Series:Nauki społeczne

Us and Others – The Evolution of Images. Polish Press Discourse in the Light of Imagology and Collective Memory

My i Inni – ewolucja wyobrażeń. Polski dyskurs prasowy w świetle imagologii i pamięci zbiorowej

Author(s): Aleksandra Niewiara / Language(s): Polish

Keywords: imagology; collective memory; press discourse; national stereotypes;Polish national identity;

The book discusses issues from the area of imagology – interdisciplinary studies on the perceptions of nations and countries, documented both in texts and in the structures of languages, and of humanistic memorology – a field that describes processes of collective memorizing, forgetting, and recollecting facts of the past events that might have influenced the shaping of collective memory by means of methods available to humanists (philologists, linguists, and predominantly ethnolinguists and discourse researchers). The article’s primary aim is to depict the evolution of – characteristic of the 20thand 21st-century Polish linguistic culture – images of nations and countries, to present the ways they have been shaped by means of measures available in press discourse, as well as to capture a special role of historical data predestined by those who govern the discourse to remember or to forget. This is connected with perceptions of proper construction of canon of values and memory topoi of the Polish culture. (part of the summary)

Ralph Linton. Publishing series "The Laboratory of Culture” Vol. VII

Ralph Linton. Seria wydawnicza „Laboratorium Kultury” T. VII

Author(s): / Language(s): Polish

Keywords: Ralph Linton; history of anthropology; theory of culture; cultural patterns; the laboratory of culture

Another volume of the series Laboratory of Culture is devoted to the research output of Ralph Linton. It would be hard to overstate the achievements of the scholar in question, whose major contribution into the process of transferring anthropology from museal exhibition halls to national universities, was instrumental in making it an academic discipline. The Linton’s output, who is renowned in Poland mainly for The Cultural Background of Personality – which is worthwhile of separate discussion and in fact demands it. Therefore, we decided to create a monograph devoted to the American anthropologist in question. The volume includes both chapters which are premiere discussions of Lipton’s research biography in Poland and some analytical studies aimed at updating and utilizing his proposals as scietific tools by applying them to the new cultural material. An important theme of our publication is also the American and Polish reception of Lipton’s works.

Cultures and Landscapes of Memory

Kultury i krajobrazy pamięci

Author(s): / Language(s): Polish

Class and Cultural Narratives. The Upper Silesia Case

Class and Cultural Narratives. The Upper Silesia Case

Author(s): Paweł Ćwikła,Monika Gnieciak,Kazimiera Wódz / Language(s): English

The Silesian Voivodship exemplifies a region where the industrial past has left a permanent mark on spatial forms, social relations, institutions, patterns of culture as well as collective identifications and individual biographies (Wódz, 2013: 7). At the same time, the geographical location of Upper Silesia has determined its cultural character – in its over thousand years long history it belonged to various political, civilizational, economic, social and cultural orders: Polish, Czech, Prussian or German (Geisler, 2009: 67). Hence, Upper Silesia is a typical example of a borderland, where different ethnic groups and distinct cultural traditions intermingle (Wódz, K., Wódz, J., 2006: 12). Add to this the peculiarity of settling Upper Silesia in the time of the Polish People’s Republic, unification related to the dynamics of the national culture of every day and popular culture or ― in broader terms ― globalisation and the dissemination of definite patters and lifestyles that accompany it. All of these contribute to the validity of the question of the region’s contemporary cultural identity. (...)

Religiousness and Lifestyles. A Sociological Study of Slovak Families

Religiousness and Lifestyles. A Sociological Study of Slovak Families

Author(s): Wojciech Świątkiewicz,Andrzej Górny,Katarzyna Juszczyk-Frelkiewicz / Language(s): English

Keywords: sociology; family relations; intergenerational relations;religion;

The book presents selected results of the sociological research conducted in the years 2013-2015 by a Polish-Slovak team of sociologists associated with the Faculty of Sociology of the Department of Philosophy of the Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra. Empirical research was realised within the framework of a grant provided by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Slovakia and the Visegrád Fund. The main research goal was to analyse the cultural models of intergenerational relations in selected categories of families which takes into consideration their religious affiliations and attitudes, as well as the problems associated with cohabitation treated as a manifestation of the lifestyle of modern families in Slovakia.

Psycho-social and environmental contexts of health and disease

Psychospołeczne i środowiskowe konteksty zdrowia i choroby

Author(s): Katarzyna Borzucka-Sitkiewicz / Language(s): Polish

Issues of health and disease have long ago crossed the boundaries of medicine and become the object of pedagogical, psychological, sociological and anthropological analyses. The following monograph, a multi-authored work with interdisciplinary implications, adopts primarily a pedagogical perspective and is divided into two essential parts. Part one relates to the psycho-social contexts of health and disease, presenting them from a subjective perspective and focusing on the individual. Part two contains references to a slightly more objectified aspect of health and disease and their cultural and structural contexts. The matters discussed in all of the articles are mutually complementary and show a complicated mosaic of issues concerning health and disease from many different, often multi-aspectual, points of view. Therefore, this publication is aimed at a wide audience of educationalists, teachers, sociologists, doctors and students of these disciplines.

The identity of the West and South Slavs in the light of the 20th-century discussions and polemics, Volume 2: Language

Tożsamość Słowian zachodnich i południowych w świetle XX-wiecznych dyskusji i polemik. T. 2 Język

Author(s): / Language(s): Bosnian,English,Bulgarian,Croatian,Polish,Slovenian,Ukrainian

Keywords: individual identity; collective (ethnic; national; regional; cultural) identity; language identity; mono- and multiculturalism; West and South Slavic language

Issues relating to identity are for humanities – which obviously encompasses Slavic studies – one of the central problem and research fields. The questions of national variations in identity are amongst the most complex and therefore atract attention of scholars representing various disciplines of knowledge. While putting to use variegated approaches and methodologies, we arrive at comprehensive image of identity problematics and can better understand its developmental specifics which is determined by historical, social, subjective, that is, cultural factors. Having been aware of this state of affairs was what drove the cunsecutive research in this field, including in linguistics, which among others results in the present publication. The presented issues have been undertaken, which coincided with the fourtieth anniversary of the Institute of Slavic Philology at the University of Silesia – linguists representing different academic centres in Poland and abroad, in particular: Bosnia, Croatia, Montenegro, Czechia, Macedonia, Slovenia, and Ukraine. They responded to an invitation from the University which has a few decades of research experience by remaining aware of the weightiness of the problematics to be discussed which unveils ever new aspects and values actualized and created in languages undergoing current transformation. (A fragment from the Preface)

The city in the world of discourses

Miasto w świecie dyskursów

Author(s): Beata Duda / Language(s): Polish

Keywords: discourse analysis; urban discourse; city; the anthropology of the city

The subject matter of the monograph The city in the world of discourses focuses on the category of the city as well as the related issues which are located and considered within the framework of the text methodology and discourse linguistics, cultural linguistics, sociology and transdisciplinary paradigms: Critical Discourse Analysis and Urban Cultural Studies. The publication is a proposal for characterizing and outlining the framework of the discourse the scope of which would cover all the discourses whose reference subject is the city as an extremely complex and heterogeneous category. What has been subjected to scrutiny is the practice of metropolitan experience, perception issues and cultural intermediacy within the relation of man with this type of space. The analyses, which were connected to the reading of textual representations of contemporary Polish metropolises, brought about the formulation of the principles, norms and conventions of the urban discourse.

Partnership in communication

Partnerstwo w komunikacji

Author(s): / Language(s): Polish

Składamy na Państwa ręce niniejszą książkę poświęconą rozmaitym zdarzeniom komunikacyjnym zachodzącym w różnych przestrzeniach, z udziałem tradycyjnych i nowych środków wyrazu. Za sprawą zebranych tekstów pragniemy ukazać mechanizmy rządzące uczestnikami poszczególnych aktów komunikacyjnych, uwypuklając istotny dla tego zbioru pierwiastek współuczestniczenia. Zebrane przez nas głosy badaczy w dyskusji na temat kondycji JA i TY mogą stać się inspiracją do podejmowania dalszych działań zmierzających do tego, by partnerstwo nie pozostawało jedynie w przestrzeni idealizacji, ale miało realną szansę na zaistnienie we współczesnym świecie. (fragment Wstępu)We bring to you the book which is devoted to various communicative events that transpire across different spaces, involving both traditional and new means of expression. By the texts collected in our publication we wish to reveal mechanisms driving each and every participant of singular speech acts, while underscoring what seems relevant to each member of this set of participants, namely – co-participation. The voices of researchers presented herein refer mostly to the condition of MYSELF and YOURSELF and may prove to be stimulating for further activities that would aim at partnership becoming not merely a notion in ideal space, but rather have a real chance to be actualized in the world of today. (An excerpt from the Introduction)

Complex settlement pattern – traditional economic region – socio-cultural space

Złożony układ osadniczy – tradycyjny region ekonomiczny – przestrzeń społeczno‐kulturowa

Author(s): Jerzy Runge / Language(s): Polish

Keywords: complex settlement system; traditional economic region; socio-cultural space; Katowice conurbation; Silesian Voivodship

The first goal of the study is to outline the current state of knowledge of functional-spatial and socio-cultural transformations of complex settlement systems, especially the ones in traditional socio-economic regions. The second one is to propose several complementary model approaches (circular models of economic transformations and urbanization). The author's starting point is an attempt to model the origin and evolution of the economic base as a crucial element of the remaining changes in the socio-economic space. A model of economic change, like urbanization, is complementary to one another, reflecting both the centripetal and centrifugal forces conditioning transformation of the entire settlement system.

Educational and professional activation of inhabitants and the quality of life in peripheral cities

Aktywizacja edukacyjna i zawodowa mieszkańców a jakość życia w miastach peryferyjnych

Author(s): / Language(s): Polish

Keywords: human capital; social capital; small and medium-sized cities; activation factors; education; labor market; educational mobility; migrations; quality of life; adaptation strategies; cultural conditions of the local environment

The book „Educational and professional activation of inhabitants and the quality of life in peripheral cities” edited by Adam Bartoszek and Urszula Swadźba constitutes a comprehensive, and statistically based discussion of the problems of the activation of the so-called human capital in peripheral cities of Silesian and Opole voivodship in question. The article opening the volume entitled „Human capital in a local environment” by Adam Bartoszek is a theoretical introduction to the assumptions of studies on the problems of making the human capital active at the level of local communities. The article by Bożena Pactwa entitled „Human resources and demographic processes on selected peripheral cities of Silesian and Opole voivodships” stands for a demographic analysis based on statistical data from the yeares 1995—2008. A detailed analysis by Rafał Muster entitled “Problems of the activation of the human capital on local job markets in the light of statistical analyses and opinions of those in charge of public services of employment…” deals with the issue of the activation of the human capital on local job markets of Lubliniec, Racibórz, Nysa and Prudnik. Urszula Swadźba, in her article „Educational activity as an expression of local strategies and an innovative nature of human resources in small and middle-sized cities” deals with the problem of an educational activity of people inhabiting the places in question. Another article by Adam Bartoszek entitled „Educational and professional mobility of inhabitants and the quality of life in peripheral cities” presents the results of a survey conducted in four intentionally selected peripheral cities in the Upper Silesia (Racibórz, Nysa, Lubliniec and Głogówek). The analysis was structured as a comparative diagnosis contrasting the opinions of the heads of households with the opinions of the leaders of local communities, constituting a cross-sectional representation of various communities of small and mieddle-sized cities. The article by Marek Dziewierski entitled „An identity of place and adaptation strategies of the inhabitants of small and middle-sized cities” is a summary of the stage of qualitative studies. It deals with the issue of the relationships and interdependences between a social identity of the inhabitants of peripheral cities and their life choices connected with education, work or a preferable place of living. In the final chapter of the book, Adam Bartoszek and Urszula Swadźba summarize the consequences of the mobility of human capital for the quality of life in the studied cities.