Research projects

With a diverse range of disciplines and areas of expertise, our faculty are dedicated to conducting impactful research in American Studies and related fields. We actively engage in expanding our national and international research networks and forging partnerships with renowned institutions.

Our faculty’s work is frequently published in esteemed peer-reviewed journals, presented at international conferences, and recognized through prestigious awards and grants. Our research is regularly funded by the Fulbright Foundation, the Kosciuszko Foundation, National Science Center Poland, Humanities in the European Research Area network (HERA), and many other smaller research centers and archival libraries.

Current research projects

„Pro-life” Activism in Spain, Ireland and Poland (1970s-1990s): A Comparative
History From the Margins of Europe

Principal Investigator: dr hab. Sylwia Kuźma-Markowska, prof. ucz.
National Science Center, OPUS
2024-2028

This project examines the intersecting histories of anti-abortion activism in three Catholic European countries: Spain, Ireland and Poland since the inception of organized “pro-life” activism in their territories till the end of the 1990s. The international team composed of 5 researchers under the lead of Professor Kuźma-Markowska will explore the histories of anti-abortion organizations and their repertoires of collective action. They will study the “pro-life”discourses and practices, and especially ways these discourses and practices operated in the realms of science and politics. The project’s findings will illuminate global “pro-life” histories, for which the United States has been considered the metropole, from new and unexpected angles, testing and challenging the cultural hegemony of American anti-abortion activism.

Beyond Ulysses: Revisiting the Idea of Self-Binding in Constitutional Theory

Principal Investigator: dr Jan Smoleński
National Science Center, MINIATURA
2025-2026

The traditional understanding of the metaphor of self-binding in constitutional theory, based on the famous story of Ulysses who binds himself to the mast to avoid crashing his ship on the rocks lured by the sirens, suggests that constitutions are tools of self-limitations on democratic decision making and self-imposed disempowerment. By contrast, this project builds on Hannah Arendt’s interpretation of collective self-binding as empowerment and the polysemy of the word “binding”, this project will explore a different—multilayered and multidimensional—interpretation of the metaphor of self-binding that goes beyond the idea of a constitution as a straitjacket and stresses dimensions of collective self-constituting and mutual empowerment. The aim of this project is to prepare the ground for a more comprehensive research into the nature of constitutions and their relationship with democracy.

Świat i polityka w poglądach Leopolda Tyrmanda. Kwerenda archiwum Tyrmanda w Instytucie Hoovera.

Principal Investigator: dr Marcin Gajek
National Science Center, MINIATURA
2025-2026

The aim of this research is to conduct a search in the library of the Hoover Institute (Palo Alto, California), which has held the Leopold Tyrmand’s archive since 1986. The archive contains typescripts, diaries, notes, correspondence, as well as official documents (including ID cards), tickets, invoices and bank statements, and photographs. A small part of this collection has been made available to a wider readership thanks to a work published in 1998 by Katarzyna Kwiatkowska and Maciej Gawęcki, and although the collection has been used by individual authors of Tyrmand biographies published in recent years, the material is still largely unexplored – especially from the perspective of a researcher of socio-political thought interested primarily in the political views of the author of The Man With White Eyes.

Transformations of Heteromasculine Intimacies in Poland in the Transition Era (1987-1999)

Principal Investigator: dr Ludmiła Janion
National Science Center, SONATA
2024-2026

This project will investigate media discourses on heterosexual masculinities in the transition era in Poland. 1987–1999 is a period of profound sociocultural changes – the westernization of culture, the introduction of liberal democracy and market economy, destabilization of the class structure – which led to new norms of what it meant to be a good citizen or worker, friend or parent. Neoliberalism shaped new social rules, in which an individual was responsible for their financial success, looks, sexual life, and ultimately, their happiness. However, the impact of these changes on masculinities in Poland has not been researched yet.