J. G. A. Forster, member of J. Cook's expedition towards South Pole, spent the majority of his life in Poland. In the years 1784—1787 he was professor of natural history at the Wilno University. Born near Gdańsk, he never lost the consciousness of his Polish citizenship. Forster's publications have enriched the culture and science of England. France, Germany, Poland and other countries.
This article discusses the issue of hypermodernity, which was studied as part of the research project Poles in the World of Late Capitalism. The article presents biographical models of hypermodernity and strategies of coping with hypermodern ideology, that is, cyclothymias, conversions, and hypermodern episodes.
The word ‘narrative’ is used unusually often in the social sciences. The basic aim of this article is to draw the attention of social researchers, particularly sociologists, to problems with narrative theory. Narratology constitutes an important source of inspiration for sociologists. There are many perspectives and analytical approaches to the theory of the narrative. In this article, it is viewed from the perspective of sociological thought inspired by phenomenology and hermeneutics. Narration should certainly not be perceived as synonymous with other notions, as it has its own history and meaning. The author points, however, to the possibility of a link, on sociological grounds, between narrative and life history (biography) as two different but mutually interacting ideas.
In this article the author intend to use an epistemological concept and its categories of description to analyse two specially chosen biographies reflecting diverse postmodern life patterns. Postmodernity, or in fact the postmodern order, refers to the concept of order-making dimensions discussed in the previous article concerning hypermodernity. It is treated there as casual and variable with regard to the category of relations and work, and the only certainty for the individual, in regard to future possibilities or necessities, is the individual’s own identity. This article adds the category of resonance to the characteristics of postmodernity, as a synonym for a person’s primary entanglement in the world. It is a category of which individuals are increasingly aware, on which they reflect, and which they make an object of their experience.
The text deals with the issue of “historical biography”. It aims to reconstruct the key concepts connected with the biographical publishing series “The Legacies of the progressive personalities of our past”. The text answers the question what conceptual framework surrounded and legitimised the edition.
The paper presents findings of a research project aimed at a reconstruction of the dynamics of biographical experiences of some of those categories of the Polish society’s members whose educational and professional careers have been shaped by the systemic transformation after 1989. The text is an attempt to delineate analytical guidelines for grasping how some components of three types of social order, conceived in terms of premodernity, modernity and postmodernity, interpenetrating each other in the contemporary life of the society, impact its members’ biographical experiences on the level of work, social ties and identity.
This paper discusses contemporary transformations in the way work is organised and the consequences for the stability of careers and biographies. It debates the widely held belief that organised and predictable life-course paths (including professional careers) have ceased to exist and that work itself has lost its stabilising quality. Biographical data collected among Polish employees of transnational corporations within the project “Poles in the World of Late Capitalism” proves that even though transnational corporations are widely criticised for propelling neoliberal tendencies in the global economy, they provide a means of protecting their employees against today’s uncertainty and occupational risk. Three empirical cases are presented to show how work in a transnational corporation may contribute to achieving and maintaining stability for persons who have had troublesome experiences of working in other sectors of the labour market.
ABSTRACT:
The aim of the work is to determine the exact place and date of Kazimierz Stronczyński’s birth and death. An analysis of documents reveals that he was born on 24th July 1809 in Piotrków Trybunalski and died on 10th November 1896 in the same town.
SUMMARY:
Kazimierz Stronczyński was one of the greatest 19th century Polish numismatist, who is sometimes called the father of Polish medieval numismatics. Even though his life, career and works are very well known, in works devoted to Kazimierz Stronczyński’s life we can find several different dates and places of his birth and several different dates of his death. The following text, based on original documents, explains exactly when and where Kazimierz Stronczyński was born and died.
The article examines the language biographies of two generations of a family of German origin in the Czech Republic from the end of World War II to the present day. The content analysis of the biographies is based on the application of the narrative interview method developed in qualitative sociology. The analysis of the data obtained by this method follows the stages in the language use of the two informants in coping with the challenge of the language policies of the state.
The article is devoted to the late Zygmunt Bauman (d. January 2017), a scholar who made an enormous impact on world humanities at the turn of the twentieth century. It briefly presents Bauman’s life and a number of the best known concepts from his works. The author first discusses Bauman’s attitude toward Marxist theory and explains his revision of it. He then introduces the main ideas of Bauman work Modernity and the Holocaust. The article ends with a review of Bauman’s reflections on globalisation and a discussion of his thesis concerning the crisis of the nation state.
The biographies of the journalists of Polish press published in West Prussia in the 19th and early 20th century usually highlight their patriotic commitment and admirable perseverance in launching and running various newspapers and journals. However, we can also find in their lives episodes that did them little credit, or even were downright disgraceful.
Maria Manteuffel letters from the period 1844–1859 offer invaluable insights into the life of Polish gentry in the former Polish Livonia (Infl anty Polskie), incorporated into the Vitebsk Governorate of the Russian Empire. These letters of mother to her son Gustaw Manteuffel, student at the University of Dorpat (now Tartu, Estonia) who was to become one of great Polish historiographers of late 19th century, are an important historical source. Although they deal mainly with family matters, the mundane is interspersed with notes and comments which throw light on the Russian tax burdens and the social life of the aristocracy and the local gentry. An eye-catching feature of that correspondence is a string of Latvian (Latgalian) words and phrases which are interspersed into Maria Manteuffel’s sentences. There is not much we know about her life. Born in Wielony in 1811, she was heiress to the Drycany estate. In 1828 she married baron Jakub Manteuffel. Of their children only four sons survived to adulthood. Born into a Polish-Livonian family, Maria Manteuffel became a Polish patriot, patroness and sponsor of various patriotic initiatives. When the Drycany estate was sequestrated by the Russian authorities after the 1863 January Uprising, she moved to Lesno and later to Riga where she died in 1874. She was buried at Drycany beside her husband; in 1916 her son was buried in the same family vault.
This biographical dictionary includes 226 biograms of editors in chief journalists executive editors and co-workers that were also described as editors. It is based on research data as well as records in ecclesiastical and state archives, libraries and registry offices. The individual lives are presented in accordance with the customary biogram template.
In post-humanist studies of identity, otherness and exclusion – conducted within the de-anthropocentrism of the humanities – questions arise about the condition of non-human subjects (animals, plants, things) that gain the cultural and social status of Others. As non-human entities, they have a socializing value, cement interpersonal relations, attract people to certain places. They have performative, integrative and co-creating abilities. The posthumanistic “turn towards things” opens the room for the construction of their social (auto) biographies, a development which already has been taking place in contemporary children’s literature. The problem of the creation of (auto)biographies of non-human subjects is presented in this article on the example of the picture book Otto: The Autobiography of a Teddy Bear by Tomi Ungerer. The artist gives the non-anthropomorphized plush toy the status of a non-human subject and an active actor of social life as a medium of unoffi cial memory of the Holocaust. Ungerer consciously and innovatively uses the key determinants of the posthuman discourse, including intimate childhood experiences.