profiles

Dr. John Merchant

About

Loyola Service

• Coordinator of the Virtual Dual Immersion (VDI) exchange between Loyola University Chicago and Akademia Ignatianum in Kraków, Poland
• Academic Council (Fall 2022 - Present)
• Chair, Core Review Committee, MLL
• Organizer of the annual student reading of Dziady, by Adam Mickiewicz
• Faculty reviewer and judge for the Undergraduate Student FORUM, a competition of papers on Central and Eastern Europe
• Coordinator of visit by International Writing Program (IWP) writers to upper-level MLL language classes, Fall 2016-2017
• Chair, Faculty Committee Assessment Review of LITR 200-level courses, Fall 2016
• Chair, Faculty Committee Assessment Review of UCLR 100-level courses, Fall 2015
• Moderator, “The Polish Catholic Experience in Literature: Polish-American Writers in Chicago.” Chicago Catholic Immigrant Conference: The Poles, Loyola University, November 2015
• “Writing As...?: Jan Karski and the Many Voices of Polish WWII Literature.” Jan Karski Conference, Loyola University, September 2014
• “Poetry and Freedom,” poetry reading Olivia Edelman, Reginald Gibbons, and Adam Lizakowski, and John Merchant - Honoring Mexican poets Octavio Paz, José Emilio Pacheco, and Juan Gelman, and Polish Solidarity poets Zbigniew Herbert, Stanisław Barańczak, Jacek Kaczmarski, and Adam Zagajewski. Loyola University, June 2014
• Public lecture – “Polish American Poetry: Reading Between the Lines,” Loyola University Chicago, April 2013

Service Outside Loyola

• Co-editor, Stuart Dybek. Wybrzeże Chicago [The Coast of Chicago], translator Artur Grabowski, Dwa Horyzonty, Wydawnictwo Księgarnia Akademicka, December 2024.
• Moderator – “Vanishing Communities: Writing, Politics, and the Challenges of Survival,” April 2022
• Served as "Cultural Ambassador" for the Instytut Książki (The Book Institute), working with American publishers to publish Polish literature in English, 2018-2019
• Moderator – “A Literary Reading By Anthony Bukoski,” Chopin Theatre, November 2017
• “Anthony Bukoski: An Outpost of Polishness,” Polish American Historical Association Conference, Denver, CO, January 2017
• “Teaching Polish Literature in Translation to Non-Polish and Polish Heritage University Students,” Polish Teachers, Students, and Parents Conference, Chicago, IL, December 2016
• “Jan Karski: Teaching the Legacy of A Polish Catholic and Officer of the Polish Government -in-Exile, Who Tried to Stop the Holocaust.” Workshop for Chicago Public School Teachers, Grades 6 – 8. Social Science Exposition, Little Village High School, August 2015
• “Jan Karski: His Work and Legacy, a Literary Perspective.” Polish American Heritage Month, Harold Washington Library, October 2014
• Opening remarks prior to Chicago film premiere of The Age of Czesław Miłosz. Balzekas Museum of Lithuanian Culture, April 2013
• Public lecture – “The Literature of the Polish American Experience,” September 2013, Chopin Theatre

Degrees

• Ph.D., Slavic Languages & Literature, University of Chicago, 2006. Dissertation: The Impact of Irish-Ireland on Young Poland, 1890-1918
• M.A., Polish Literature, University of Illinois-Chicago, 1997
• M.A., Education, The Ohio State University, 1994
• B.A. University of Iowa, 1990

Research Interests

• Polish and Irish Literature
• Polish American Literature

Professional & Community Affiliations

Loyola Service

• Organized student reading of Dziady, by Adam Mickiewicz, October 2013.
• Faculty reviewer and judge for the Undergraduate Student FORUM, a competition of papers on Central and Eastern Europe.

Service Outside Loyola

• Public lecture - "Polish American Poetry: Reading Between the Lines," April 2013, Crown Center.
• Public lecture - "The Literature of the Polish American Experience," September 2013, Chopin Theatre.

Courses Taught

• UCLR 100 Interpreting Literature (Post-war Polish Literature; Polish and Irish Literature; Writing Faith: Joyce, Dybek, and the Catholic Imagination)
• LITR 200 European Masterpieces (Polish Identity in Literature, 1863-1945; Interwar Poland; Women in Polish Culture; Post-war Polish Literature; Polish Short Stories; Polish Fantasy; Polish and Irish Literature: Reading Nature and the Individual)
• LITR 221 Polish Authors (Writing the Polish Voice; Post-WWII Literature)
• LITR 280 World Masterpieces (Polish American Literature; Women in Polish Literature and Film)
• LITR 283 Major Authors in Translation (Writing the Polish Voice)

Selected Publications

Books

• The Impact of Irish-Ireland on Young Poland, 1890-1918. (Boulder: East European Monographs, distributed by Columbia University Press, 2008), 320 pages

Articles

• Book chapter: “The Scars of St. Stuart: Time-traveling Down 26th Street,” in Creative Expression and Polish Chicago, in reviewBook Review: Katarzyna Bartoszyńska, Estranging the Novel: Poland, Ireland, and Theories of World Literature, in review
• Book Review: Kaoru Yamamoto, Rethinking Joseph Conrad’s Concepts of Community: Strange Fraternity, The Polish Review (Fall 2021)“Anthony Bukoski – An Outpost of Polishness,” Rocznik Komparatystyczny – Comparative Yearbook 9 (Summer 2019)
• Book Review: Adam Mickiewicz, Forefather’s Eve, Trans. Charles S. Kraszewski, Slavic Review (Spring 2018)
• Book Review: John Guzlowski, Echoes of Tattered Tongues, Polish American Studies Journal (Spring 2017)
• Book Review: George Z. Gasyna, Polish, Hybrid, and Otherwise: Exilic Discourse in Joseph Conrad and Witold Gombrowicz. Slavic and East European Journal, Winter 2014, in SEEJ 60.2 (Summer 2016)
• “Universal Identities and Local Realities: Young Poland's (Mis)readings of Synge.” Eds. Sabine Egger and John McDonagh. Polish-Irish Encounters in the New and Old Europe (Reimagining Ireland series), (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2011), 77-87
• “Poets Who Kept Guard of the City,” First Things (on-line edition). January 15, 2008.
• “Krakow 2001,” Lyrical Iowa 2003, October 2003, 36
• “The Impact of Irish-Ireland on Young Poland, 1890-1918,” New Hibernia Review, Vol. 5, No. 3, Autumn 2001, 42-65
• Book Review: Michael J. Mikoś, Polish Baroque and Enlightenment Literature: An Anthology. In Slavic and East European Journal, Vol. 43, No. 4, Winter 1999, 704-705
• “Recent Polish-American Fiction,” The Sarmatian Review, Vol. XVIII, No. 1, January 1998, 501-508

Translations

• The Polish Whitman by Marta Skwara, forthcoming (University of Iowa Press, July 2022)