Jess Jensen Mitchell

Jess Jensen Mitchell received a Joint Honours degree in History and Slavic Studies at McGill University in Montreal, and has also studied at the University of Warsaw, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Middlebury College. In 2023-4, she was a visiting scholar at the University of Silesia, thanks to funding from the Jurzykowski Foundation.

Jess researches family memory, regionalism, and hyperliteracy in contemporary Polish culture. Her dissertation — tentatively titled Still Nothing About Silesia — examines recent literature about the region Upper Silesia released by prestigious, nationally-oriented Polish publishing houses. After decades of relegation to the private sphere, markers of regional identity and collective memory are being cultivated across a variety of literary genres (historical fiction, reportage, melodrama, and autofiction) by prominent, Polish-language authors. Jess’ work explores the developing archetypes of this literature about Upper Silesia, while identifying its influences and its nascent impact on how Polish readers conceptualize national history and their places within it. In a forthcoming article (Ulbandus Review, fall 2024), Jess unpacks the cultural implications of the quotation of the semi-literate women in recent reportage about peasant grandmothers, including Joanna Kuciel-Frydryszak’s unlikely bestseller, Chłopki (Peasant Women, 2023). In fall 2024, Jess will conduct research on Silesian migration to Texas, with the generous help of the Svetlana Boym Fellowship.

Jess' scholarship is complemented by her work in literary translation. In 2022, she was awarded The Emerging Translator Mentorship by The National Centre for Writing in the UK. She has published with Two Lines, Przekładaniec, The ETM Anthology, and elsewhere. Her translation of Irena Krzywicka will appear in The Penguin Book of Polish Short Stories (March 2025). Jess also promotes literary translation in her role as a co-producer of Paraphrasis, a podcast about literary translation hosted by Harvard’s Department of Comparative Literature. She also collaborates with Full Stop, writing reviews of books (often in translation) released by independent publishers.

@JessJensenMi