Jerzy (Jurek) Elżanowski

Joint Appointments

School of Architecture and Urbanism
Institute for Comparative Studies in Literature, Art and Culture

Faculty Affiliations

Institute of European, Russian and Eurasian Studies
Carleton Centre for Public History

Research Interests

I explore the relationships between architecture, violence and commemoration in Central and Eastern Europe as well as Canada. My current research projects focus on the cartography of urban war damage and memorials to war and genocide.  I  experiment with joint architectural and humanities pedagogies, both in my teaching and through collaborative projects in the fields of heritage conservation pedagogy and curatorial studies.

General areas of research and graduate supervision interest include:

• Post-conflict urban history, specifically damage cartography, artificial ruins, rubble concrete, and the presence of human remains in rubble
• Heritage conservation, especially the reconstruction of historic town centres and the history and theory of values-based conservation
• Curatorial practices at museums of war and conflict and monuments to genocide
• Memory studies, especially transdisciplinary work that bridges the gaps between literary, sociological and neuroscientific research in the field
• Central and Eastern European diasporic communities in Canada

Selected Publications

• Jerzy Elżanowski and Carmen Enss, “Cartographies of Catastrophe: Mapping World War II Destruction in Germany and Poland.” Urban History 49:3 (2022), 589–611.
• Rebecca Dolgoy and Jerzy Elżanowski, “Working Through the Limits of Multidirectional Memory: Ottawa’s Memorial to the Victims of Communism and National Holocaust Monument,” Citizenship Studies 22:4 (2018), 433-451.
•  Reprint in the anthology of the best of articles published in The Journal of Architecture in the last decade: “Manufacturing Ruins: Architecture and Representation in Post-Catastrophic Warsaw,” The Journal of Architecture 23:5 (2018), 740-755.
• “Putting Roosevelt Back into Play: Reflections on the National Parks Now Competition,” in Alles Heritage, ed. Kirsten Angermann, Eva von Engelberg-Dočkal and Johannes Warda (Weimar: Bauhaus-Universität, 2016), 32-43.
• “Personal Effects: On Violence and Everyday Life in Warsaw’s Anthropogenic Stratum,” in Im Kontext, ed. Simone Bogner and Daniela Spiegel (Weimar: Bauhaus-Universität, 2016), 30-37.
• “Domesticating Violence: Notes from a Socio-Spatial Incursion into Warsaw’s Anthropogenic Stratum,” in Presence/ Absence/ Traces: Contemporary Artists on Jewish Warsaw, ed. Ewa Chomicka and Agnieszka Pindera (Warsaw: POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, 2016), 164-181.
• “Monuments and Material Dislocation: The Politics of Commemoration in Warsaw,” in Public Space and the Challenges of Urban Transformation in Europe, ed. Ali Madanipour, Sabine Knierbein and Agalée Degros (London: Routledge, 2014), 88-102.
• “Detroit” in Architecture & Situation, ed. Ella Chmielewska, Tahl Kaminer, and Dorrian Wiszniewski, vol. 4, (Edinburgh: The University of Edinburgh and Ampersand Publishing, 2014), 30-33.
• “Ruins, Rubble and Human Remains: Negotiating Culture and Violence in Post-Catastrophic Warsaw,” Public Art Dialogue 2:2 (2012), 114–146.
• “Cidade e memória: vistas de Varsóvia a partir do Palácio de Cultura e Ciência (City and Memory: Views of Warsaw from the Palace of Culture and Science),” Arquitetura e Urbanismo 27: 221 (2012), 72-75.
• “Manufacturing Ruins: Architecture and Representation in Post-Catastrophic Warsaw,” The Journal of Architecture 15:1 (2010), 67-82.

Courses Archive (Fall 2014 – Winter 2020)

Fall 2019 – Winter 2020

• CDNS 5401 / CLMD 6106, Fall 2019: Heritage Conservation I: History, Principles, and Concepts (Theme: The ‘Heritage’ of Heritage Concepts)
• CDNS 4400, Fall 2019: Cultural Landscapes and Cultural Identities in Canada (Theme: TBA, please contact me for more information)
• CDNS 1002, Winter 2020: Themes in the Study of Canada (Monuments, Museums, and Memory Activism – see course outline for Winter 2019 below)
• CDNS 3901, Winter 2020: Special topics course

Fall 2018 – Winter 2019

• CDNS 5401 / CLMD 6106, Winter 2019: Heritage Conservation I: History, Principles, and Concepts (Theme: The ‘Heritage’ of Heritage Concepts)
• CDNS 1002, Winter 2019: Themes in the Study of Canada (Monuments, Museums, and Memory Activism)
• Course Abroad, Fall 2018: Heritage and Memory in Canada and Central Europe

Fall 2017 – Winter 2018

• CDNS 5401, Fall 2017: Heritage Conservation I: History, Principles, and Concepts (Theme: The ‘Heritage’ of Heritage Concepts)
• CLMD 6106, Fall 2017: Historical Representation and Historical Memory (Theme: Landscape, Bodies, and Cultural Memory Practice)
• CDNS 1002, Winter 2018: Themes in the Study of Canada (Theme: Self-Knowledge and Collective Memory)
• CDNS 4400, Winter 2018: Cultural Landscapes and Cultural Identities in Canada (Theme: Wandering the Landscape)

Fall 2016

• CDNS 5401, Fall 2016: Heritage Conservation I: History, Principles, and Concepts
• EURR 5201/CLMD6103/ARCH5000, Fall 2016: Architecture and Memory in Europe

Fall 2015 – Winter 2016

• CDNS 5401, Fall 2015: Heritage Conservation I: History, Principles, and Concepts
• CDNS 1002, Fall 2015: Themes in the Study of Canada (Theme: Contextualizing Urban Praxis in Canada and Abroad)
• CDNS 3600, Winter 2016: Cultural Politics and Identities in Canada (Theme: Constructing Suburban Identities)
• CDNS 4000, Winter 2016: Capstone Seminar in Advanced Research in Canadian Studies (Theme: Writing in Section; collaboration with ARCS 4106)

Fall 2014 – Winter 2015

• CDNS 5401, Fall 2014: Heritage Conservation I: History, Principles, and Concepts
• CDNS 4901, Winter 2015: Special Topics: “What’s the matter with suburbia?”
• CDNS 4400, Winter 2015: Cultural Landscapes and Cultural Identity in Canada (Theme: Landscape in Section

Graduate Supervisions

I supervise MA, MArch and PhD students in the School of Canadian Studies, the Institute for Comparative Studies in Literature, Art and Culture, and the School of Architecture and Urbanism. Past supervisions include:

• William Felepchuk, “Burial Places, White Supremacy, and Racial Necrogeographies in Eastern North America,” School of Indigenous and Canadian Studies (PhD co-supervisor with Daniel McNeil until medical leave in August 2020), 2022.
• Trina Cooper-Bolam, “Claiming the Terrible Gift – A Post-TRC Investigation in Praxiological Museology” Cultural Mediations, Institute for the Comparative Studies of Literature, Art and Culture (PhD supervisory committee member with Ruth Phillips and Peter Hodgins), 2020.
• Shannon Kitley, “Habits of Habitation: A Case for Disorienting White Comfort in Thunder Bay,” MArch, Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism, 2020.
• Casey Gray, “Graves and Ghosts: Re-emerging Cemetery Landscapes, Bodies, and Stories of the Rideau Canal,” MA, School of Indigenous and Canadian Studies, 2018.
• Jenan Ghazal, “Architecture and Violence: Between Representation and Exchange,” MArch, School of Architecture, 2016.