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Description
This collection of essays evolved from a colloquium held at the University of British Columbia in 1995 to honour the eminent political scientist and aphorist W.J. Stankiewicz. A theorist and consultant on political decisions, Stankiewicz has been noted for his ability to bring the classical concepts of political science into the decision-making rooms of everyday political action. He has written on concepts such as democracy, ideology, liberalism, equality and justice, authority and sovereignty, violence and social change, property and happiness. Among the distinguished Canadian and American contributors are Alan Cairns, Jean Bethke Elshtain, George Feaver, Barry Cooper, Anthony Parel, Arpad Kadarkay and Ian Ross. The contributors, some of whom were Stankiewicz's students, have not only explored and extended the central ideas of Stankiewicz's thought; they have also applied them to today's political situations. The volume concludes with two of Professor Stankiewicz's hitherto unpublished essays (on natural law and ecology, and truth in politics).
Contributor Notes
Bogdan Czaykowski (19322007) was a historian, literary critic, poet, and translator. He was a professor emeritus at UBC, where he began his career in 1962, specializing in Polish and East European literature and history. His academic interests as a historian seem to have been shaped by the meanders of his early life. He was born in 1932 on the eastern outskirts of Poland. Deported with his family in 1940 to the Soviet labor camps, he subsequently made his way through Iran and India topostwar Great Britain. Later, he studied modern history in Dublin and Polish and East European literatures in London. His academic work included critical studies of prominent Polish nineteenth- and twentieth-century poets such as Mickiewicz, Norwid, Lesmian, and Milosz. In the early sixties he became the editor-in-chief of the Polish émigré periodical Continents. He wrote over thirty articles and chapters in books on modern Polish literature and literary history, and co-wrote two books of translations into English of modern Polish poetry. In Polish, he was the author of Collected Poems (1990), co-author of Poles of Great Britain (1961), and senior editor of Poles in British Columbia (1988). His collected poems, Wiatr z innej strony, were published in 1990 and his more recent poetry volume, Okanaganskie sady, appeared in 1998. In 2002 he published the masterfully edited Anthology of Polish Poetry Abroad, 19391999. Samuel V. LaSelva is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of British Columbia, and author of The Moral Foundations of Canadian Federalism: Paradoxes, Achievements, and Tragedies of Nationhood (1996).
