Instytut Badań Literackich Polskiej Akademii Nauk

In the new century the Department continues source characteristics and studies on genre and thematic changes, especially of poetry and fictional or documentary prose. It also conducts research on essays and criticism – all that in the perspective of a long duration of modernism and of the postmodern creation and reflection.

These works are realized through collective publications of dictionaries and textbooks (e.g. Słownik literatury polskiej XX wieku [Dictionary of the 20th Century Polish Literature]; the Literatura polska (1918-1975) [Polish Literature (1918-1975)] compendium, four original textbooks within the frame of the “Mała historia literature polskiej” [“Small Polish Literary History”] and the subsequent volumes of the series “Sporne postaci polskiej literatury współczesnej” [“Controversial Persons of Modern Polish Literature”]). At the same time, the Department’s authors conduct studies focused e.g. on the forms of the “reconstruction” (repetition) of past events (and places of loss) in literary narratives; on the figures of memory and imagination, the role of myth creation and deheroization in the works and projects of the avant-garde and arriere-garde; on the analyses of the literary attempts to express the senses flashing under the mundane. Studies regarding the ways the modern subject is textualized in poetry and in personal documents are also important, as well as those concerning documentary inspirations and the problems of local identity in the prose of the entire century, till the most recent times. A large part of our research consists in studies situating literary texts among other contemporary media.