Dr. Maciej Maryl, Head of the Digital Humanities Center and Deputy Director at the Institute of Literary Research, Polish Academy of Sciences, talks about the table where innovations are born, the limits of literariness, and Polish humanities projects that can conquer the world.

The article discusses the position of young researchers within the field of Polish pedagogy. The article is based on a simple survey. The main objective of the texts is to analyze fundamental problems that the group in question is faced with. The key questions referring to young Polish researchers of pedagogy cover three areas: day-to-day reality of young researchers; research funding system; prospects and visions of changes of the current situation. Also, these three areas govern the structure of the article. In the final part, I attempt to present the main conclusions of the conducted analyses.

Philosophical concepts have always been closely related to the development of basic sciences. For example, great mathematical theories put forth at the turn of the century, and general theory of relativity were crucial for the advancement of physical sciences and at the same time had a great impact on the formation of a new science philosophy. They also initiated a new era of exploring the Universe, thus opening many issues in the fields of astrophysics and astronomy. In biology, the theory of evolution has greatly impacted the understanding of such fundamental issues as the origin of living species and the occurrence of the phenomenon of life on Earth. Another breakthrough in life sciences was a result of the progress in molecular biology which concerned sequencing genomes and modification of genetic resources of living organisms. These great achievements have led to formation of several new fields of life sciences such as: synthetic biology, systemic biology as well as personalized medicine.

The author presents the concept of man in the philosophy of Erich Fromm. The article consists of two parts. In the first part, the author presents how Fromm characterised the existential situation of man; in the second part he describes love as the main factor in the action and development of a human being. Man is part of nature, subjected to the rules of its laws, but he also transcends nature by the ability to use mind. A human subject is aware of his/her limitations and weaknesses with regard to nature. He/she feels lost and lonely in relation to other people and the natural world. Therefore, s/he looks for the frame of orientation and references. This search is the most important existential problem. Love is the solution to all problems of human existence. According to Fromm, man is the subject of love.

Profiles of the three Polish humanists as remembered by prof. Michał Głowiński.

Profiles of the three Polish humanists as remembered by prof. Michał Głowiński.

Profiles of the three Polish humanists as remembered by prof. Michał Głowiński.

The term positive psychology has recently entered the field of Second Language Acquisition. The article explains the meaning of the term, presents the definitions of positive psychology, its objectives and history. The key part of the article demonstrates the importance of positive psychology in the second language acquisition presenting many connections between the two fields. The author recommends that positive education is introduced in every school and every foreign language classroom.

The text presents the achievements of Wiesław Juszczak, who died in 2021, as a challenge that has not yet been taken up by the humanities. The reason for this may be the multiformity and thematic richness of his texts, almost always essayistic in nature (in the best, traditional sense), with an outstanding literary dimension, but at the same time a deep and broad scientific background. This applies to both his books on Polish painting around 1900, works on post-impressionists, as well as analyzes of archaic Greek thought about art, religious roots of art from various cultures, unconventional interpretations of Japanese films or Ingmar Bergman’s oeuvre.

Profiles of the three Polish humanists as remembered by prof. Michał Głowiński.

The eternal traveller, who was to become the founder of the Gdańsk Library, traversed Moravia several times and sojourned there at least twice. During his stay of 1562–1564, which was probably the longest, died his little dog named Viola, a reminiscency of his Apulian fatherland taken along in exile. Bonifacio wrote elegies after that death, in which he utters many names of persons of similar Weltanschauung he knew. Together with him mourned his favourite servant Julia: she was to be unable to stand the consequent void of the death and abandoned her master (and lover). So Bonifacio was hit by a double loss. He tried to overcome the depression in which he stayed: He succeeded with the animal, the dogs, who were to accompany him as far as to Gdańsk, but he failed with the women. He was to go his way without company, dedicating his leisure to the reading of his books (he possessed over 1000 volumes), but merging into depression. Blinded in a shipwreck, he bequeathed his books and the manuscript with the verses on Viola in 1591 to the city of Gdańsk; he died six years later.

This article examines the sources of literary invention in Philtron, a treatise in verse on the theme of Christian love by the Polish and neo-Latin Renaissance poet Sebastian Fabian Klonowic. To get a better appreciation of his work it is necessary to look at his sources, especially books of humanist erudition, learned compendia, dictionaries, handbooks of rhetoric, anthologies and commonplace books. An analysis of his use of those sources in Philtron and an examination of his notes indicate that Klonowic probably did not read all of his books through from beginning to end. Some of his readings were intentionally selective. In particular, while collecting material for his treatise, he would mine the grand 16th-century reference books like Ambrogius Calepinus's multilanguage Dictionarium, Dominico Nani's anthology Polyanthea, or Erasmus' Apophtegmata. The argument and topoi in at least some parts of Philtron are much indebted to the contemporary compendia and erudite research.

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.