Please join the East Central European Center for a lecture by Monika Baár, István Deák Visiting Professor at the Harriman Institute. Moderated by ECEC co-directors Aleksandar Bošković and Christopher Caes. The lecture explores a hitherto overlooked episode in the history of human-animal relations: the establishment of professional guide dog training after the First World War, which had its origins in Central Europe.

Please join us for a discussion with historian Sergey A. Ivanov, moderated by Valentina Izmirlieva, Director of the Harriman Institute.

Join the East Central European Center at the Harriman Institute for a conversation with Kent Washington, the first African-American and first American to play professional basketball in Cold War Eastern Europe. Recruited into the top Polish league in 1979, Washington went on to play five seasons in the Solidarity-era communist country. His story told for the first time in his new memoir, Kentomania: A Black Basketball Virtuoso in Communist Poland, is unprecedented, weaving together professionalism, race, and politics in powerful and daring ways. Washington will appear in conversation with Columbia University Lecturer in Polish Christopher Caes, to be followed by audience Q&A and book-signing.