The Department of Anthropology of Culture was established on October 1, 2019 as a new unit. The Department’s team comprises five employees. The research conducted in the department covers broadly understood anthropology of culture and the specificity of multiculturalism in the Podlasie region.
Research interests of the individual department members:
Tomasz Olchanowski, associate professor, Department's Director
His research interests cover the borderland at the intersection of depth psychology, pedagogy, and cultural anthropology.
Research areas:
- psychoanalysis of culture,
- the issue of spiritual transformation,
- interpretation of products of the imagination,
- philosophical reflection on the humanities and social sciences.
Irena Matus, Professor Emeritus,
Research areas:
- the legacy of traditional culture and the process of its decline (spiritual culture – ritual year, agrarian customs, family celebrations, everyday life; material culture – farm buildings, folk decorations, small landscape architecture),
- confessions – the history of the Churches in Podlasie (Orthodox and Uniate), sacred architecture, religious life, Uniate remnants in folk culture, parish education.
- history of the region
Andrzej Kisielewski, associate professor
Research areas:
- history and theory of art of the 20th and 21st centuries and their cultural contexts. Currently, his main area of research encompasses the inspirations of avant-garde artists of the first half of the 20th century – paintings as a product of mass visual culture and the art of traditional indigenous communities.
Barbara Olech, PhD
Research areas:
- literature and culture of Young Poland and of the 20th and 21st centuries (with particular emphasis on the female writers and artists)
- endings in Polish literature and culture, Polish artists of Jewish origin (especially those working in Israel).
Wojciech Siwak, PhD
Research areas:
- new media and contemporary culture
- anthropology of sound, art of sound
- contemporary audio media vs culture and art
- new technologies in cultural and artistic education
- popular music
Kamila Drapało, PhD
- philological and cultural studies
- contemporary philosophy, focusing on the importance of culture in human life and society
Rafał Kuczyński, PhD – to be completed
Phone number: +48 (85) 745 72 79
