Mondays with WUWr #55
What’s new at the University of Wrocław Press?
In our series #MondayswithWUWr, we keep you up to date with the most important events, book news, and issues important to the Publishing House! We also encourage you to follow the wuwr.eu website and the Publishing House’s social media – Fb, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube. Follow us to be up to date!
Release of ‘Maurice z kurą’ and book signing in Poland
Recently Maurice’s girlfriend sometimes cries out of exhaustion. She looks very pretty then. She is a middle-aged woman but still cries like a child. Tears are falling down her cheeks, her lips are curling, and her face is turning red, showing a twist. She is covering it with her hands, saying, ‘I can’t make it anymore.’ In the course of time, everyone is hit by fatigue, and ultimately, they have no idea how to deal with life. Maurice read that the wind blowing in our faces is coming from paradise; it pushes us into the future, to which we are entering with our backs turned, when before our eyes a pile of wasted chances and tattered hopes is ever-rising. The spleen of my girlfriend certainly is connected to it, he thinks. If it just so occurred to him to tell her, ‘Not at all, surely you can,’ and she stopped crying, he would feel joyous. Admittedly, it is not very ingenious to say, ‘Not at all, surely you can, you can make it,’ but sometimes it is enough, and it is beautiful. Maurice had never learned properly how to think. To this day, he is foolish and lives in constant fear that he will be debunked as someone he is, and eventually as someone he was: a hen pecking grounds of knowledge, a hen in his own embrace.
Among others, this excerpt of the novel ‘Maurice z kurą’ was read during the Swiss author, Matthias Zschokke’s first meeting with Polish readers in the Goethe-Institut in Warsaw, where a Polish premiere of the first novel published by the University of Wrocław Press was released. On 17 May, it was possible to meet the author in the Wrocław OP ENHEIM, where prof. Dariusz Komorowski, a manager of the Centre of German-language Literature of Switzerland, and dr Ewa Szymani, a translator, introduced readers to the atmosphere of this unique novel. Zschokke ended his week in Poland with a meeting in the Potocki Palace in Cracow, talking with Anna Marchewka about loneliness, love, absurdities of daily life, and Berlin. We recommend ‘Maurice z kurą’ to all! Maurice z kurą – University of Wrocław Press – the book under the aegis of lubimyczytac.pl.
Matthias Zschokke, born in 1954 in Switzerland – an actor, writer, and film director who is an extremely vivid character in the theatrical, film, and literary scene. He is one of the most interesting contemporary German-language writers, a laureate of prestigious literary awards, including the Gerhart Hauptmann Award and Swiss Literary Award, but also – as the only one German-language author until now – Prix Femina étranger.
‘Książka i biblioteka w wybranych pracach Umberta Eco’ by dr Anna Lubińska with the main prize of the Polish Librarians Association!
We are glad to inform you that the release of ‘Książka i biblioteka w wybranych pracach Umberta Eco. Studium bibliologiczne’ by dr Anna Lubińska received a mention with a prestigious award, Nagroda Naukowa SBP im. Adama Łysakowskiego for 2024 in the category of theoretical, methodological, and source works.
This honourable merit is granted by the Polish Librarians Association and is awarded to authors whose works have a special significance for the development of the librarianship theory and practice and for the scientific information.
A reminder: Anna Lubińska’s monograph is a profound study of the presence of book and library motives in Umberto Eco’s works – from ‘The Name of the Rose’ to ‘Foucault’s Pendulum.’ The author portrays its importance in the high and popular culture, diversifying the publication’s content with illustrations and unique drawings of Eco’s authorship himself.
We warmly congratulate Anna Lubińska and the University of Wrocław Press on such a remarkable achievement! Again, we encourage you to familiarise yourself with the author’s work, which constitutes a valuable contribution to book and librarianship culture research.
Książka i biblioteka w wybranych pracach Umberta Eco – the University of Wrocław Press
Promotional meeting of a book, ‘Od izolacji do resocjalizacji. 100 lat historii więziennictwa w niepodległej Polsce’
Editors of the book, ‘Od izolacji do resocjalizacji. 100 lat historii więziennictwa w niepodległej Polsce,’ along with the University of Wrocław Press, Correctional Facility No.1 Wrocław, County Inspectorate of Prisons] in Opole, and the Custody in Świdnica, kindly invite you to the promotional meeting of the publication.
Prisons and prison sentences has accompanied societies since the antiquity. However, the manner of their execution was shifting in the process of time. The Polish penal system underwent fundamental changes after the Republic of Poland had regained its independence, breaking free from the annexation.
On 7 and 8 February 1919, the Head Officer of the State, Józef Piłsudski, issued two decrees concerning the system of prison organisation in the born-again Poland. On the basis of these documents, competencies of the Prison Service were defined, having come up for military rigours, whereas prisons were examined by the Ministry of Justice. From this point forward, the penal system has come a long way, becoming subject to changes resulting from structural transitions before and after the Second World War.
‘Od izolacji do resocjalizacji. 100 lat historii więziennictwa w niepodległej Polsce’ presents this transformation in detail. The authors analyse changes in legal rules and ideological modifications, which had an influence on the functioning of penal institutions. A primarily used, traditional model of isolation and repression, as well as a gradually increasing role of resocialisation are described.
Thanks to an interdisciplinary attitude connecting history, law, and sociology, a study was created that comprehensively discusses prison service issues and execution of prison sentences in the 20th century in Poland. The study is also an attempt to find an answer to a question about the future of Polish penology, pursuing a balance between a penalty and a resocialisation.
During the meeting, the editors will talk about the book’s content, but also about the prison service history in Lower Silesia.
The meeting will be held on 29 May, at 17:00 in the Correctional Facility No. 1 Wrocław (ul. Kleczkowska 35) – the conference hall on the second floor. Free admission!
Let’s talk about positive education
On Tuesday, 3 June 2025, at 16:30 in the Lower Silesia Pedagogic Library in Wrocław (ul. Stanisława Worcella 25-27), a meeting with editors of an unusual book will be held. Dr Marta Kondracka-Szala and Weronika Mazurek, the editors, present the work, ‘Pedagogia pozytywna w edukacji przedszkolnej i wczesnoszkolnej – z doświadczeń pozytywnych nauczycieli, pedagogów i dyrektorów.’
‘Pedagogia pozytywna w edukacji przedszkolnej i wczesnoszkolnej’ is a remarkable book proving that an education can be full of acceptance, and can enhance one’s strengths and authentic relationships. The meeting is an opportunity to get to know inspirational stories of teachers and pedagogists, who introduce small changes of great importance on a daily basis – for children, but also for the whole culture of learning. How to support a child’s growth and to build his or her self-confidence, relying on the strengths, and not on the shortcomings? The answers to this and many more questions concerning the positive education will be covered during this talk!
We invite preschool and early school education teachers, pedagogists, educational psychologists, students of pedagogical fields of study, librarians, organisers of cultural activities, and employees of educational institutions running classes for children. We also invite parents and child carers of preschool or early school age children – it may be helpful for them if they are searching for ways of supporting their child’s development in an atmosphere of understanding, strengthening bonds, and everyday joy for exploring the world. Any others who are up for this meeting are welcome!
Free admission, but a reservation of a free pass is required.
Translated by Maja Zaucha (student of English Studies at the University of Wrocław) as part of the translation practice.
Date of publication: 19.05.2025
Added by: M.K.
