Anna Brzyski's research interests focus on Central/Eastern Europe, in particular, Poland. Her work examines the critical discourse and institutional framework within which modern art developed in this region. She is also interested in systemic analysis of art worlds, relationship between modernism and nationalism, dynamics of self-promotion within artists' groups, emergence of art canons, impact of specific languages on development of art historical paradigms, and discursive shifts in the meaning of the term "modernism."

Prof. Brzyski received her Ph.D. in 1999 from the University of Chicago. Her dissertation "Modern Art and Nationalism in Fin de Siècle Poland" examined the emergence of Polish modernism in the second half of the 19th century. It focused on the role of nationalism in the process of discursive inscription and institutional validation of the first generation of Polish modernist artists.

Prof. Brzyski joined the faculty of the Art Department at the University of Kentucky in 2003. She teaches courses in the 18th and 19th century European art, as well as theory, art theory, and art criticism. Before arriving at University of Kentucky, she taught art history at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale.