The ‘Visiting Professors in Lublin’ programme

In 2025, Lublin will once again host leading experts from different fields of science and business, who will give lectures, lead workshops, and hold open meetings for students, researchers, and residents of the city. This will be the 4th in the series of the ‘Visiting Professors in Lublin’ programme, where the city and the universities continue to strengthen existing relationships, and to create new, lasting international connections, making it an important centre for international discussions. The line up for the 2025 programme is as follows:

• Prof. Dallen J. Timothy (Arizona State University, USA) – an expert in global tourism, cultural heritage preservation, and geopolitics. He will give lectures and workshops at Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin and participate in the Polish Geography Congress;
• Prof. Shubiao Wu (Aarhus University, Denmark) – a leading scientist in green technologies, bioremediation, and biological waste management. He will visit the University of Life Sciences in Lublin;
• Dr. Mark Symms (United Kingdom) – a physicist specializing in magnetic resonance, who began his career alongside Sir Peter Mansfield, the creator of the first MRI and Nobel laureate. He will visit the Medical University of Lublin;
• Prof. Anthimos Georgiadis (Leuphana Universität Lüneburg, Germany) – an expert in artificial intelligence, robotics, and the digitalization of production processes. He will lead workshops at the Lublin University of Technology;
• Prof. Heribert Insam (Universität Innsbruck, Austria) – a recognized researcher in microbiology and biological waste treatment. He will visit the Institute of Agrophysics PAS;
• Prof. Félix Puime Guillén (Universidade da Coruña, Spain) – a specialist in finance and renewable energy. He will visit the University College of Enterprise and Administration in Lublin.

Lublin as the setting for a highly acclaimed new film

In the film “A Real Pain”, Kieran Culkin and Jesse Eisenberg play cousins. Their characters take a trip to Poland to trace their family’s pre-war roots to honour their beloved and recently deceased grandmother, a Holocaust survivor. The pair travel from the Grodzka Gate in Lublin to the Majdanek concentration camp where their grandmother was interred, and to the house where she grew up. The two men, who were close as children but grew apart, attempt to reconnect. A Real Pain received four nominations at the 82nd Golden Globe Awards, where Culkin won Best Supporting Actor.

Jesse Eisenberg’s latest film is an intimate and very personal journey of the American into the depths of his family history. To a large extent, the story concerns Poland, including Lublin.

“A Real Pain” was predominantly filmed in Poland, and Eisenberg managed to film many scenes (as he himself emphasizes) in places that related to the history of his own family. Sections include footage of the cousins ​​at the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes in Warsaw against the background of POLIN Museum, and also at locations around Lublin including the Old Jewish Cemetery, and in the Majdanek camp on the outskirts of the city.