Project Manager: prof. dr hab. Piotr ŚniedziewskiBetween Appropriation and Foreignness. The Reception of Gustave Flaubert’s Work in Poland

Gustave Flaubert, along with such authors as Marcel Proust or James Joyce, is recognized as a reformer of the novel, and the writer who sets up a polemical dialogue with the Romantic tradition on the one hand, and on the other, sets the general direction for the development of modernity. In the field of literary aesthetics, it is Flaubert who is credited with developing concepts related to radical reform of the narrative (subverting Balzac’s style in the narrative, the auctorial narrative), a literature liberated from its biographical background, and a literature strongly related to detailed studies in psychology, history, and geography.

Flaubert, as writer and theorist of the novel, had a strong influence on Polish literary tradition. Already in the second half of the 19th century, there were discussions in this country about the importance of his work. Soon enough, translations were published of his most important works (Madame BovarySalammbô). At the same time, Polish authors created a number of novels obviously styled on Flaubert’s fiction – i.g. Na skałach Calvados of Antoni Sygietyński or Cham of Eliza Orzeszkowa.

Thus, the aim of the project is to survey the reception of Flaubert’s work in Polish literature, beginning from mid-19th century (that is, from the first Polish statements about the French novelist), until today. Only such a widely designed research plan will allow for an answer to the question of Polish reception of Flaubert, and more generally, it will allow for development of a research method that can be used to analyse the modes of functioning of a foreign author (French, in this case) in the network of a target culture (Polish culture). Defined in this way, the absorption process of a foreign author conforms to the postulates formulated by André Lefevere in Why Waste Our Time on Rewrites? The Trouble with Interpretation and the Role of Rewriting in an Alternative Paradigm and by Marta Skwara in Wyobraźnia badacza – od serii przekładowej do serii recepcyjnej [The Researcher’s Imagination: From Translation Series to Reception Series]. Consequently, the Polish reception of Flaubert in this project is analysed on three fundamental levels: 1) the presence of Flaubert’s work and his biography in critical discourse and essay writing; 2) translations of Flaubert’s work into Polish; 3) references to Flaubert’s texts in texts by Polish authors, and Polish texts inspired by Flaubert’s work.

This profiling of the research plan allows for a detailed reconstruction of the reception process, simultaneously making it possible to answer a number of questions about the development of the novel in Poland. As it turns out, the reaction of Polish authors to Flaubert’s work was not homogeneous at all: critical reviews and essays suggest that the response ranged between the opposing poles of fascination and rejection. The history of translations of Flaubert’s work seems equally interesting, allowing for the purely linguistic approach (translation understood as a linguistic activity) to the cultural approach (translation understood as a factor influencing the pattern and direction of development in target culture). The project makes it possible to develop, in a specific example, a more general approach to research in the presence of a foreign author in a target culture, which testifies for the project’s wide-ranging potential in application to new, similar phenomena.

Financing: OPUS 17, Narodowe Centrum Nauki (National Science Centre)

Project Manager: Krystyna BartolLate Greek Poetry. A Selection (Edition, Translation, Commentary)

The project, financed by the National Programme for the Development of the Humanities (NPRH), aims at preparing an annotated edition of selected (around 1000 lines) pagan Greek poems (not including epic and epigrams from the Palatine Anthology) composed between the first and the sixth century CE. The book will gather works (among others) by Mesomedes, Babrios, Balbilla, Pamprepius, Dioscorus of Aphrodito. It will also cover anonymous poetic writing preserved on papyri (also recent discoveries) and a representative sample of epigraphic material. Edited texts will be presented against the historical and cultural backgroung, both crucial to understanding the variety of Greek literary production of the Roman Empire. The detailed commentary will discuss literary aspects of pieces presented in the book.

The publication of the volume (together with books on Greek lyric poety of earlier periods, already published by Krystyna Bartol and  Jerzy Danielewicz) will promote wider knowledge of Greek poetry and its use in academic teaching.

Aa a part of the project a number of scientific articles will be published in leading journals in the field of classcial studies. A seminar with the participation of world specialists in the field is also planned.

Co-Investigators: Jerzy Danielewicz, Cezary Dobak

Project manager: prof. UAM dr hab. Rafał RosółLexicon of Oriental Words in Ancient Greek

The goal of the project is to study common words that the Greeks borrowed from Oriental languages, i.e. languages used in Asia (along with the European part of Scythia and the Caucasus region) and Egypt. The project also includes Oriental glosses occurring in Greek sources. The data under investigation covers two millennia of the history of the Greek language, i.e. from the Mycenaean period until the 6th cent. AD. The main purpose is to create a searchable internet database that will contain loanwords and glosses originating in Semitic, Egyptian, Indo-European (Anatolian, Indo-Iranian, Phrygian, Armenian) and other Oriental languages. It will also cover vocabulary without a determined Eastern source (especially Wanderwörter), as well as some reborrowings and Oriental words taken over via languages spoken in Europe (e.g. via Latin in the later periods). In total, the lexicon will contain approximately 1,000 entries. After completing the project, the material will also be prepared for publication in a traditional book version with a comprehensive introduction, detailed conclusions and indices.

Financing: OPUS 20, Narodowe Centrum Nauki (National Science Center)

Project manager: prof. UAM dr hab. Grzegorz ZiółkowskiLooking into the Heart Of Darkness...

Looking into the Heart Of Darkness: the Performative Realm of “Colonia Dignidad” and Cultural Confrontations with the German Enclave In Chile

The project’s objectives: The Looking into the Heart of Darkness project aims (1) to explore and interpret the performative realm of “Colonia Dignidad” (Dignity Colony), a pseudo-Christian, sectarian compound founded by German expatriates in Chile in 1961, where a variety of human rights violations and atrocities were perpetrated with impunity over decades. The effort also intends (2) to study the ways in which culture has sought to confront the sinister community and its complex and problematic legacies. Besides, the project aims to elaborate (and possibly confirm) the interim hypothesis that the effective cultivation of the colony’s (mythologised) self-image, which cast it as a hard-working and pious community focused on charity, enabled its longevity and staying power.

Financing: OPUS 21, Narodowe Centrum Nauki (National Science Center)

Project manager: prof. UAM dr hab. Grzegorz Ziółkowski

Project manager: prof. AMU dr hab. Dorota Rojszczak-RobińskaOrigins of Polish Language and Religious Culture in the Light of the Medieval Apocrypha...

Origins of Polish Language and Religious Culture in the Light of the Medieval Apocrypha of the New Testament. A Universal Tool For the Study of Polish Apocryphal Texts

Project number: SONATA BIS 2017/26/E/HS2/00083

Completion time: 2018-2023

Project websiteapocrypha.amu.edu.pl

Project leader: prof. AMU dr hab. Dorota Rojszczak-Robińska

Main researchers: dr Olga Ziółkowska, dr Ewa Nowak-Pasterska, dr Kinga Zalejarz

Auxiliary specialists: dr Marcin Loch (filolog klasyczny), mgr Andrzej Jędrzejczak (teolog)

PhD students: mgr Aleksandra Deskur, mgr Wojciech Stelmach, mgr Izabela Kotlarska

The scientific goal of the project is a multi-faceted multimedia analysis of the Old Polish apocrypha of the New Testament. This is to lead to in-depth research on Polish religious discourse as well as spirituality and ancient culture. Old Polish apocrypha are fundamental texts for the history of religious Polish, and also important for the literature and language of the entire Slavic region.

This research is to be facilitated by an internet database containing nine Old Polish apocrypha in newly prepared transliterations and transcriptions (a total of over 2,000 pages of manuscripts and old prints) along with a tool for their comprehensive search and analysis.

The database includes, among others Latin sources, Slavic contexts, themes used, as well as grammatical and lexical annotation.

Project manager: prof. UAM dr hab. Błażej OsowskiRegional Thematic Dictionaries of the Language Spoken in Wielkopolska, Gniezno and Konin Counties

At present, the Dialectology Workshop is involved in project 0060/NPRH7/H11/86/2018 Regional thematic dictionaries of the language spoken in Wielkopolska, Gniezno and Konin counties. The goal of the project is to collect lexical material from central Wielkopolska (Gniezno county) and eastern Wielkopolska (Konin county), followed by compiling dictionaries due to the unsatisfactory state of development of Wielkopolska vocabulary. The obtained materials pertain to traditional activities performed by farmers and their wives. Due to the changing linguistic situation in rural areas, not only a subdialect is spoken there and, consequently, the research covers also the general, casual, regional and specialist Polish language. The goal is to present the linguistic situation in its entirety, without distortions resulting from narrowing down the view only to differential vocabulary.

Financing: Narodowy Program Rozwoju Humanistyki (National Programme for the Development of Humanities)

Project manager: prof. UAM dr hab. Błażej Osowski

Project Manager: prof. UAM dr hab. Mateusz StróżyńskiThe "Liber" of Angela of Foligno and Heterodox Movements in Umbria in the Years 1270-1320

The goal of this project is to study the set of documents created at the turn of the 14th century, usually referred to as the Book of the blessed Angela of Foligno (Liber beatae Angelae). Angela of Foligno (1248-1309) was one of the greatest mystics of the Western Christianity, a Franciscan tertiary and ascetic, who lived in Umbria surrounded by a group of Franciscan friars, her disciples or “sons”. They collaborated with her in producing the Book, which describes her mystical experiences and spiritual teachings. The Book was surrounded by suspicions after its creation as well as her main protagonist and co-author, Angela herself. Most probably, it was due to the association with the two heterodox currents, developing within the Franciscan order at the time, the so called Free Spirit movement and the Spiritual Franciscans. Both those movements emphasized individual freedom, the radical experience of God and criticized the mediating authority of the hierarchy of the Church. The project will study the presence of the ideas of both the Free Spirit and the Spiritual Franciscans in Angela’s Book as well as the links between Angela and her circle and those two heterodox movements.

The research team will study the subject from different angles and with different methodological approaches. We plan to transcribe one of the oldest manuscripts of the Arbor vitae, the work of one of the most famous Spiritual Franciscans of the time, Ubertino of Casale, the friend and disciple of Angela, to study the connections of this work with the Book of Angela. We also intend to study her links to the existing groups of Franciscans in Umbria, both the Free Spirits and the Spirituals. We also plan to study the links of the Book with the Eastern monastic tradition, knowing that some of the important Spirituals traveled East and knew Greek. Another facet of the project will be a philosophical and a psychological study of the mystical experience described in the Book.

The reason for this project is the fact that the Book of Angela hasn’t been thoroughly studied in terms of its relationships with the Free Spirit and the Spiritual Franciscans, even though there has been an increasing interest in this work as well as in the Franciscan heterodox movements in the 13th and 14th century. The project will become a part of a larger research on this subject conducted in Europe, especially in France and Italy, in recent years. The publications which will result from it will contribute to a fuller understanding of both Angela of Foligno’s Book and of a larger Franciscan milieu of her time.

Financing: OPUS 19, Narodowe Centrum Nauki (National Science Center)

Project Manager: prof. UAM dr hab. Mateusz Stróżyński

Project manager: dr hab. prof. Grażyna GajewskaWhen Science is a Woman. Factors Determining Women’s Scientific Careers in Poland and Ukraine

This project relates to Priority Themes of the Women & Science Chair: Determinants of the lower representation of women in scientific tracks and careers (program initiated by the Paris-Dauphine Foundation).

Summary: The project aims to investigate the factors that determine the low percentage of professional advancement for women in science. The research will be conducted at two universities: Adam Mickiewicz University (AMU) (Poland) and Yuriy Fedkovych Chernivtsi National University (Ukraine). The research will cover the careers of women in mathematics, computer science and physics. The research will cover several elements: gender stereotypes, various forms of “glass ceiling”, work-life balance and the relationship between women’s careers in science and scientists' awareness of gender determinants of professional advancement. These factors are already largely well researched. The least studied factor is subtle, little-noticed "symbolic violence". We will also highlight this phenomenon in this project.

Cooperation: The group under comparison will be scientists from the same faculties at Adam Mickiewicz University and Yuriy Fedkovych Chernivtsi National University. The comparative analysis will determine whether the career path of women in science is similar or different depending on other cultural, political and pro-feminist factors.

Implementation period: October 2020 – March 2022

Financing: Paris-Dauphine Foundation

Project manager: dr hab. prof. Grażyna Gajewska, Faculty of Polish and Classical Philology

Project manager: dr Adriana KovachevaWilhelm Mach's Letters to Colleagues from Poland and Bulgaria...

Wilhelm Mach's Letters to Colleagues from Poland and Bulgaria as a Basis for a Research on the Microhistory of Literary Anti-Homophobic Communities

The project aims to go beyond the history of monolingual literature. Mach’s Bulgarian and Polish correspondence treated in a complementary, networked way, makes it possible to think about the microhistory of literary contacts in transnational and transcultural terms. Moving the nationality category to the background makes new actors (as defined by Bruno Latour) appear, shaping and modifying the literary life and the life of a specific intellectual community. All these factors, in the scale of microhistory, completely incompatible with political and ideological motivations, condition a slightly different historical and literary narrative. The attempt to understand an transnational intellectual community is a research experiment that may lead to a new way of understanding power and political oppression to which the artists were subjected in the times of the Polish and Bulgarian People’s Republics.

Financing: MINIATURA 3, Narodowe Centrum Nauki (National Science Centre)

Project manager: dr Adriana Kovacheva