Dear Friends of the Institute of Polish Culture,
Thank you for joining our newsletter! Every three months you will receive information about our upcoming events, as well as ongoing research projects and publications.
New seminar format
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In March, the Institute launched a new series of seminars titled Lektury zaangażowane. Once a month (on Thursdays at 5 p.m.) we meet to discuss important, interesting, and sometimes groundbreaking, recently published works in the contemporary humanities. Authors’ introductions are followed by analytical comments from a cultural studies perspective, presented by scholars from IKP. We have so far engaged with books by Prof. Tomasz Plata (Theatre Academy in Warsaw), Prof. Iwona Krupecka (Gdańsk University) and Prof. Marcin Kościelniak (Jagiellonian University) with comments by Prof. Iwona Kurz, Dr. Łukasz Zaremba and Dr. Dorota Sosnowska.
On June 12, we will discuss the book Perspektywa poety. Cyganologia Jerzego Ficowskiego [The Poet’s Perspective. Jerzy Ficowski’s “Gypsylogy”] by Prof. Emilia Kledzik (Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań) – a fascinating analysis of the research practice of the most famous promoter of Roma culture and his relationship with the work of Bronisława Wajs (Papusza). The book will be commented on by Prof. Małgorzata Litwinowicz.
Research visits – focus on Central and Eastern Europe
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In the summer semester of 2024/25 IKP is hosting a number of researchers from Central and Eastern Europe, who are investigating cultural politics and the reflections of global socio-political changes in local discourses and practices. In February, Prof. Yana Meerzon from the University of Ottawa spoke about the evolution of censorship in Russia since 2000, drawing attention to bottom-up practices of monitoring and reporting “dissident” works of art. In April, Dr. Martina Musilová from the Faculty of Theatre Studies at Masaryk University in Brno spoke about folk culture festivals – interpreted as a form of “invented tradition” in Eric Hobsbawm’s understanding – and the potential of cognitive methods in researching the work of theatre actors. In May, Dr. Andrea Průchová Hrůzová from Charles University in Prague delivered a lecture entitled Innocent Victims and Western-Eastern Brothers. Attitudes and Narratives Toward Decolonization in Czechia and presented her research on Czech visual culture.
On June 17 at 4:30pm (room 9), join us for a discussion of Matěj Hřib’s (Charles University in Prague) doctoral project devoted to queer popular cultures. His presentation Queens, Memes, and Their Themes: Studying Non-Identitarian Queer Culture in the Online Environment will analyze new-media techniques of reappropriation used by queer communities online.
IKP staff also presented their research on Polish culture in European academic institutions. In January, Prof. Paweł Rodak was a Visiting Professor at L’École des hautes études en sciences sociales. During his stay at EHESS, Professor Rodak delivered four lectures on Polish life-writing competitions, presenting research from his long-term grant project (results have been recently published in the edited volume Autosociobiography. A Literary Phenomenon and its Global Entanglements, eds. J. Bundschuh-van Duikeren, M. Jacquier, P. Löffelbein, Bielefeld 2025). Dr. Łukasz Zaremba invited to present his research at the Semaine centre-européenne at the Sorbonne, where he gave two lectures on postcolonial studies of Polish culture. Dr. Magda Szcześniak visited the Research Center for the History of Transformations at the University of Vienna to answer the question of whether mésalliances existed in socialism and participate in a discussion devoted to processes of political transformation in Poland post-1989 and in 2023.
We are also happy to note that in the summer semester of 2025/26, Dr. Agata Łuksza will embark on a new research project devoted to Polish history in a global context. Her project Polish Colonial Histories. Encounters with Native Americans received the support of the Polish Fulbright Commission. Dr. Łuksza will carry out her Fulbright Senior Award at the Department of History of Brown University. Congratulations!
New research initiatives
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Dr. Dorota Sosnowska is a founding member of the international and “non-disciplinary” Institute for Performance and Film Expanded, initiated by former IKP faculty member Professor Dorota Sajewska (Ruhr Universität Bochum) and Professor Fabienne Liptay (University of Zurich). The Institute has been designed as a nomadic institution, materializing through collective research activities with the aim of “critically rethinking and transforming the vocabulary and methodologies used in performance and film studies”. The founding meeting took place on April 26 at Espace DIAPHENES in Berlin. The Institute’s activities and plans will be reported on their website.
Dr. Jerzy Stachowicz initiated the creation of an inter-institutional Science Fiction Research Group SF_PL. The group was established in response to the need for self-organization of Polish science fiction researchers and with the aim of creating new venues and methods of researching historical and contemporary examples of the genre. The team consists of researchers from six academic institutions, and Dr. Stachowicz acts as the group’s coordinator. The group is currently editing an issue of the journal “View. Theories and Practices of Visual Culture” devoted to “sci- fi images”.
Publications – edited journal issues
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Our faculty has recently edited special issues of several noteworthy academic journals: Dr. Dorota Sosnowska (together with Dr. Mateusz Chaberski and Prof. Małgorzata Sugiera from the Jagiellonian University) acted as managing editor editor of the issue Black Ecologies of the journal “View. Theories and Practices of Visual Culture”; Prof. Małgorzata Litwinowicz-Droździel prepared an issue of the journal “Acta Poloniae Historica”, entitled Time and the Modern World. Standarisation, Globalisation, Privacy; Dr. Marcin Gołąb and Prof. Marta Rakoczy edited an issue of the journal “Autobiografia. Literatura, kultura, media” devoted to children’s and youth autobiographies. In March, the ninth issue of “Communicare. Alamanach Anthropologiczny”, devoted to practices of writing in the humanities, was published under the editorship Prof. Marta Rakoczy and Dr. Agnieszka Sobolewska-Alsberg.