Profile

Dr. Joanna Ostrowska is a historian, film critic, and a playwright. In 2015, he defended her doctoral dissertation on “Seksualność w warunkach opresji i poetyka jej reprezentacji” (Sexuality in oppressive environments and poetics of its representation), at the Jagiellonian University. She lectured at the Department of Jewish Studies of the Jagiellonian University. She taught gender studies at the Jagiellonian University, the University of Warsaw, and the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN). She also lectured at the Jewish Open University and the Polish-Jewish Studies offered by PAN. She researches sexual violence (WWII) and the forgotten victims of Nazism. Her book Przemilczane. Seksualna praca przymusowa w czasie II wojny światowej (The Unmentioned: Forced sexual work during the Second World War) was nominated for the Teresa Torańska Award and was named the 2018 Gender Book of the Year.