The award for outstanding scientific achievement was presented to dr hab. Karol Zieliński, prof. UWr, for his monograph The Iliad and the Oral Epic Tradition, published in 2023 in the prestigious Hellenic Studies Series by Harvard University Press. The book, exceeding 600 pages, addresses one of the most significant and long-debated issues in global classical philology, the oral nature of the Iliad. Professor Zieliński proposes a new interdisciplinary interpretation, combining traditional philological methodology with anthropology, folklore studies, and cognitive psychology. The publication was unanimously and enthusiastically accepted for publication by an international group of scholars, and its theses are already being incorporated into university curricula in Poland and abroad.

The award for teaching was received by a team consisting of dr hab. Justyna Deszcz-Tryhubczak, prof. UWr; dr hab. Agata Zarzycka, prof. UWr; and dr hab. Mateusz Świetlicki, prof. UWr. Since 2018, they have co-created the international Erasmus Mundus programme Children’s Literature, Media and Culture, delivered in consortium with leading universities in Europe and North America. The Wrocław pathway “Film and Participatory Culture” combined reflection on children’s culture with film education and social practice. Students from many countries undertook international mobility periods, completed placements at film festivals, published academic articles, and pursued careers in academia and the cultural sector. The programme significantly internationalised the Faculty’s teaching offer and strengthened its position within the global network of cooperation.

The award for organisational activity was presented to dr hab. Irena Barbara Kalla, prof. UWr, for establishing and leading for many years the Centre for Research on Children’s and Young Adult Literature. Between 2017 and 2024 she built a dynamic, internationally recognised research unit that implemented prestigious European grants, organised conferences, and ran the lecture series “International Voices in Children’s Literature Studies”. Thanks to her efforts, the Centre has become one of the most important units of its kind in Poland, contributing to the high evaluation of the disciplines represented by the University of Wrocław.

The three ministerial awards granted to a single faculty confirm the high standard of research, modern teaching, and effective organisational activity carried out at the Faculty of Languages, Literatures and Cultures of the University of Wrocław. It was above all a success of people – their intellectual courage, international ambition, and consistent work for the advancement of scholarship.

Recipients of the Minister’s Award 2026

1. for achievements in scientific activity: dr hab. Karol Zieliński;
2. for achievements in teaching — team consisting of:
   a) dr hab. Justyna Deszcz-Tryhubczak, prof. UWr,
   b) dr hab. Agata Zarzycka, prof. UWr,
   c) dr hab. Mateusz Świetlicki, prof. UWr;
3. for achievements in organisational activity: dr hab. Barbara Irena Kalla, prof. UWr.

The nomination is based on the monograph The Iliad and the Oral Epic Tradition (Harvard University Press, 2023), published in the prestigious Hellenic Studies Series. The author proposes an innovative interpretation of the oral character of the Iliad, combining philological analysis with anthropology and cognitive psychology. The book has been enthusiastically received by the international scholarly community and is already being introduced into university curricula in Poland and abroad.

Karol Zieliński is a classical philologist and Hellenist. He heads the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research on Relations between Oral and Written Culture at the Faculty of Philology, University of Wrocław, and serves as editor-in-chief of the journal Quaestiones Oralitatis.

His research on archaic Greek poetry is situated within a broad comparative and anthropological framework, advocating its full belonging to the oral tradition. In his monograph he demonstrates the specific creativity of the oral poet, resulting from interaction with audiences, and situates the Iliad as we know it within the reconstructed oral tradition of ancient Greece.

Team Award for Teaching

Team members:
dr hab. Justyna Deszcz-Tryhubczak, prof. UWr
dr hab. Agata Zarzycka, prof. UWr
dr hab. Mateusz Świetlicki, prof. UWr

Since 2018, the team has co-developed and co-delivered the international Erasmus Mundus programme Children’s Literature, Media and Culture, implemented in partnership with leading universities in Europe and North America. They led the “Film and Participatory Culture” pathway, supervised master’s theses, initiated festival placements, and expanded international academic cooperation. The programme significantly contributed to the internationalisation of the University’s teaching offer.

Dr hab. Justyna Deszcz-Tryhubczak, prof. UWr (team leader), works at the Institute of English Studies. She is a co-founder of the Centre for Children’s and Young Adult Literature and Culture, which she directed from 2013 to 2022, and a co-founder and Programme Board member of the Centre for Research on Children’s and Young Adult Literature. Her research focuses on contemporary children’s culture, childhood studies, posthumanism, and participatory research with children as co-researchers. She has published widely on intergenerational relations, new materialism in children’s literature, the Anthropocene, and children’s poetry. The volume Intergenerational Solidarity in Children’s Literature and Film (2021), co-edited with Zoe Jacques, received the Edited Book Award 2023 from the International Research Society for Children’s Literature. She has been a fellow of numerous prestigious programmes, including Fulbright, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships, and NAWA. She currently coordinates Erasmus Mundus master’s programmes and international projects such as Seen and Heard and COREM.

Dr hab. Agata Zarzycka, prof. UWr, teaches courses on American culture and society, fantasy literature, participatory culture, and digital games. She is the author of two monographs Socialized Fiction: Role-Playing Games as a Multidimensional Space of Interaction between Literary Theory and Practice (2009) and A Goth Reflection: Self-Fashioning and Popular Culture (2019) and co-editor of four collective volumes. Her current research interests include fantasy, Gothic studies, horror studies, biopolitics, waste studies, and posthumanism.

Dr hab. Mateusz Świetlicki, prof. UWr, is a professor in the Department of American Literature and Culture at the Institute of English Studies of the University of Wrocław; Head of the Centre for Children’s and Young Adult Literature and Culture; co-founder and member of the programme board of the Centre for Research on Children’s and Young Adult Literature (Faculty of Languages, Literatures and Cultures); Vice-Dean for Student Affairs and Part-Time Studies at the Faculty of Languages, Literatures and Cultures; and a member of the council of the Polish-Ukrainian Cooperation Centre at the University of Wrocław. An English and Slavic philologist, he has been awarded numerous prestigious fellowships, including those of the Fulbright Commission (University of Illinois at Chicago), the Kościuszko Foundation (University of Florida), Harvard University, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, the International Youth Library in Munich, as well as a scholarship from the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education for outstanding young scholars. He is a multiple recipient of the Rector’s awards for achievements in research, teaching, and organisational work. Świetlicki is the author of over one hundred scholarly publications, including several monographs (single-authored and co-authored) and articles published in Polish and international academic journals. He is currently working on a monograph devoted to the category of Polishness and representations of Polish history in American and Canadian young adult literature. His most recent book, Next-Generation Memory and Ukrainian Canadian Children’s Historical Fiction: The Seeds of Memory (Routledge, 2023), received the prestigious IRSCL Book Award 2025, and reviews of the volume have appeared in numerous leading journals in the United States and Europe. Świetlicki is co-editor of the monographs Fieldwork in Ukrainian Children’s Literature (Routledge, 2025 with Anastasia Ulanowicz) and Navigating Children’s Literature through Controversy: Global and Transnational Perspectives (Brill, 2023 with Elżbieta Jamróz-Stolarska and Agata Zarzycka), as well as special issues of several journals, including Bookbird: A Journal of International Children’s Literature (“War and Displacement in Children’s Literature”, 2023 with Chrysogonus Siddha Malilang) and the European Journal of American Studies (“Memory, Identity, Belonging: Narratives of Eastern and Central European Presence in North America”, 2023 with Dr Izabella Kimak). He serves as Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the journal Filoteknos, is a member of the editorial team of the series “Children’s Literature, Culture, and Cognition” published by John Benjamins, and sits on the scientific boards of several international journals. His research interests include children’s and young adult literature, as well as broadly understood popular culture and film. Mateusz Świetlicki is Co-Chair of the Childhood in Eastern Europe, Eurasia, and Russia Working Group affiliated with the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, and a member of numerous other organisations, including the International Research Society for Children’s Literature, the Polish Association for Canadian Studies, the Polish Association for American Studies, the Children’s Literature Association, and the Polish Section of the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY). In 2021 and 2023 he served as a juror in the Polish Section of IBBY’s Book of the Year competition.

Award for organisational activity

Dr hab. Irena Barbara Kalla, prof. UWr

Założycielka i wieloletnia kierowniczka Centrum Badań Literatury dla Dzieci i Młodzieży UWr (2017–2024). Stworzyła dynamicznie rozwijającą się jednostkę badawczą o silnej pozycji międzynarodowej, realizującą prestiżowe granty i projekty europejskie. Dzięki jej działaniom Centrum stało się rozpoznawalnym ośrodkiem badań oraz ważnym partnerem międzynarodowej współpracy naukowej.

Dr hab. Irena Barbara Kalla, prof. UWr.

Founder and long-time director (2017–2024) of the Centre for Research on Children’s and Young Adult Literature at the University of Wrocław. She created a dynamically developing research unit with a strong international position, implementing prestigious grants and European projects. Thanks to her efforts, the Centre has become a recognised research hub and an important partner in international academic cooperation.

Dr Kalla is a specialist in Dutch studies and a literary scholar focusing on contemporary Dutch and Flemish literature, especially poetry and children’s literature. She completed her habilitation in 2014 on the basis of the monograph Huisbeelden in de moderne Nederlandstalige poëzie (“Images of Home in Modern Dutch-Language Poetry”). Since 2011 she has led the Department of Contemporary Dutch and Afrikaans Literature and has headed the Department since 2020. She is a member of the University Senate and Council.

She has held visiting and fellowship positions at universities in Leuven, Antwerp, Ghent, and Vienna, and is an honorary foreign member of the Royal Academy for Dutch Language and Literature (KANTL) in Flanders, where she chairs the jury of a literary award for Dutch-language children’s literature.

She is the author or co-author of more than seventy scholarly publications and participates in international research projects such as COHLIT, COREM, and EDU-CLIMA. Her current research focuses on literary representations of genocide and ecocide, literature’s responses to the challenges of the Anthropocene, and the role of children’s literature in climate education.