JAN KUBIK, Associate Professor of Political Science, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, USA and Recurring Visiting Professor of Sociology at the Center for Social Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland. He received his B.A. (philosophy) and M.A. (sociology) from the Jagiellonian University in Krakow and his Ph.D. (anthropology) from Columbia University. In 2006-07 served as the Distinguished Fulbright Chair in East European Studies, Warsaw University. His work is focused mostly on postcommunist transformations in Eastern Europe and revolves around the relationship between culture and politics, civil society, and contentious politics.

Kubik is currently working on: (1) a book investigating the relationship between comparative politics and political anthropology (with Myron Aronoff), (2) the role of ethnographic and interpretive methods in political science, (3) a study of cultural legacies of state socialism and their political relevance and (4) a four-state (Taiwan, South Korea, Poland, Hungary) study of civil society and protest politics in post-authoritarian/post-communist states (with Grzegorz Ekiert, Harvard and Jason Wittenberg, Berkeley).

Among his publications are: Rebellious Civil Society: Popular Protest and Democratic Consolidation in Poland, 1989-1993, Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press (1999) (with Ekiert) (won 2001 Bronislaw Malinowski Social Sciences Award from the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America and the 2000 American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies/Orbis Bookstore Polish Book Prize) and The Power of Symbols against the Symbols of Power. The Rise of Solidarity and the Fall of State Socialism in Poland. University Park: Penn State University Press (1994) (won the Younger Scholar Award, Polish Studies Association, the best academic book on Poland, published in 1992-1994).

Selected recent articles and chapters: "Ethnography of Politics: Foundations, Applications, Prospects," in Political Ethnography: What Immersion Contributes to the Study of Power, Edward Schatz, ed., under review; "Democracy in the Post Communist World: an Unending Quest?" (with Grzegorz Ekiert and Milada Anna Vachudova), East European Politics and Societies, 2007, 21 (1), pp. 7-30; "The State and civil society. Traditions and new forms of governing," in Civil Society and the State, 2007, Emil Brix, Jürgen Nautz, Werner Wutscher, Rita Trattnigg, eds. Vienna: Passagen Verlag; "Avant-garde theater contra state socialism: what was global before the era of globalization (in Tadeusz Kantor's theater)?" in Stawanie sie Spoleczenstwa, 2006, Andrzej Flis, ed. Krakow: Universitas, (in Polish); "The Original Sin of Poland's Third Republic: Discounting 'Solidarity' and its Consequences for Political Reconciliation" (with Amy Linch), Polish Sociological Review, 2006, 1 (153); "How to study civil society: the state of the art and what to do next," East European Politics and Societies, 2005, 19 (1), Winter; "Cultural Legacies of State Socialism: History-making and Cultural-political Entrepreneurship in Postcommunist Poland and Russia," in Capitalism and Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe: Assessing the Legacy of Communist Rule, 2003, edited by Grzegorz Ekiert and Stephen E. Hanson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.