Alessandro Ajres
contract professor of Polish language at the University of Turin, where he studied and graduated with an MA thesis on Gustaw Herling-Grudziński, and went on to work on his PhD about Poland’s first avant-garde. He recently published a monograph entitled L’autobiografia italiana nei racconti di Gustaw Herling-Grudziński (Canterano 2018) [Italian Autobiography in the Stories of Gustaw Herling-Grudziński, Canterano 2018]. He has also edited and translated Bruno Jasieński’s novel Palę Paryż (I burn Paris).
Zofia Anuszkiewicz
MA in sociology, PhD in Italian literature, graduated from Institute of Applied Social Sciences and from Departament of Italian Studies of the University of Warsaw. She specializes in literature of Italian Middle Ages, and is especially interested in sociology of literature and the encounters between literature and politics. She has published in Annales Poloniae Historica, in the series The Medieval Chronicle, and in Encyclopedia of the Medieval Chronicle. She has reviewed books and published popularizing articles in Christianitas, Rzeczpospolita, and Mówią Wieki.
Tiziana D’Amico
a research fellow at Ca’ Foscari University in Venice, where she teaches Czech language and literature. She researches Czech and Slovak literature from a cultural studies perspective. Her research focuses mainly on the circulation of literature (through journals and publishing houses) and on the cultural work of memory. She is also interested in translations.
Ireneusz Gielata
the Professor in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Silesia. He is a literary historian interested in the issues of the theory and history of the novel, historical narrative theory, and – within the history of literature – the genology of the Polish and European modernity. He also conducts research on connections between the modern literature, biology and medicine, as well as music, visual arts, and architecture. He is a co-editor and a member of the Research Council of the publishing series Ars medica ac humanitas. He is the author of scientific the following monographs: Nad studnią Ateny. O „Rozdwojonym w sobie” Teodora Parnickiego (Bielsko-Biała 2006) [By the Well of Athena: on Teodor Parnicki’s “Split in Two”], Bolesław Prus na progu nowoczesności (Bielsko-Biała 2011) [Bolesław Prus on the Threshhold of Modernity]. Within the last few years he has published essays on the work of Erasmu of Rotterdam, J. Kepler, H.Ch. Andersen, R.W. Emerson, H.F Amiel, A. France, J.-K. Huysmans, M. Maeterlinck, H. Brocha, B. Hrabal, F. Kafka, T. Mann, G.T. di Lampedusa, S. Máraie, M. Houellebecq, and K.O. Knausgård, and over several dozen papers about the work of H. Sienkiewicz, B. Prus, M. Konopnicka and A. Słonimski, M. Bieńczyk, and I. Karpowicz.
Mariangela Lando
holds a PhD in Humanities, awarded on the dissertation Antologie e storie letterarie nell’insegnamento dell’italiano nelle scuole classiche dal 1870 al 1923: una ricognizione [Antologies and Literary Narratives in the Teaching of Italian in Classical Schools between 1870 and 1923: a Survey Study]. Her scholarly interests are focused on the study of anthological forms (19th-20th century), narratology, gender studies (19th-20th century), and teaching didactics. She teaches courses and workshops in text analysis at the University of Padua and at the Ca’ Foscari University. She is a lecturer in the Department of Linguistics and Comparative Cultural Studies at Ca’ Foscari University in Venice.
Wojciech Ligęza
historian of literature, critic, essayist, vice president of the branch of the Polish Writers’ Association in Krakow, full professor at the Faculty of Polish Studies of the Jagiellonian University. He is mainly concerned with 20th-century Polish poetry and Polish literature in exile.
Józef Olejniczak
full professor at the Institute of Literary Studies in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Silesia. He is the author of several scholarly monographs (the latest ones dedicated to the work of Bruno Schulz, Miron Białoszewski and Witold Gombrowicz) and over one hundred and fifty scientific articles published in the multi-author monographs and academic journals. He has supervised several dozen of PhD dissertations and has been the scientific editor of more than twenty multi-author monographs. He has organized several dozen of nationwide and international scientific conferences in Poland. He cooperates with The Museum of Witold Gombrowicz in Wsola, where he is a chapter member of the Witold Gombrowicz literary prize, and with the Municipal Office in Zabrze, where he organizes and moderates nationwide literary-studies conferences Przed i po [Before and After].
Agnieszka Pastucha-Blin
PhD, a linguist, a researcher and lecturer at the University of Silesia. She is an italianist and the author of the monograph La concettualizzazione del corpo umano nel discorso persuasivo rivolto al pubblico femminile. L’approccio cognitivo (Katowice 2013) [Conceptualization of the Human Body in Persuasive Discourse Addressed to Women: a Cognitive Approach]. Her scientific interests are concentrated on the text linguistics, culture, social psychology and sociology. She researches on a wild range of semantic and pragmatic aspects of Italian on-line discourse. She analyzes the axiological and statement structures subordinated to persuasive mechanisms. She publishes the results of her work in academic journals and in multi-author nationwide and international monographs. Her most important publications include I valori in servizio alla persuasione – la valutazione del corpo umano nel discorso persuasivo rivolto al pubblico femminile [“Values in Persuasion: the Evaluation of the Human Body in Persuasive Discourse Addressed to Women”] (in: Valeurs dans la langue et le discours (ed.) E. Miczka, Katowice 2019); La costruzione della fonte dell’enunciazione nel discorso medico [“The Creation of the Soucre of Enunciation in Medial Discourse”] (in Spójność Tekstu Specjalistycznego 2016, T. 34, nr 2); Il concetto di porta nel discorso italiano [“The Concept of ‘Porta’ (‘Door’) in the Italian Discourse”] (co-author A. Paliczuk) (in Linguistica Silesiana 2016, Vol. 37); Il metadiscorso nei testi persuasivi [“Metadiscourse in Persuasive Texts”] (Neophilologica 2015, Vol. 27).
Sara Quondamatteo
PhD student at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and Sorbonne Université (International PhD Program). Her research work, conducted under the supervision of Francesca Fornari and Małgorzata Smorąg-Goldberg, focuses on the comparative analysis of the thought and work of Czesław Miłosz and Nicola Chiaromonte. She has studied and conducted her researches at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, the RGGU University in Moscow, and the Sorbonne Université.
Alessandro Scarsella
a Rome-born scholar of book history and literary history, worked at the Biblioteca Marciana until 2005. He teaches comparative literature at Ca’ Foscari University in Venice. A member of scientific committees and editorial boards of journals (including Charta and Ermeneutica Letteraria). He is the author of numerous monographs, scientific articles and editions. He write entries for the Princeton Encyclopedia of Italian Literary Studies (London 2006) and for the Einaudi Dictionary of American Literature (2011). Since 2006, he has directed the Comics Research Laboratory in Venice. His recent publications include Del mondo fuori. Ricerca del fantastico. Per la storia di un’idea letteraria [The Outside World. Search for the Fantstic. A Contribution to the History of an Idea] (Venezia 2017); Il fantastico nel mondo latino. Ricezioni di un modo letterario tra Italia, Spagna, Portogallo [The Fantastic in the Latin World: Receptions of a Literary Mode in Italy, Spain and Portugal] (Milano 2018) and (with D. Gachet) Venise. Histoire, promenades, anthologie et dictionnaire [Venice: History, Walks, Anthology and Dictionary] (Paris 2016).
Ewa Sławek
professor emerita in the Institute of the Polish Language (currently Institute of Linguistics) at the University of Silesia, Katowice, Poland. She has published numerous works on the language and style of literary texts (Trans-Atlantyk Witolda Gombrowicza. Studia nad językiem i stylem tekstu, Katowice 1981 [Witold Gombrowicz’s Trans-Atlantic: A Textual and Stylistic Study]; Tekst literacki w kręgu językoznawstwa, vol. 1–2, Katowice 2012–2016, [The Literary Text in the Perspective of Linguistics]), the theory and practice of translation (Współczesne przekłady utworów Adama Mickiewicza. Studia literacko-kulturowe [Contemporary Translations of Adam Mickiewicz: Literary and Cultural Studies], Katowice 2000 – with Jadwiga Warchoł), and problems of regional education Być STELA. Z zagadnień edukacji regionalnej na Śląsku Cieszyńskim, Katowice 2009 [To Be STELA. On the Issues of Regional Education in Cieszyn Silesia]).
Tadeusz Sławek
Tadeusz Sławek – professor of comparative literature at the University of Silesia, between 1996 and 2002 the Rector [President] of this University. He has performed essays for voice and double bass, with the double bass player Bogdan Mizerski. His most important publications include Maszyna do pisania. O teorii literatury Jacques’a Derridy [Typewriter: on Jacques Derrida’s Theory of Literature] (with Tadeusz Rachwał; Warszawa 1992), Literary voice: the calling of Jonah (with Donald Wesling; Albany, N.Y. 1995), U-bywać. Człowiek, świat, przyjaźń w twórczości Williama Blake’a (Katowice 2001) [Dr. Be-Little: William Blake and the Ideas of Man, World, and Friendship], Antygona w świecie korporacji (Katowice 2002), Revelations of Gloucester: Charles Olson, Fitz Hugh Lane and Writing of the Place (Frankfurt a.M. [et al.] 2003), Ujmować. Henry David Thoreau i wspólnota świata (Katowice 2009) [Grasping: Henry David Thoreau and the Community of the World], NIC-owanie świata. Zdania z Szekspira (Katowice 2012) [NOTH-ing the World: Sentences from Shakespeare], U-chodzić (Katowice 2015) [Escaping], Nie bez reszty. O potrzebie niekompletności (Mikołów 2018) [Not Without the Rest: on the Need for Incompleteness].
Jolanta Sztachelska
full professor of the humanities, lectures at the University of Białystok (the Faculty of Philology, College of Literary Studies); head of The Chair of European Modernism and Cultural Research; literary historian specializing in Polish literature of the second half of the 19th and early 20th century and its European contexts; documentary writing and Henryk Sienkiewicz. She has published the following books: Czar i zaklęcie Sienkiewicza. Studia i szkice (Białystok 2003) [The Charm and Spell of Sienkiewicz], Zabijanie klasyków. Studia i eseje (Białystok 2015) [Killing the Classics: Studies and Essays], Mity sienkiewiczowskie i inne studia tylko o nim (Warszawa 2017) [Sienkiewicz Myths and Other Studies Solely about Him].