The online registration for 2nd year BA students for BA seminars will commence on 26 April at 10 p.m. and will close on 28 April at 11.59 pm. Students register via usosweb.
There are limits to the number of students in each group. If the group of your choice is already full, please make an alternative choice.
Below you can find descriptions of available courses:
dr hab. prof. UŁ Magdalena Cieślak, From Vampires and Zombies to Androids and Replicants – The Anxieties of Humanity in Literature and Culture
In classical literature, monsters are typically creatures of the dark, incarnations of evil, sin or the devil. They function to discipline humans, and help them become better, stronger, and wiser. In the face of a monstrous adversary, heroes are born, teams are formed, values are reasserted and defended, and the sense of pride in being human is restored. In contemporary literature and culture, humanity is still challenged by classical monsters, while also being confronted with a slightly different embodiments of our anxieties – androids, replicants, or other variants of AI. Whatever form the “adversary” takes – Dracula 2.0, Lucifer Morningstar, or Nexus 8 – it still fulfils the same function. A disciplining factor, it forces us to reflect on our values and to examine our humanity, as well as reveals our fears and invites us to confront them.
The seminar will examine how various figures of the (monstrous?) Other, from the more classical to very posthuman, are used to diagnose the changing anxieties of humanity, and how those fears, and underlying desires, define how humanity sees itself. Discussing those liminal characters, we will be often exploring apocalyptic or dystopian settings, looking at humanity at the moment of crises. With theoretical background of monster theory, the notion of the Other, apocalypse and posthumanism, we will be discussing varied texts of literature and culture, including such classics as Stoker’s Dracula or Shelly’s Frankenstein, through Matheson’s I Am Legend and Blade Runner(s), to The Last of Us.
dr Magdalena Szuster, Performing America
In this seminar, we will explore the history of American theater in various social, political and economic contexts, focusing on the many forms and manifestations of theater in the USA and its relationship with culture, both high and low. Through such exploration, we will look at theater as a by-product and a representation of American culture, a respondent to counter- and pop culture, a vessel of social change, and a for-profit industry. The discussions will be based primarily on dramatic texts and their movie adaptations (as well as selected critical essays).
dr Katarzyna Małecka, “We read to know we’re not alone”: Reading and Writing as Supportive Acts
This course looks at how reading and writing have been used by writers to help them come to terms with life challenges. This form of literary support extends to readers who across the ages have used the written word for healing, mood-enhancing, and identity-building purposes. We will explore how engaging with literature helps us practice gratitude, appreciate the world of nature, and face life-altering events. While the course focuses on American writers, representatives from other English-speaking countries will also be included in our discussions.
In her memoir, American writer Anne Roiphe observes, “Writing this book provides a floor under my experience. . . . Perhaps the fact of writing a book is not so life-saving as it seems. But without the book that I am writing which is the one that you are reading I would be a sorrier woman, a shell of a woman, lingering on.” Such views will guide us in our discussions of the supportive role of reading and writing in life.
dr hab. prof. UŁ, Agnieszka Łowczanin, Many Shades of Gothic
During this BA seminar we will look at various manifestations of the Gothic in literature, film and fashion. Beginning with 18th century examples of early terror stories, via Victorian ghost and vampire stories, we will follow the evolution of Gothic forms to contemporary times: to Ian Macabre and Angela Carter’s bloody Gothic chambers, to horror film and Alexander McQueen’s eerie and flamboyant fashion designs. We will focus on how the Gothic has permeated British consciousness, and how, by responding to a variety of social issues, it has become a channel of expressing contemporary anxieties and traumas. The Gothic is serious and politically engaged, but also delightful, uncanny and witty. It toys with our emotions and is capable of both terrifying and making us laugh.
dr Joanna Dyła-Urbańska, Theory and Practice of Literary Translation
The seminar is addressed to all students interested in the art of translation, particularly – but not only – literary translation. We will analyse and discuss possible practical problems encountered by translators in their work and read and talk about texts by translation theorists. Apart from working on strictly literary texts (such as excerpts from novels or short stories), we will also concentrate on song lyrics, film dialogues, advertisements, various articles and essays. We will talk about reception and criticism of different texts translated into Polish, read (and hopefully argue over) translation reviews and carry out comparative analyses of various translations of texts of literature. The seminar is therefore relevant for all students interested in the fascinating world of translation, a truly interdisciplinary field incorporating broad cultural, social and political contexts of contemporary humanist thought.
dr hab, prof. UŁ Mikołaj Deckert, Audiovisual Translation
The BA seminar covers the basic theoretical and practical notions of Audiovisual Translation, or Audiovisual Translation and Media Accessibility. Students will get to know different research methods and tools to choose from for their BA projects which can focus on films as well as video games. An important objective is to make participants aware of the characteristics of particular AVT modes, and enable participants to identify factors that influence the translator’s decisions and those that could shape the viewer/player experience.
The seminar will also focus on the very process of planning, structuring and writing the BA thesis – discussing issues like data types, data selection and collection, hypothesis formulation, referencing, register, and text editing.
dr Łukasz Salski, Language teaching, learning, and acquisition
This course will focus on aspects of language teaching, learning, and acquisition. While interest in and some knowledge of the field is assumed, it is not required that the participants are enrolled in the ELT specialization. The students will be expected to explore a specific area of their choice, both in theory and in a research study (based typically, but not exclusively, on a survey, case study, research in action). The specific topics may vary from language acquisition, bilingualism, and psycholinguistics to teaching a language skill, use of teaching materials, or classroom management. Each participant will be required to write a BA thesis, but the course will stress the writing process in which students will broaden their knowledge as well as develop English language and composition skills.
prof. Piotr Cap, Populist rhetoric of conflict and crisis in the contemporary Polish and European public discourse
This BA seminar explores linguistic patterns of conflict, crisis and threat generation in state-political discourse of post-2015 Poland, positioning the main strategies in line with the populist rhetorical trends dominating right-wing radical and exclusionary discourses in contemporary Europe. It demonstrates that crisis construction, conflict generation and threat management have been at the heart of Polish state-level policies since the Law & Justice (PiS) party came to power in October 2015. The L&J’s threat-based policies are enacted in multiple public discourses focusing on home as well as international issues. The present seminar places its lens on (a) parliamentary discourse directed at parliamentary opposition leaders, (b) presidential and party ‘rhetoric of despise’ against the people opposing the L&J government, (c) narratives contesting Poland’s relations with EU institutions at Brussels, and (d) tension-perpetuating discourse targeting Russia and Germany – before and after Russia’s invasion on the independent state of Ukraine. Drawing on research models from contemporary critical discourse studies and critical-cognitive pragmatics, students will learn that the crisis, conflict and threat elements in these discourses produce public coercion patterns which contribute significantly to the strong leadership and continuing popularity of the L&J party. Throughout the course, the analysis of the Polish political discourse is intertwined with samples of right-wing discourses in other European countries (Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Austria, Italy, the UK), demonstrating analogies with regard to the major discursive themes (European integration, multiculturalism, immigration, welfare state), actors, and rhetorical strategies used (othering, enemy-construction, fear appeals). Altogether, the seminar offers a unique and authoritative panorama of the Polish state-political discourse, coupled with a thought-provoking picture of ties and mutual dependencies among radical and populist right-wing discourse trends colonizing the 21st century Europe.
dr hab. prof. UŁ Kamila Ciepiela, Communication in and across contexts
This BA seminar offers students a comprehensive, theoretical, and practical guide to communication theory. First it defines the various perspectives on communication theory—the social scientific, interpretive, and critical approaches—and then takes on the theories themselves, with topics including interpersonal communication, organizational communication, intercultural communication, and other key concepts. Each theory is described and applied giving students an insider’s glimpse of the way that communication theory can be written about and applied in various real life contexts (f2f, school, workplace, institutions, media, politics). Students are provided with relevant guidance and help at any moment of designing and drafting their diploma projects, which should lead to their successful completion.
dr Aleksandra Majdzińska-Koczorowicz, Linguistic and bimodal forms of expression
In this seminar students will have the opportunity to investigate various verbal and verbo-visual forms of expression in such areas as advertisements, newspaper articles, political speeches, comics, or Internet memes in order to discuss their communicative effectiveness. The course aims at offering an insight into various concepts concerning written discourse and bimodal forms of expression: distribution of information, 'figurative language' (metaphor, metonymy, personification, etc.), framing, construal, distribution of attention (e.g. perspective, figure and ground distinction), and chosen basic notions from the field of visual communication. A focus will also be placed on persuasive language, including presenting arguments, techniques of manipulation/propaganda, personalising strategies, etc. The course will also highlight the variant nature of language and the possibility of alternate ways of expression.
dr hab. prof. UŁ Iwona Witczak-Plisiecka / dr Anna Gralińska-Brawata, Analysing how people do things with words in different varieties of English
The aim of the seminar is to acquaint students with a variety of factors influencing the use of English and ways of investigating the functions of language and variability in speech from the sociolinguistic point of view. The seminar aims at inspiring and preparing students for conducting a research project as part of their B.A. thesis.
The course will focus on important issues concerning various sources of variability in language use including a range of sociolinguistic variables (e.g. age, gender, ethnicity, social status, identity, speaking styles) and language (including its phonetic features, e.g. dialect and accent differences) in different contexts of use (e.g. professional or private interaction, advertising, mediated contexts, language of the classroom). These will be based on close analyses of selected audio-visual materials or texts.
dr hab. prof. UŁ Przemysław Krakowian, Modern orientations in ESL
While learner interest and involvement are crucial to achieving success in ELF/ESL, schools are having a hard time competing with the appeals of what life has to offer outside school. This seminar is aimed at encouraging BA projects that explore issues in ELT that offer practical and technical solutions to improve the attractiveness and appeal of classroom learning. Selected topics include the following: Kahoot, Socrative and visualization technology, Netflix, YouTube and other streaming services, Tik-Tok, podcasts and vlogs, authentic materials, WebQuests, language games, role-playing and simulations, popular technology in language learning, new technologies and the Internet in teaching, mobile learning, distance learning, online learning environments and authoring tools, online assessment and computerized/electronic portfolia in skill development and language assessment.