, Keynote speech at Redefining Australia and New Zealand: Historical Heritage and Contemporary Perspectives in Language, Culture and Literature, Inaugural conference of the Polish Association for Studies of Australasia, University of Opole
- Aug 2016, Gender blindness and what we can learn from literature, workshop Identity in a Multicultural World, ANU Gender Institute, ACT Multicultural Services Department and Initiatives for Women in Need
- Nov 2015, Minority Literatures – research challenges, Postcolonial Studies Centre, University of Wroclaw, Poland
Publications
- Quirico, O, Williams Kwapisz, K, Morss, J et al. 2022, 'Right to Life v. Right to Health? Disability and Selective Abortion', in Ottavio Quirico (ed.), Inclusive Sustainability: Harmonising Disability Law and Policy, Springer Nature Singapore Pte. Ltd., Singapore, pp. 51-79.
- Besemeres, M & Williams, Kwapisz K 2021, 'Waltzing St Kilda: Writing in Polish in Australia', Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature, vol. 21, no. 1.
- Williams, Kwapisz K & Besemeres, M 2020, 'Literary Ambitions: The Polish-Language Press in Australia', in Catherine Dewhirst and Richard Scully (ed.), The Transnational Voices of Australia's Migrant and Minority Press, Palgrave Macmillan, Australia, pp. 127-149.
- Williams, Kwapisz K & Lo, J 2020, 'Can We Talk About Poland? Intergenerational Translations of Home', in Susannah Radstone and Rita Wilson (ed.), Translating Worlds: Migration, Memory, and Culture, Routledge, United Kingdom, pp. 131-147.
- Williams, Kwapisz K 2020, 'Memory and migration: Narratives of the European diaspora in Australia', Griffith Review, vol. 69, pp. 234-240.
- Markowski, S & Williams, Kwapisz K 2020, ''Fair Dinkum' Migration Policy: Lessons from Australia', in M Duszczyk, M Pachocka & D Pszczólkowska (ed.), Relations between Immigration and Integration Policies in Europe: Challenges, Opportunities and Perspectives in Selected EU Member States, Routledge, London, United Kingdom, pp. 197-223.
- Williams, Kwapisz K 2018, '"While my name is remembered, I teach": Oodgeroo Noonuccal and cross-cultural storytelling for children', Literatura Ludowa, vol. 3, pp. 22-39.
- Williams, Kwapisz K 2018, 'Inherited Displacement and Relational Remembering in Once My Mother by Sophia Turkiewicz', in Simona Mitroiu (ed.), Women's Narratives and the Postmemory of Displacement in Central and Eastern Europe, Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, pp. 127-152pp.
- Williams, Kwapisz K 2018, Sholem Asch at the End of the World. Digital Yiddish Theatre Project. https://yiddishstage.org/author/katarzyna-kwapisz-williams
- Williams, Kwapisz K 2017, 'Between utopia and autobiography: Migrant Narratives in Australia', in Paul Longley Arthur (ed.), Migrant Nation, Anthem Press, Australia., pp. 177-199.
- Williams, Kwapisz K 2016, 'Transnational Literary Cultures in Australia: Writers of Polish Descent', in (eds.) Mascitelli B, Mycak S, Papalia G, The European Diaspora in Australia, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, UK, pp. 114-135.
- Williams, Kwapisz K 2016, 'Uchwycic strate, albo "kamyki cmentarne” z Melbourne' [To grasp what’s lost: ‘Small tomb stones’ from Melbourne], Postscriptum Polonistyczne, vol. 17, no. 1, pp. 81-96.
- Williams, Kwapisz K 2015, 'When Memory is not enough: Roaming and Writing the Spaces of the Other Europe', in Simona Mitroiu (ed.), Life Writing and Politics of memory in Eastern Europe, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 66-85.
- Williams, Kwapisz K 2015, 'Life Narratives, common language and diverse ways of belonging', Forum: Qualitative Social Research [S.1], vol. 16, no. 2, pp. 1438-5627.
- Williams, Kwapisz K 2014, 'Introduction: Displaced Women: Eastern European Post-War Narratives in Australia', Life Writing, vol. 11, no. 4, pp. 437-455.
- Williams, Kwapisz K 2014, 'Beyond stories of victimhood: displaced women and their life narratives', Life Writing, vol. 11, no. 4, pp. 437-455. DOI: 10.1080/14484528.2014.954977.
- Williams, Kwapisz K & Kujawinska-Courtney K 2014, 'Hamlet als Denkfigur in nationalen and regionalem Diskursen: Central Eastern Europe', Hamlet Handbuch. Stoffe, Aneignungen, Deutungen, Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler, pp. 304-312.
- Markowski, S & Williams, Kwapisz K 2013, 'Australian Polonia: A Diaspora on the Wane?', Central and Eastern European Migration Review Vol. 2, No.1, pp.13-36.
- Williams, Kwapisz K & Kujawinska-Courtney, K eds. 'No other but a woman's reason.' Women on Shakespeare. Peter Lang, 2013.
- Williams, Kwapisz K 2012, 'Can no-place be defined as our place? Australia as utopia in the writings of post-war Polish migrants'. Echoes of Utopia. Notions, Rhetoric, Poetics. Eds. Klonowska B, Kolbuszewska Z, Maziarczyk G. Studies in Literature and Culture vol. 6. Lublin: KUL, pp. 223-41.
- Williams, Kwapisz K 2012, 'Appropriating Shakespeare in Defeat: Hamlet and the Contemporary Polish Vision of War'. Shakespeare and the Second World War: Memory, Culture, Identity. Eds. Makaryk I & and McHugh M. University of Toronto Press, pp. 286-307.
- Williams, Kwapisz K 2012, 'Polish Macbeth and the Middle East Crisis'. Multicultural Shakespeare: Translation, Appropriation and Performance 9 (2012).
- Williams, Kwapisz K & Koldrzak, E eds. 2011, Indie w refleksji mlodych badaczy [India in the work of young scholars]. Lodz, University of Lodz Press.
- Williams, Kwapisz K 2011, 'Theatre of Europe.' European Culture in Diversity. Eds. Kujawinska Courtney K, Lukowska M, Williams E. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
- Williams, Kwapisz K 2010, 'Utopia of the Southern Land in Colonial Literary Imagination.' Antypody. A Quarterly Magazine of Australia, New Zealand and Oceania Research Association 3 (2010): 41-58.
- Williams, Kwapisz K 2009, Deforming Shakespeare: Investigations in Textuality and Digital Media. Torun: Grado.
- Williams, Kwapisz K & Williams, E. 2009, 'Ira Aldridge, multiculturalism and the theatre of the mid nineteenth-century Wrocl?aw'. Ira Aldridge (1807-1867). The Great Shakespearean Tragedian on the Bicentennial Anniversary of his Birth. Eds. Krystyna Kujawinska Courtney, Maria Lukowska. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.
- Williams, Kwapisz K 2008, 'Kalekie teksty, ulomne ciala: technologia nowych mediow i estetyka tolerancji Charlesa Mee' [Disabled texts, impaired bodies: new media technology and Charles Mee's aesthetics of tolerance.] Literatura. Kultura. Tolerancja. Eds. Gazda G, Hubner I, Pluciennik. J, Krakow: Universitas Press, pp. 163-176.
- Williams, Kwapisz K & Kujawinska Courtney K 2008, ''The Polish Prince': Studies in Cultural Appropriation of Shakespeare's Hamlet in Poland.' Hamlet Works. USA.
- Williams, Kwapisz K & Kujawinska Courtney K, et al. 2007, Polska bibliografia Szekspirowska 1980-2000 [Polish Shakespearean Bibliography 1980-2000]. Wroclaw: Ossolineum. www.lib.uni.lodz.pl/bazydanych/bibl_szeksp.pdf.
- (Williams) Kwapisz K 2005, 'Always in the Likeness: The Virtual Presences of Helmut Kajzar's Gwiazda in the Lothe Lachmann Theatre.' Modern Drama 48.3 (2005): 513-539. University of Toronto Press.
- (Williams), Kwapisz K 2003, 'The Renaissance of Shakespeare in the Electronic Age.' British Drama Through the Ages and Medieval Literature. Eds. Uchman J, Wicher A. Lodz: Biblioteka Press, pp. 107-113.
- (Williams) Kwapisz K 2002, 'Shakespeare in the Net. Culture at Global/ Local Levels: British and Commonwealth Contribution to World Civilisation. Ed. Kujawinska Courtney K. Lodz: Biblioteka Press, pp. 219-232.
- (Williams) Kwapisz K 2002, 'Media Culture Festival.' International Studies: Interdisciplinary Political and Cultural Journal. Vol.4. Ed. Kujawinska Courtney K. Lodz: Lodz University Press, pp. 191-196.
- (Williams) Kwapisz K 2001, 'Relativism and (hyper)textual meaning.' Anglica Wratislaviensia XXXVII. Ed. Anna Michonska-Stadnik. Wroclaw: Wroclaw University Press, pp. 91-102.
Projects and Grants
Grants information is drawn from ARIES. To add or update Projects or Grants information please contact your College Research Office.
- Culture in International Relations: Europe and the Indo-Pacific (Primary Investigator)
- Remembering Across Continents: European Politics of Memory from Australian perspective (Primary Investigator)
- Third Country Engagement with Changing EU Trade Policy (Primary Investigator)
