Dr. Agnieszka Stasiewicz-Bieńkowska is a researcher and a lecturer at the Institute of American Studies and Polish Diaspora, Jagiellonian University in Krakow. She received her Ph.D. from the Faculty of International and Political Studies, Jagiellonian University, in 2009. Her research interests comprise a variety of topics concerning youth studies, girlhood studies, literature, popular culture, gender representations, and the fantastic. Dr. Stasiewicz has been a holder of several scholarships and grants: Dagmar and Nils William Olsson Fellowship (Swenson Swedish Immigration Research Center, Augustana College, Rock Island, Ill., USA), J.F. Kennedy Library Grant (Freie Universität, Berlin) and Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia. She participated in the international research projects “Letting the Wrong One In: Hospitality, Rape and Consent in Vampire Popular Culture” (2014-2017); “Approaching War: Childhood, Culture and the First World War” (2011-2016) (Leverhulme Trust) and “Negotiating Cultural Differences in the Digital Communication Era” (The Polish National Science Centre; HARMONIA Grant). She has been granted twice the Swedish Institute Scholarship within the Visby Programme for research work at the Växjö University and The House of Emigrants (2007) and at the Lund University, Sweden (2014-2015).
In 2018 and 2012 she received Jagiellonian University Rector’s Award in recognition of special achievements in academic work. In 2012 the conference paper she co-authored, “Border Crossing Networks: Virtual Makes It Real” (with Anita Lundberg and Anna Singhateh) received an award “In recognition of inspiring contribution to innovative research in Social Science” (International Conference Innovative Research in a Changing and Challenging World, Phuket, Thailand). In 2011 Dr. Stasiewicz received Franklin Scott Prize from the Swedish-American Historical Society for the article “A Model for Her Sex: Ethnic Womanhood in the Swedish-American Publications for Children and Youth (1890–1920)” (The Swedish-American Historical Quarterly, vol. LXII, no 1, January 2011).
Her recent works comprise Hospitality, Rape and Consent in Vampire Popular Culture: Letting the Wrong One In (Palgrave Macmillan 2017; co-editor and the author of a chapter); “Lustful Ladies, She-Demons and Good Little Girls: Female Agency and Desire in the Universes of Sookie Stackhouse” Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies Special Issue: “As If: Women in Genres of the Fantastic, Cross-Platform Entertainments and Transmedia Engagements” (33.2, 2019) ; “Exotic Otherlands, Headquarters of Death: Sub-tropical Land- and Cityscapes in The Southern Vampire Mysteries” eTropic 16.1 (2017) and a chapter in Children's Literature and Culture of the First World War (Routledge 2016).
Dr. Stasiewicz is a member of International Research Society for Children's Literature. She speaks fluent English and Swedish.
Functions at IAiSP:
- Jagiellonian University Administrator of the global exchange program for students and researchers EU-AU ICI-ECP Project BORDER CROSSINGS: PEOPLE AND PLACES
Jagiellonian University Coordinator of the study tour to the USA “Religion in American Society” 2015, jointly organized by the Institute of American Studies and Polish Diaspora and the Institute for American Studies of University of Leipzig, Germany.
Academic interests:
Youth Studies (particularly popular literature for young adults)
Girlhood Studies, Gender Representations
American Popular Culture
Monstrosity and Otherness
Academic interests:
- Youth Studies (particularly popular literature for young adults)
Girlhood Studies, Gender Representations
American Popular Culture
Monstrosity and Otherness
Current research projects & grants:
- Vampiric Transformations: Resisting Romanticism; collaboration with Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia
Past research projects & grants:
- Two special issues of eTropic: “Tropical Gothic: Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences” 18.1 (2019), DOI and “Tropical Gothic: Literary and Creative Works” 18.2 (2019), DOI. Editors: Anita Lundberg, Katarzyna Ancuta, Roger Osborne, Agnieszka Stasiewicz-Bieńkowska.
- “Lustful Ladies, She-Demons and Good Little Girls: Female Agency and Desire in the Universes of Sookie Stackhouse” Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies Special Issue: “As If: Women in Genres of the Fantastic, Cross-Platform Entertainments and Transmedia Engagements” (33.2, 2019).
- Hospitality, Rape and Consent in Vampire Popular Culture: Letting the Wrong One In, Palgrave Macmillan, a contributed volume co-edited with David Baker and Stephanie GreenThe Swedish Institute Scholarship within the Visby Programme (research in the regions of Lund/Malmö and Stockholm, 2014-2015)
- Negotiating Cultural Differences in the Digital Communication Era (National Center of Science, HARMONIA Grant, 2012-2014) (edited collection of essays published in 2014)
- International research project Approaching War: Childhood, Culture and the First World War (2011-2016) (financed by the Leverhulme Trust) (edited collection of essays published in 2016)
- Monstrous Manifestations: Realities and Imaginings of the Monster, Karen Graham, Agnieszka Stasiewicz-Bieńkowska eds., Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2013.
- Landscapes of (Un)Belonging: Reflections on Strangeness and Self, Orla McGarry, Agnieszka Stasiewicz-Bieńkowska eds., Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2012.
- Constructing Ethnic Identity of Swedish Immigrants' Children in the USA: The Case Study of Augustana Book Concern (1889-1962) (monography in Polish) (2011).
- The Swedish Institute Scholarship within the Visby Programme (research at the Växjö University and The House of Emigrants, Växjö, Sweden (2007)
- Research Grant at the John-F.-Kennedy Institut für Nordamerikastudien der Freien Universität Berlin, Germany (2007)
- Dagmar and Nils William Olsson Fellowship (research at the Swenson Swedish Immigration Research Center, Augustana College, Rock Island, Ill., USA (2006).