Anna Bendrat

ORCID: 0000-0002-5677-0296

Degrees:

Ph.D. – 2013 – Maria Curie-Sklodowska University – “Presidential Rhetoric” and “Rhetorical Presidency”: Two Concepts for Analyzing Contemporary Political Discourse in the United States

M.A. – 2002 – Maria Curie-Sklodowska University – Affirmative Action in Education in America

Postgraduate diploma in EU Studies – 2004 – Centre for Europe at University of Warsaw - Prospects and Challenges in Transatlantic Economic Relations

Undergraduate program in American Studies – 2000 – Bluffton College, Ohio, USA

Research interests:

contemporary American drama
rhetoric
cognitive poetics
body, memory, and emotions in contemporary American literature and media

Membership in scholarly societies:

Polish Rhetoric Society (PTR) – Board Member
European / Polish Association for American Studies (EAAS/PAAS)
Polish Communication Association (PTKS)
German Society for Contemporary Theatre and Drama in English (CDE)

Grants and fellowships:

2023 - National Science Center MINIATURA 6 research grant for the project "Rhetorical Deconstruction of the 'Out-side' Category in Contemporary American Drama: A Study of the Works of Martyna Majok and Aleshea Harris"
2023-2024 – Erasmus+ Project 2023-1-DE01-KA220-HED-000154375 MigraMedia – Migration Narratives in European Media: Teaching, Learning, and Reflecting
2022 - German Society for Contemporary Drama in English (CDE) scholarship to present research findings at the 30th CDE conference, "Theatre & the City," in Paris
2021 - US State Department Grant - US Embassy nomination (as the representative of Poland) for The Online Professional English Network Program (OPEN) - Integrating Critical Thinking Skills into the Exploration of Culture in an EFL Setting (April - June 2021)
2020 - NAWA research grant at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center
2010-2013 - Ph.D. research grant from the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, a book titled "Speech is Golden: The American President and Rhetoric"
2011 - participant at the International Graduate American Studies Seminar: Futures of American Studies Institute, Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, USA
2009 - Clinton Institute for American Studies scholarship for the International Graduate American Studies Seminar: ‘The Leader of the Free World': Presidentialism and US Democracy at the University College Dublin
2006 - participant at the HCA Spring Academy, University of Heidelberg, Germany
2005 - A grant from the Transregional Center for Democratic Studies (TCDS) at New School University in New York for the Democracy and Diversity Graduate Summer Institute, Kraków

Major Publications:

“’There is a Bear in the Woods…’ From the Cold War to the War on Terror: War Rhetoric in Presidential Campaign Commercials.” Ideology and Rhetoric: Constructing America, ed. Bożenna Chylińska. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009, p. 267-280.
“Yes, we can. Amerykański sen Baracka Obamy. (Yes, we can. Obama’s American Dream).” Czarno na białym. Afroamerykanie, którzy poruszyli Amerykę, eds. Ewa Łuczak, Andrzej Antoszek. Warsaw: University of Warsaw Press 2009, p. 173-195.
“How to Define Rhetoric? The Ambiguities of Theory and Practice in Contemporary Persuasive Communication.” Ambiguity and the Search for Meaning: English and American Studies at the Beginning of the 21st Century; Volume 2: Language and Culture, eds. Maria Jodłowiec, Justyna Leśniewska. Cracow: Jagiellonian University Press 2010, p. 63-74.
“Presidents Declare War: Abraham Lincoln and Constitutional ‘Power Grabs’.” (Mis)reading America. American dreams, fictions and illusions, eds. Jerzy Durczak, Paweł Frelik. Cracow: Universitas 2011, p. 63-74.
“Między literaturą a retoryką. Geneza krytycyzmu retorycznego w ujęciu Herberta A. Wichelnsa (Between rhetoric and literature. The genesis of rhetorical criticism by Herbert A. Wichelns).” Rhetorica regina artis scientiaeque, ed. Sławomir Górzyński. Warsaw: DiG 2011, p. 47-59.
“’Winkelried of Nations’ or a ‘Trojan donkey’? Rhetorical Justification for Poland’s Military Mission in the War on Terror.” Rhetoric and Politics: Central/Eastern European Perspectives, ed. Maria Załęska. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2012, p. 173-192.
“Jak usankcjonować despotyzm w demokratycznym kraju? Analiza retorycznej strategii Lincolna w świetle teorii Kennetha Burke’a (Sanctioning despotism in a democratic country. The analysis of Lincoln's rhetorical strategy in the light of Kenneth Burke’s theory of identification.” Między znaczeniem a działaniem. Retoryka i władza, ed. Agnieszka Kampka. Warsaw, The University of Life Sciences Press 2012, p. 51-62.
“President Goes to Hollywood: Popular Culture Depictions of the White House World.” Esthetic Experiments: Interdisciplinary Challenges in American Studies, eds. Edyta Just, Marek Wojtaszek. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2013, p. 105-122.
“The Dispute as a Political Spectacle: A Rhetorical Actio During the Cold War.” Forum Artis Rhetoricae 2 (2013), p. 21-34.
“Obrazy wojny w amerykańskich reklamach wyborczych (War images in American campaign commercials.” Retoryka wizualna. Obraz jako narzędzie perswazji, ed. Agnieszka Kampka. Warsaw: The University of Life Sciences Press, 2014, p. 95-107.
“Polityka i retoryka równych szans w amerykańskich uniwersytetach: czarno-biała polemika w decyzjach Sądu Najwyższego (Politics and rhetoric of equal opportunity at American universities: black-and-white polemics in the Supreme Court decisions)”, Retoryka-wiedza-krytyka (Rhetoricum series), ed. Maria Załęska. Warsaw: Polish Rhetoric Society, 2016, p. 195-216.
“Medialne portrety imigrantów a hiperrzeczywistość obrazu (Media portrayals of immigrants and the hyperreality of image), Retoryka wizerunku medialnego (Rhetoricum series), eds. Agnieszka Budzyńska-Daca, Agnieszka Kampka, Katarzyna Molek-Kozakowska. Warsaw: Polish Rhetoric Society, 2016, p. 197-224
Mowa jest złotem. Amerykański prezydent i retoryka (Speech is Golden. American President and Rhetoric). Warsaw: The Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences Press, 2016. [monograph]
„Normy komunikacji internetowej w narracjach o tożsamości na stronie Race Card Project” (Online communication standards in identity narratives on Race Card Project website), Normy komunikacji: między retoryką a językiem. Warsaw: The Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences Press, 2017, p. 143-162.
„Wartość wielokulturowości w dialogu społecznym a kreacja etosu w sieci” (The value of multiculturalism in social dialogue and the creation of a digital ethos), Retoryka i wartości, eds. Agnieszka Budzyńska-Daca, Ewa Modrzejewska. Warsaw: The University of Warsaw Press, 2019, p. 126-144.
“Rhetoric in Digital Communication: Merging Tradition with Modernity”, Res Rhetorica 6 (3) 2019, p. 111-124. DOI: 10.29107/rr2019.3.8
“Socratic Dialogues on a Complex Body–Soul Relation in Plato’s Phaedo and Olga Tokarczuk’s Flights”, 452°F Journal of Literary Theory and Comparative Literature Vol. 23, 2020, p. 191-211. www
“Transitioning the Edges of Multiple Text Worlds: A Cognitive Processing Path from Textuality to Texture in Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life”, Polish Journal for American Studies, vol. 14, 2020, p. 243-268. DOI: 10.7311/PJAS.14/2/2020.08
A. Bendrat, A. Budzyńska-Daca, A. Kampka, E. Modrzejewska, M. Załęska: “Rhetoric in Poland”, Southern Communication Journal, vol. 86 (2), 2021, p. 119-133. DOI: 10.1080/1041794X.2021.1882547
A. Bendrat, A. Budzyńska-Daca, A. Kampka, E. Modrzejewska, M. Załęska: „Retoryka w Polsce po 1989 r. Przegląd kierunków badań”. Poradnik językowy 10/2021, p. 26-50. DOI: 10.33896/PorJ.2021.10.2
“The Impossibility of Fleeing: The Deconstruction of Urban Space in Martyna Majok’s Cost of Living” Journal of Contemporary Drama in English, vol. 11, no. 1, 2023, pp. 120-135. DOI: 10.1515/jcde-2023-0007
“How Do You Know Who You Are?”: Marjorie Prime on Envisioning Humanity Through the Faculty of AI-Powered Memory as Reconstructive Tissue. Text Matters: A Journal of Literature, Theory and Culture, vol. 13, 2023, pp. 210–228. DOI: 10.18778/2083-2931.13.12

Courses taught:

American Civilisation and Culture survey courses
Introduction to Cultural Studies
Media, genres, forms
BA and MA seminar courses on selected aspects of US-American literature and culture

Editorial Boards:

Res Rhetorica (https://resrhetorica.com) – a peer-reviewed open access quarterly academic journal associated with the Polish Rhetoric Society (140 p). It offers space for reflection on the role of rhetoric in communication and a forum for dissemination of rhetoric-oriented research on current and historical texts and practices [member of the EB].
New Horizons in English Studies (https://journals.umcs.pl/nh) – a peer-reviewed open access academic journal affiliated with Maria Curie-Skłodowska University (40 p). It publishes research in English-language literatures, linguistics, and cultural studies [Editor-in-Chief].

Conference series organizer:

Media in America, America in Media - A joint effort of American Studies and Communication scholars from Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin, Poland. Since 2017 they aim to generate a cross-disciplinary debate that brings together divergent yet complementary voices reflecting on American media environment and America’s portrayals in media across the globe.
Students’ Corner - Since 2015 the MCSU English Students’ Association (ESA) together with the Department of English and American Studies and the Department of Linguistics of Maria Curie-Skłodowska University have been organizing the annual doctoral, graduate and undergraduate students conference STUDENTS’ CORNER: LITERATURE – CULTURE & MEDIA –LINGUISTICS – DIDACTICS.

Guest Lectures:

June 6, 2023 – Rhetoric and Emotion: The Contemporary Perspectives – Contemporary Rhetoric Studies, University of Warsaw
June 7, 2023 – American Theories of Presidential Rhetoric – Summer School „Presidential Rhetoric in Ukraine - leadership, channels, audiences", Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań - Kołobrzeg, 4-10.06.2023

Erasmus + Mobility Grants:

Project for youth exchange "Revolution on hold" (group leader), Athens, Greece, May 2018
Key Action 1: Higher Education Staff Mobility, University of Agder, Norway, February 2019
Key Action 1: Higher Education Staff Mobility, University of Lyon, France, December 2022