Summary
Dr. Piotr Wilczek, Ambassador from Poland to the United States, visited our campus this Thursday and gave an informative presentation on how energy security issues continue to affect Poland and the wider region of Central and Eastern Europe. A prolific literary scholar and intellectual historian with a Ph.D. from the University of Silesia, Ambassador Wilczeck has authored and edited twenty-two published monographs and more than one-hundred journal articles. He demonstrated unique understanding and expert knowledge as he discussed the issue of energy security with all its geopolitical implications.
Ambassador Wilczeck articulated Poland’s concerns about the “monopolistic practices of Russia” from whom Poland derives eighty percent of its energy supply. He articulated the importance that the Polish government gives to the words of President Trump as he pledges cooperation and especially energy cooperation. Covering recent developments such as Nord Stream 2 and the Three Seas Initiative, Wilczeck concluded that Poland must maintain its energy dependence and avoid long-term volume contracts with Russia by continuing to diversify its energy supply with liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the United States and with investment in other long-term energy solutions.
Upon the conclusion of his planned remarks, Ambassador Wilczeck graciously responded to questions from the audience. Wilczech gave a detailed response to questions concerning Poland’s new anti-defamation law. After the event, DMGS students, faculty, and staff had the opportunity to network with Ambassador Wilczek and other campus visitors at a special luncheon with sandwiches and other food provided courteous of DMGS.
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National Security Lecture Series at DMGS
The Daniel Morgan Graduate School Lecture Series is specifically designed to bring together speakers with divergent opinions on national security with the goal of enabling the public to engage in robust and informed discussions. It has hosted some of the most distinguished and influential leaders, thinkers, and practitioners of the national security community. These members of the national security community have provided our students, faculty, and guests with first-rate analysis of some of the most pressing challenges of our time. Daniel Morgan Graduate School will continue to host speakers who can help prepare the next generation of leaders, scholars and, practitioners to develop actionable solutions to global and domestic security challenges.
Biography
Ambassador Piotr Wilczek was born in Chorzów, Poland. A prolific literary scholar, intellectual historian, writer, and translator, he graduated in 1986 from the University of Silesia in Katowice, where he also received his Ph.D. (1992) and Habilitation (2001). Recruited by his Alma Mater, he remained there until 2008 as a Professor and Faculty Dean. His interests include comparative literature, philology, and intellectual history that form the culture and geography of knowledge across time. In 2006, he received the title of Professor of the Humanities from the President of the Republic of Poland.
In 2008, he joined the University of Warsaw Faculty at the new, experimental Artes Liberales program. He became the Founding Director of Collegium Artes Liberales (College of Liberal Arts and Sciences) where he helped establish and chaired the Centre for the Study of the Reformation and Intellectual Culture in Early-Modern Europe. Since 2010, he has also been at the helm of the Artes Liberales Doctoral Studies Program. An international scholar active in Europe and the United States, he has been promoting liberal arts education, which breaks the existing barriers between narrow fields of specialization traditionally favored in the continental Europe.
A recipient of numerous grants and scholarships, he has conducted postgraduate research in intellectual history at Oxford Univeristy’s St Anne’s College in 1988 and completed two postdoctoral projects at the Warburg Institute, University of London, in 1996 and 1998. Twice, he was visiting translator at The British Centre for Literary Translation, University of East Anglia. In the United States from 1998 to 2001, he taught Polish literature and language as a visiting professor at Rice University, the University of Illinois, and the University of Chicago. He was invited to give public lectures at Harvard University and the University of Texas at Austin and conducted research as a visiting scholar at Boston College and Cleveland State University.
He is an active member of the Warsaw-based non-partisan American Study Group at the Polish Institute of International Affairs. Until his diplomatic appointment in the US, he was Representative in Poland of the New York-based Kosciuszko Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to educational, cultural, and artistic exchange between the United States and Poland. He also served as President of the Foundation’s affiliate in Warsaw.
Ambassador Wilczek has authored and edited 22 published monographs and more than 100 journal articles which appeared in Poland, the UK, and the United States, both in English and Polish.
On 21 October 2016 the President of the Republic of Poland nominated him Ambassador to the United States and the Commonwealth of the Bahamas.
