Dr Sylwia Frach wins Fulbright Senior Award

Dr Sylwia Frach from the Institute of Literatures of the University of Opole has been granted a prestigious Fulbright Senior Award. Thanks to the grant, she will carry out a research project on a feminist filmmaker, Nina Menkes.

‘Feminist Sorceress Unveiled: Aspects of the Cinematic Oeuvre of Nina Menkes’ is the title of the research project that Dr Sylwia Frach will be conducting in the academic year 2025/2026 at the UCLA School of Theater, Film & Television at the University of California, Los Angeles.

‘The research focuses on analysing the work of Nina Menkes,’ says Dr Sylwia Frach. ‘She is an American independent filmmaker. I will set the project in a feminist context, with a particular focus on the ways in which the author’s films redefine traditional representations of women in cinema.

The outcome of the project is to be an English-language monograph representing the first comprehensive study of Menkes’ work. The publication is expected to contribute to the development of an international discourse on women’s cinema.

A total of 71 people from across Poland competed for the Fulbright Senior Award. It was finally given to 15 researchers from universities, technical universities, academies and institutes from: Opole, Warsaw, Wrocław, Katowice, Toruń, Kraków, Lublin, Bydgoszcz and Łódź. The full list of scholarship winners is available on the Fulbright Poland website.