PROGRAM OF STUDIES

Your Academic Work
Your academic work is a balanced mix of individual research and learning community dialogue, a combination of advanced study within a specific field of research and carefully selected coursework extending your expertise across different disciplines of the humanities. During each year of your doctoral study you are invited to:

  • Attend 13 Program Seminar meetings per academic year, present the results of your research and discuss the research of other Faculty and students
  • Attend 4 workshops of your section (Knowledge, Power, or Identity)
  • Actively contribute to an ongoing Independent Study with your PhD Advisor
  • Do individual research and take an active part in seminars while on a Fellowship abroad
  • Attend one specialized course or seminar per semester, within your discipline, but outside of IBI AL UW

All these components of your academic work are credited. Moreover, you will receive extra-credit for presenting your research at conferences and symposia, as well as for publishing it in recognized academic journals.

Such systematic and yet individualized program of academic work rests on three principles: a close “disciple-mentor” relationship with your PhD Advisor; an ongoing intellectual dialogue taking place within a dynamic learning community; and a clear sense of tangible progress.

At the core of our Doctoral Program’s approach is your close relationship with your PhD Advisor. This continuous intellectual dialogue involves all the aspects of your graduate work: drawing a general plan for the 4-year period of your studies; exploring new areas of expertise and discussing methodological challenges; setting precise objectives and assessing the outcomes of the fellowships abroad; critiquing the successive versions of the chapters of your dissertation.

The “disciple-mentor” collaboration with your PhD Advisor takes place within the context of a learning community composed of fellow doctoral students and faculty alike. The backbone of this team work is a monthly Seminar which gathers all the members of the Doctoral Program regardless of their physical presence in Warsaw (while on a fellowship abroad, you will use online videoconferencing). Such team work fosters an interdisciplinary dialogue and a fruitful confrontation of different methodological approaches.

An efficient Academic Advising service provides you with guidance and a clear sense of progress in your studies. Our learner-centered approach requires that you take responsibility for the planning and first level self-assessment of your work. Upon admission, with the assistance of your PhD Advisor and in consultation with your Academic Advisor, you will draw a four-year plan of study. This initial blueprint will be further updated each semester and will serve you as a tool for self-assessment.

Thirteen Research Fields of Doctoral Study

Our Doctoral Program is devoted to various aspects of the Mediterranean Humanism in the past and in the present. Among the challenges facing the concept of humanity in our times are questions such as:

  • What are human cognitive possibilities in a world where the knowing subject itself eludes definition and where advances in information technology do not translate easily into understanding?
  • What are the legal and political limits of human freedom on a continent where the respect for cultural communities clashes with the belief in universal human rights?
  • How is the collective, i.e. ethnic, national, or gender identity to be conceived in the age of structural transformations leading to an integrated Europe?

These interdisciplinary questions pertain to the three thematic sections of our Program: Knowledge, Power, and Identity. They translate in turn into 13 fields of doctoral research among which you will have the opportunity to choose your own path of inquiry. Each of these research fields is lead by a Professor from the Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies “Artes Liberales” (IBI AL UW) who will direct your dissertation in collaboration with his or her foreign colleagues (see Faculty). The choice of any of these doctoral research fields entails carefully designed Fellowships Abroad.

Please, click on the specific research field for more detailed information.

1. KNOWLEDGE

1.1. Universal Reformation: Intellectual Networks in Early Modern Central Europe

Faculty in charge:
Prof. Piotr Wilczek (IBI AL UW), Dr Karin Friedrich (Centre for Early Modern Studies, University of Aberdeen, UK), Prof. Howard Hotson (Modern European History Research Centre, University of Oxford, UK), Dr Vladimir Urbanek (Institute of Philosophy, Czech Academy of Sciences, Czech Republic)

1.2. Social Sciences and the Humanities in the Formation of National and Supra-national Communities in Eastern and Central Europe (19th and 20th c.)

Faculty in charge:
Prof. Jerzy Axer (IBI AL UW), Prof. Irina Savelieva (Institute for Theoretical and Historical Studies in the Humanities, Moscow, Russia); Prof. Gabor Klaniczay (Collegium Budapest, Hungary)

1.3. Early Modern Skepticism and Humanist Epistemological Ambitions

Faculty in charge:
Prof. Jan Miernowski (IBI AL UW; University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA), Prof. Marie-Luce Demonet, Prof. Philippe Vendrix (Centre d’Etudes Supérieures de la Renaissance, Tours, France), Prof. Neil Kenny (The Department of French, Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages at the University of Cambridge, UK).

1.4. Humanist and Anti-Humanist Tendencies in Contemporary Philosophy: Psychoanalysis and Visual Culture

Faculty in charge:
Prof. Szymon Wróbel (IBI AL UW), Prof. Krzysztof Ziarek (The State University of New York at Buffalo, USA), Prof. Ewa Mazierska (University of Central Lancashire, UK)

2. POWER

2.1. The Humanist Vision of Roman Law (Mos Gallicus – Mos Italicus Iura Docendi) and the Formation of Ius Commune Europaeum

Faculty in charge:
Prof. Witold Wołodkiewicz (IBI AL UW), Prof. Carla Masi Doria, Prof. Luigi Labruna (Università Degli Studi, Federico II, Naples, Italy), Prof. Alessandro Corbino (Università Degli Studi, Catania, Italy).

2.2. Political Power in Times of Crises on the Peripheries of Europe: Spain and Poland in 17th and 18th centuries

Faculty in charge:
Prof. Jan Kieniewicz (IBI AL UW), Prof. Alfredo Alvar Ezquerra (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, Spain), Prof. Jose Luis Gomez Urdañez (University of La Rioja, Spain).

2.3. Cohabitation and the Collapse of Multiculturalism on the Iberian Peninsula between the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period

Faculty in charge:
Prof. Ewa Łukaszyk (IBI AL UW), Prof. Hugh Kennedy (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, UK)

2.4. The Crisis of Humanism during the Wars of Religion in France

Faculty in charge:
Prof. Jan Miernowski (IBI AL UW; University of Wisconsin-Madison), Prof. Denis Crouzet (Université Paris IV-Sorbonne, France), Prof. Ullrich Langer (University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA)

3. IDENTITY

3.1. The Reception of Classical Tradition as a Marker of Cultural Transformations in Eastern and Central Europe (16th – 20th c.)

Faculty in charge:
Prof. Jerzy Axer (IBI AL UW), Prof. Alina Nowicka-Jeżowa (IBI AL UW), Prof. László Szörényi (Institute for Literary Studies of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Magyar Tudomanyos Akadémia – Irodalomtudomanyi Intézet, Hungary), Prof. Gabor Klaniczay (Collegium Budapest, Hungary), Prof. György Karsai (University of Pécs, Hungary), Prof. Irina Savelieva (IGITI Institute for Theoretical and Historical Studies in the Humanities, Moscow, Russia)

3.2. Slavic Cultures between East and West: Linguistic Contact and Linguistic Contrast

Faculty in charge:
Prof. Janusz Rieger (IBI AL UW), Prof. Michael Moser (Universität Wien, Austria)

3.3. The Mediterranean Seen from the Balkan Perspective: Greek, Roman and Byzantine Antiquity and their Adaptations to Slavic Cultures between the 18th and the 21th centuries

Faculty in charge:
Prof. Jolanta Sujecka (IBI AL UW), Prof. Kata Kulavkova (Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, Macedonia, as well as Macedonian Academy of Science and Art, MANU, Macedonia)

3.4. Philhellenism in 19th-century Poland, Eastern and Western Europe. The Greek Ancient Humanism as a Pathway to European National Identities

Faculty in charge:
Prof. Maria Kalinowska (IBI AL UW), Prof. George Tolias (Institute of Neohellenic Research-INR, National Hellenic Research Foundation-NHRF, Athens, Greece)

3.5. Women and Mediterranean Humanism

Faculty in charge:
Prof. Joanna Partyka (IBI AL UW), Prof. Helena González Fernández (Centre Dona i Literatura, Universitat de Barcelona, Spain).