Prof. Paweł Frelik has received the Innovative Research Award given annually by the Science Fiction Research Association (USA) for the year’s best critical article in a peer-reviewed academic journal.

Prof. Frelik’s “Power Games: Towards the Rhetoric of Energy in Speculative Video Games” appeared in Er(r)go: Theory-Literature-Culture 44 and marks the first time the award has gone to an article published in a non-Anglo-American journal.

The Innovative Research Award, previously known as the Pioneer Award, has been presented since 1990 and its previous winners include Veronica Hollinger, Istvan Csicsery-Ronay Jr., Roger Luckhurst, Wendy Pearson, Carl Freedman, De Witt Douglas Kilgore, Andrew Butler, Lisa Yaszek, Sherryl Vint, John Rieder, David Higgins, Lysa Rivera, Jaak Tomberg, Graeme MacDonald, and Amy Butt, a veritable who-is-who of science fiction studies.

The article is available in OpenAccess and can be read here.

Year 2025/2026

Dec 11-12: International Conference on Anti-Gender Campaigns and the Politics of Knowledge Production

November 28, 2025

The American Studies Center at the University of Warsaw invites you to the international conference Anti-gender campaigns and the politics of knowledge production, to be held on 11–12 December 2025 in Warsaw, Poland.

News

Call for Papers: “America and the World: A Reciprocal History of Influence and Exchange”

November 26, 2025

In 2026, the American Studies Center at the University of Warsaw will celebrate its 50th anniversary, a landmark occasion that coincides with the 250th anniversary of the United States. To mark these dual jubilees, we invite scholars to submit papers that explore the past, present, and future of the United States, its global impact, and the evolving role of American Studies as a field of inquiry.

American Studies Colloquium Series

December 2: “Distressing Language: Disability and the Poetics of Error”

November 25, 2025

We are pleased to invite you to the fourth lecture of the American Studies Colloquium Series in the 2025/2026 Winter semester! This time we are pleased to host Michael Davidson from University of California, San Diego with a lecture “Distressing Language: Disability and the Poetics of Error”.

American Studies Colloquium Series

November 27: “The Era of Political (Not) Kidding. How Politics Became a Strategically Ambiguous Joke”

November 24, 2025

We are pleased to invite you to the third lecture of the American Studies Colloquium Series in the 2025/2026 Winter semester! This time we are pleased to host Aaron J. Leonard who is an independent scholar with a lecture titled “Menace of Our Time: The Long War Against American Communism”.

News

Szkolenie Fundacji Feminoteka “Jak reagować na molestowanie seksualne w przestrzeni publicznej?”

November 20, 2025

Zespół Równościowy Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego wraz z Fundacją Feminoteka zapraszają do udziału w bezpłatnym szkoleniu „Jak reagować na molestowanie seksualne w przestrzeni publicznej?”