- Kozminski University, International Management Department, Faculty MemberLondon School of Economics, Department of Media and Communications, Department Member, and 3 moreadd
- NYU Institute for Public Knowledge Visiting Scholar, recipient of The Albert Salomon Memorial Award in Sociology, Kos... moreNYU Institute for Public Knowledge Visiting Scholar, recipient of The Albert Salomon Memorial Award in Sociology, Kosciuszko Foundation fellow.
I am currently doing research on the politicization of online gossip websites: what this means in terms of audience interest and the public sphere.
I am also finishing my book based on my dissertation, "Ordinary celebrations: new sites and new visibility of cultural practices in post-1989 Poland".
My academic interests include everyday culture, media and visibility, civil society, and social change.edit
Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz was an extraordinary figure on the Polish political scene at the turn of the 20th century. A Marxist and patriot, academic and politician, Kelles-Krauz was most known for his efforts to reconcile the needs of the... more
Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz was an extraordinary figure on the Polish political scene at the turn of the 20th century. A Marxist and patriot, academic and politician, Kelles-Krauz was most known for his efforts to reconcile the needs of the nation with international socialism. This volume, however, offers a selection of his writings centred on the history of ideas, published for the first time in English. Kelles-Krauz’s works, while Marxist at heart, linked ideas stemming from the concepts of German idealists, French positivists, as well as contemporary sociologists who offered a bridge between research on individuals and the workings of social systems. Kelles-Krauz, however, repeatedly transcended Marxist tenets, focusing on the construction of traditions, social norms, and the social role of art.
This edited volume was first published in Polish as Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz: Marksizm a socjologia. Wybór pism by Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego in 2014. This current work has been revised and translated into English.
This edited volume was first published in Polish as Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz: Marksizm a socjologia. Wybór pism by Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego in 2014. This current work has been revised and translated into English.
Research Interests:
Sanktuarium w Licheniu stało się szerzej znane na przełomie XX i XXI wieku dzięki zainteresowaniu mediów budowaną wtedy bazyliką, ukończoną w 2004 roku – siódmą co do wielkości budowlą sakralną w Europie. Architektura obiektu nawiązująca... more
Sanktuarium w Licheniu stało się szerzej znane na przełomie XX i XXI wieku dzięki zainteresowaniu mediów budowaną wtedy bazyliką, ukończoną w 2004 roku – siódmą co do wielkości budowlą sakralną w Europie. Architektura obiektu nawiązująca do baroku oraz polskiej historii i natury, acz w przeskalowanej wersji, oraz łączenie drogich marmurów z tanim plastikiem spowodowało, że bazylika szybko stała się obiektem krytyki. Negatywne opinie na temat estetyki bazyliki ujawniły już istniejące, znacznie głębsze podziały między jej zwolennikami i przeciwnikami, gdzie kwestia gustów – doskonały przykład dystynkcji Pierre’a Bourdieu (2005) – stanowiła jedynie najbardziej widoczną różnicę fundamentalnego rozłamu między ludźmi wykształconymi, z dużych miast oraz niewyedukowanymi, niepodróżującymi ludźmi z prowincji. W polskich mediach przetoczyła się dyskusja na temat brzydoty bazyliki (np. Zanussi 1999; Potkaj 2004; Głuchowski i Kowalski 2007), jednak społeczny podział na krytykujących wykształconych miastowych i entuzjastycznie nastawionych niewykształconych prowincjuszy tkwiący u podstaw tej krytyki pozostał w dużej mierze przemilczany.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
The following study explores the effect of social media visibility on public discussion and, possibly, on the results of the 2015 presidential elections in Poland, unexpectedly won by Andrzej Duda. Instead of newspaper analyses and polls,... more
The following study explores the effect of social media visibility on public discussion and, possibly, on the results of the 2015 presidential elections in Poland, unexpectedly won by Andrzej Duda. Instead of newspaper analyses and polls, Facebook interactions proved more accurate in predicting the final results. In the study, focus is laid on two key sources of visibility of opinion that emerged during the campaign: major daily newspapers, which provide space for opinion only to selected writers; and presidential candidates’ Facebook fan pages, which offer broad visibility to Facebook users’ opinions. The proposed interpretation of this discrepancy is that of a major shift in making public opinion more self-expressive and personal: public discussion is formed ‘in between’ rationality and emotion, publicness and privacy. The 2015 presidential elections in Poland reveal that this ‘in-between’ emerged in people’s Facebook activity, and it uncovered a public affect which translated into election results.
Research Interests:
Holy Land Experience is a religious theme park in Orlando, Florida. The city is home to some of the main theme parks in the United States, however, Holy Land Experience is not a typical one, and in official flyers it claims not to be a... more
Holy Land Experience is a religious theme park in Orlando, Florida. The city is home to some of the main theme parks in the United States, however, Holy Land Experience is not a typical one, and in official flyers it claims not to be a theme park at all, its role being, instead, educational. Holy Land Experience is a plaster replica of Jerusalem from the times of Christ, spread on 15 acres of land.
At the same time, it is an interesting example of promoting spirituality using tools attributed to entertainment. Inside the theme park Christianity is shown offering a direct, emotional experience using imitations of Biblical places and events. Indeed, according to the visitors, the overwhelming artificiality of the place does not thwart religious feeling. At Holy Land Experience spiritual experience is merged with entertainment and a sense of America’s uniqueness.
At the same time, it is an interesting example of promoting spirituality using tools attributed to entertainment. Inside the theme park Christianity is shown offering a direct, emotional experience using imitations of Biblical places and events. Indeed, according to the visitors, the overwhelming artificiality of the place does not thwart religious feeling. At Holy Land Experience spiritual experience is merged with entertainment and a sense of America’s uniqueness.
Research Interests:
Essay on the 2016 US elections and the American Dream
Research Interests:
The article explores the arguments on the role of art in society of the late-19th century Polish sociologist Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
In 2001, Joanna Rajkowska, a Polish contemporary artist, made a trip to Israel, after which she decided to make people aware of the significance of Warsaw’s Jerusalem Avenue [Aleje Jerozolimskie], one of the Polish capital’s main streets.... more
In 2001, Joanna Rajkowska, a Polish contemporary artist, made a trip to Israel, after which she decided to make people aware of the significance of Warsaw’s Jerusalem Avenue [Aleje Jerozolimskie], one of the Polish capital’s main streets. She intended to point out the street’s history in a vacuum, as she claimed, caused by the absence of Jewish community after World War II. She “planted” an artificial palm tree—in her view a plant typical of Jerusalem streets—in the middle of a major traffic circle in the center of Warsaw. Even though Rajkowska made a project based on “just” one of the forgotten pasts, it revealed a whole new potential for “other” pasts in that particular space, which suddenly became impossible to be taken for granted as they had been before. Furthermore, the artist opened a new social space in which pasts were brought back to interact with the present. The palm quickly became the object and symbol of much more contemporary Polish struggles: for gay rights, for nurses’ wages, for liberal values, and the right to think differently. Rajkowska’s palm tree managed to bring these and many other issues to the general public, to make it aware of the everyday inhabited space, to make that space visible—with all its ambiguities, different layers of meanings, interpretations of the past, and visions of the future—while transforming that very public along the way.
Research Interests:
The 2015 presidential and parliamentary campaigns in Poland revealed a huge gap between academic experts and popular opinion, which became quite clear at the ballot box. The arguments of the former proved ineffective in persuading the... more
The 2015 presidential and parliamentary campaigns in Poland revealed a huge gap between academic experts and popular opinion, which became quite clear at the ballot box. The arguments of the former proved ineffective in persuading the latter. What’s more, academic argumentation was used by the unconvinced readers to pigeonhole those academics, who participated in public discussions on major opinion media, as members of a caste serving either a particular party’s or their own profession’s particular interests.
Another issue concerns the actual group interest of an academic meritocracy: what goals do such public intellectuals want to achieve? Is it the beauty of truthful, elegant argumentation? Or, perhaps, is it about getting the message through to achieve desired results (i.e. according to the truthful, elegant argumentation) in the public sphere?
In order to illuminate these often conflicting goals of expert academics speaking out in public, I offer a study of analyses and comments presented by academics in major Polish opinion dailies during the 2015 presidential and parliamentary campaigns in Poland, analyzing them from the point of view of Pielke's "honest brokers" and Burawoy's "public sociologists".
Another issue concerns the actual group interest of an academic meritocracy: what goals do such public intellectuals want to achieve? Is it the beauty of truthful, elegant argumentation? Or, perhaps, is it about getting the message through to achieve desired results (i.e. according to the truthful, elegant argumentation) in the public sphere?
In order to illuminate these often conflicting goals of expert academics speaking out in public, I offer a study of analyses and comments presented by academics in major Polish opinion dailies during the 2015 presidential and parliamentary campaigns in Poland, analyzing them from the point of view of Pielke's "honest brokers" and Burawoy's "public sociologists".
Research Interests:
A fundamental shift in the physical space and practice of public discussion has been taking place thanks to the rise of social media, particularly Facebook. A sign that such online discussions—even if technologically limited to likes,... more
A fundamental shift in the physical space and practice of public discussion has been taking place thanks to the rise of social media, particularly Facebook. A sign that such online discussions—even if technologically limited to likes, shares, and comments—matter as public is illustrated by the fact that they have been more precise than major traditional media or polls in portending the unexpected results of the 2015 presidential elections in Poland. They were won by a previously unknown politician, Andrzej Duda who was supported Law and Justice (PiS), the main opposition party. His campaign on Facebook was not only more successful in comparison to the then president-in-office, Bronisław Komorowski’s in gaining likes, shares, and positive comments on his fan page. What’s more, Duda’s negative campaign targeted at Komorowski got significant traction on social media, which provided it with visibility that would have been far more difficult to achieve relying solely on traditional mass media. In my opinion, the study of Facebook fan pages vis-à-vis traditional mass-media coverage of the 2015 presidential campaign in Poland reveals that social-media activity has become a lens reflecting, but also magnifying the stark polarization of political discussions among ordinary citizens. Furthermore, it has come to set the climate of current political debates.