Ciancia pictureKathryn Ciancia is an Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she has taught since 2013. She received her BA from Oxford University, her MA from University College London, and her PhD from Stanford University.

Her first book, provisionally titled On Civilization's Edge: Poland's Eastern Borderlands and the Interwar World., is in the final stages of completion. It tells the stories of the men and women—including border guards, teachers, administrators, scholars, public health officials, and scouts—who attempted to modernize the interwar eastern borderland province of Volhynia, where Polish-speaking Roman Catholics lived alongside Yiddish-speaking Jews, Ukrainian-speaking Orthodox Christians, and a host of other national minorities. Placing the Polish “civilizing mission” within the context of broader contests over sovereignty across the interwar world, the book simultaneously takes the reader into the province’s towns and villages in order to explore how national narratives took on particular meanings at a local level. Her next project will trace the role of the Second Republic’s consulates across Europe, North America, and the Middle East.