Pavel Hájek, Jiří Žahour: Věda a technika ve schwarzenberských knižních sbírkách [Science and Technology in the Schwarzenberg Book Collections]

Pavel Hájek, Jiří Žahour: Věda a technika ve schwarzenberských knižních sbírkách [Science and Technology in the Schwarzenberg Book Collections]. České Budějovice: NPÚ, ÚOP v Českých Budějovicích 2026. ISBN: 978-80-88446-14-9

Hradní a zámecké knihovny představují klenotnice uchovávající skutečné skvosty knižní a grafické produkce, šlechtou mnohdy shromažďované od středověku až do moderní doby. Zatímco rozsah knihovních fondů a výzdoba knihovních sálů reprezentovaly společenské postavení původních majitelů, vlastní skladba knižních sbírek zrcadlila kulturní rozhled, jazykové znalosti a individuální zájmy jednotlivých příslušníků šlechtických rodů. Podstatnou část šlechtických biblioték přitom tvoří odborná vědecká literatura, mnohdy zastoupená díly předních odborníků a vědců, jejichž spisy představují nejen klíčový pramen pro poznání vědeckého a technologického pokroku, ale umožňují nám také sledovat měnící se vnímání a chápání okolního světa a jeho zákonitostí.

Publikace Věda a technika ve schwarzenberských knižních sbírkách nabízí jedinečnou příležitost nahlédnout do rozsáhlých encyklopedických fondů schwarzenberských knihoven na zámcích Český Krumlov, Hluboká a Orlík. První část knihy přináší nejen nové poznatky o vývoji a postupném budování biblioték schwarzenberské primogenitury, ale vůbec poprvé představuje knižní sbírky všech generací starší krumlovsko-hlubocké větve rodu. Druhá část knihy, věnující se vývoji knihovních fondů orlické sekundogenitury, přináší detailní rozbor knižní sbírky maršála Karla I. Filipa jakožto zakladatele a hlavního budovatele orlické bibliotéky. Výzkum J. Žahoura a P. Hájka se přitom zaměřil primárně na identifikaci a poznání motivací vedoucích k akvizicím určitého spektra odborné literatury, ale i na poznání zájmu příslušníků rodu Schwarzenbergů o konkrétní vědní disciplíny v širších souvislostech s jejich životními osudy, zvolenými kariérami, podnikatelskými aktivitami, praktickými potřebami či ryze osobními zálibami.

Odborná kniha Věda a technika ve schwarzenberských knižních sbírkách vznikla v rámci výzkumného projektu Kořeny a plody evropské vědy v českých, moravských a slezských historických knihovních fondech (DH23P03OVV058), financovaného z prostředků Ministerstva kultury – Program NAKI III –program na podporu aplikovaného výzkumu v oblasti národní a kulturní identity na léta 2023 až 2030.

 

Obsah:

Úvodem

Schwarzenberské knihovny v literatuře a pramenech (Jiří Žahour – Pavel Hájek)

Schwarzenberský rod v proměnách času (Jiří Žahour)

Bibliotéky schwarzenberské primogenitury (Jiří Žahour)

Historie a vývoj schwarzenberské (primogeniturní) knihovny

Knižní sbírky krumlovsko-hlubockých Schwarzenbergů

Knižní sbírky Jana Adolfa I. & Marie Justiny ze Starhembergu

Knižní sbírky Ferdinanda Viléma & Marie Anny ze Sulzu

Knižní sbírka Marie Ernestiny z Eggenbergu

Knižní sbírky Adama Františka & Eleonory Amálie z Lobkowicz

Knižní sbírky Josefa I. Adama & Marie Terezie z Liechtensteinu

Knižní sbírky Jana Nepomuka I. & Marie Eleonory z Oettingen-Wallersteinu

Knižní sbírky Josefa II. & Pauliny z Arenbergu

Knižní sbírky biskupa Arnošta & kardinála Bedřicha

Knižní sbírky Jana Adolfa II. & Eleonory z Liechtensteinu

Knižní sbírky Adolfa Josefa & Idy Marie z Liechtensteinu

Knižní sbírka Karla Vavřince ze Schwarzenbergu

Knižní sbírky Jana Nepomuka II. & Terezie z Trauttmansdorff-Weinsbergu

Knižní sbírky Adolfa & Hildy z Luxemburgu a Nassau

Vědecká literatura krumlovsko-hlubockých Schwarzenbergů

Bibliotéky schwarzenberské sekundogenitury (Pavel Hájek)

Vývoj orlických zámeckých knihoven

Osobnost a život Karla I. Filipa ze Schwarzenbergu

Mládí a počátky kariéry

Válka s revoluční Francií

Diplomatická služba v Rusku a Francii

Povahové rysy Karla I. Filipa

Knihovna Karla I. Filipa ze Schwarzenbergu

Dějiny válek a vojenství

Vojenská teorie, taktika a výcvik

Dějiny států

Přírodní vědy

Filozofie

Encyklopedie

Závěrem

Seznam pramenů a literatury

Seznam zkratek

Rejstříky

Resumé

Call for chapter proposals: Polish Science Fiction: Literature, Film, and Cultural Legacy

 Call for chapter proposals: Polish Science Fiction: Literature, Film, and Cultural Legacy

deadline for submissions: 

October 15, 2026

full name / name of organization:

Agnieszka Gutthy

contact email: 

agutthy@selu.edu

Despite the international prominence of Stanisław Lem and, more recently, Andrzej Sapkowski's The Witcher, Polish science fiction and speculative literature remain strikingly underrepresented in English-language scholarship. Existing criticism tends to orbit a small number of canonical figures and a handful of frequently revisited texts, leaving a rich, historically complex tradition, spanning censorship-era political allegory, post-1989 transformation, contemporary literary crossover, and a distinct national cinema largely unexamined outside of Polish-language scholarship.

This edited collection seeks to address that gap. We invite chapter proposals that expand the scope of English-language engagement with Polish speculative fiction and film: introducing under-translated authors, revisiting canonical figures through new critical lenses, and treating Polish science-fiction cinema as a subject rather than solely through the lens of a single adaptation.

We welcome contributions from literary scholars, film scholars, translation studies specialists, and researchers in Slavic and Central European studies. We are especially interested in proposals that

move beyond Lem and Sapkowski as the sole representatives of the tradition.

Bring new theoretical frameworks (postcolonial theory, translation studies, media studies, gender studies, posthumanism) to bear on Polish speculative texts

Address film and other media as legitimate objects of study, not only as adaptations of literary source material

Situate Polish SF within broader Central/Eastern European or global speculative fiction discourse

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

Historical Foundations

Science fiction under the Polish People's Republic

Censorship, allegory, and political subtext in Cold War-era SF

Fandom, zines, and early SF publishing culture in Poland

Lem Beyond Solaris

Underexamined works (e.g. The Cyberiad, His Master's Voice, Fiasco, Return from the Stars)

Lem's philosophy of science, epistemology, and technology

Lem as critic and theorist of the genre (Fantastyka i futurologia)

Post-1989 and Contemporary Voices

Jacek Dukaj, Jarosław Grzędowicz, Marek Huberath, and other contemporary authors

Speculative elements in literary/crossover fiction (e.g. Olga Tokarczuk)

Polish fantasy and its relationship to the SF tradition (including Sapkowski)

Translation, Circulation, and Reception

The politics and practice of translating Polish SF into English

Publishing history: which authors and works reach Anglophone readers, and why

Comparative reception of Polish SF in the West versus domestically

Polish Science Fiction on Screen

Polish-made dystopian and speculative cinema (e.g. Piotr Szulkin's tetralogy, Andrzej Żuławski)

Adaptation studies: Lem's Solaris and its cinematic afterlives, approached through fresh angles (production politics, reception history, or contemporary resonance) rather than as a straightforward novel-versus-film comparison

Polish SF's influence on or intersection with games and other media (e.g. CD Projekt Red)

 

Send an abstract of 300-500 words and a short (150-word max) academic biography by October 15, 2026, to Dr. Agnieszka Gutthy at agutthy@selu.edu

When accepted, full chapter (5000-8000 words including notes and bibliography) will be due May 15, 2027.

Lech Maligranda: Juliusz Schauder (1899–1943). Wydawnictwo UMK 2026.

 Lech Maligranda: Juliusz Schauder (1899–1943). Wydawnictwo UMK 2026. ISBN: 978-83-231-6343-5

Monografia jest pierwszą pełną i obszerną biografią jednego z najwybitniejszych polskich matematyków XX wieku – Juliusza Schaudera, wybitnego członka słynnej Lwowskiej Szkoły Matematycznej. Jego nazwisko na trwałe zapisało się w kanonie światowej matematyki. Książka odsłania nie tylko genialną twórczość naukową Schaudera w dziedzinie analizy funkcjonalnej i równań różniczkowych cząstkowych – w tym słynne twierdzenie Schaudera o punkcie stałym, bazy Schaudera, oszacowania Schaudera oraz jego wkład w teorię stopnia Leray–Schaudera – ale przede wszystkim dramatyczny życiorys matematyka.

Autor, prof. Lech Maligranda, przez wiele lat gromadził materiały archiwalne, listy, wspomnienia współpracowników oraz niepublikowane dotąd dokumenty. Monografia w sposób szczególnie dokładny przedstawia losy Schaudera w trakcie II wojny światowej, jego tragiczną śmierć w 1943 roku oraz historię jego córki – Ewy Schauder (1938–1991), która ocalała z Holokaustu.

Ta książka to nie tylko naukowa biografia wybitnego matematyka, lecz także głęboko poruszająca opowieść o geniuszu, pasji badawczej i ludzkim dramacie wpisanych w tragiczną historię Zagłady.

Petr Kadlec and Ivan Puš: Modernisation of Commercial Education in Imperial Austria, 1848–1918. Patterns, Trends, Processes.

Petr Kadlec and Ivan Puš: Modernisation of Commercial Education in Imperial Austria, 1848–1918. Patterns, Trends, Processes. De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2026. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783112242698

About this book

This publication has been peer reviewed. 

Were commercial schools a natural product of the modernising society or rather a precondition for its successful development and the state's well-being? In this monograph, the authors trace the trends, processes and circumstances of the creation of modern vocational schools, specifically of various types of commercial schools.

Lying at the edge of social and business history and history of education, the book leads the reader through Imperial Austria in the years 1848–1918, providing numerous examples of school practice. It explains the social, economic and political circumstances in which the commercial schools were created, and how far this was the initiative of merchants, municipalities, provincial authorities or the state administration. It also describes the opportunities that commercial schools offered to women. The final chapter discusses the impact of the Great War on schools, their pupils and their teachers.

This book will appeal to anyone interested in the history of education and social or business history of the 19th and 20th centuries. Where possible, it draws comparisons with other European countries, opening up reflections on the modernisation of Europe at that time, especially in Germany, Hungary and France.

Author / Editor information

Petr Kadlec, University of Ostrava, Czech Republic; Ivan Puš, Palacký University Olomouc, Czech Republic.

Call for Articles: “The Aesthetics of Contamination ”, 79 (2/2027)

 CFA: “The Aesthetics of Contamination ”, The Polish Journal of Aesthetics, 79 (2/2027)

Submission deadline: 31 January 2027; Editors: Mădălina Diaconu (University of Vienna), Miloš Ševčík (Charles University, Prague)

The term contamination typically has negative connotations in biological, medical, and environmental contexts, while linguistics and literary studies employ it as a neutral technical term. While contamination has hitherto only exceptionally been applied to aesthetic contexts (Schneemann, Wolodzko), the planned issue aims to demonstrate that thanks to its ambivalence it can be used for a general aesthetic model that accounts for both the dynamics of complex structures (including aesthetic experience) and the negative effects of interactions. Both these aspects of a potential aesthetic model are highly relevant at the present: the theoretical paradigm of contamination can reveal covert, obscure influences in our age of global interconnectedness, when technology and new media have largely abolished physical distances, and the noxious dimension of contamination corresponds to the recent urge to elaborate a negative aesthetics (Berleant, Brady, Saito). In addition to conceptual clarifications, the issue welcomes analyses of processes of contamination in art and media, environmental experience, everyday life, and sociocultural processes.

Contamination’s ambivalence can be traced to its roots in Latin, where it literally means the neutral act of touching together and by extension came to denote staining, soiling, infecting, or corrupting through contact or mere association. Nowadays, the term contamination evokes physical and chemical processes, from heat induction and infiltration to their results – material alloys, emulsions, suspensions, and amalgams – which can be found both in artistic production and environmental processes. The figurative meaning of contamination is related to influences and by extension implies transfer, interpenetration, entanglement, coalescence, and dissemination, all processes facilitated by contiguity. Also, analysing a process in terms of contamination involves making clarifications regarding the homogeneity/heterogeneity of the interacting units, the degree of fusion, and the intensity of interaction.

The aesthetics of contamination encompasses dynamics and generativity, as well as the outcome of the interpenetration of elements. For example, the concept of contamination can shed new light on the nature of aesthetic experience, especially in relation to contemporary discussions about the atmospheric dimension of this experience. In this respect, the model of contamination revisits an aesthetic theory that endeavoured to locate the aesthetic experience in particular faculties. On the other hand, it is the object of aesthetic experience itself, be it a work of art, a non-artistic artefact, or a natural item, that takes on a dynamic, mutable character in terms of contamination. Last, but not least, a neutral understanding of contamination enables us to highlight the fluid boundaries and transitions between aesthetic and non-aesthetic experiences or art and non-art.

These advantages in applying the concept of contamination to aesthetic issues cannot abstract from the challenges posed by the concept itself: by definition, contamination involves indeterminacy and contingency. Contamination escapes intentionality and full control, both in terms of regulating interactions and anticipating their consequences; contaminations are irreducible to clear influences and deliberate imitations. On the contrary, contamination implies a diffuse spreading, confused alterations, an insidious seeping into the social fabric and creeping “below the radar”, subterranean correspondences, and accidental, even unconscious, borrowings. Processes of contamination are also characterized by accretion: contamination is transformed (often irreversibly) through the accumulation of small, long-unnoticed changes.

In general, contamination challenges analytical approaches; why contamination happens and how it works are less clear than its effects, which include internalized hybridity and transformation, the blurring of boundaries, and, eventually, the fusion (i.e., indiscernibility) of its previous elements. On the whole, the aesthetics of contamination echoes the pervasiveness of the aesthetic in late modernity and the “fluidity” of our age and resonates with contemporary philosophy’s growing interest in processes.

Possible research questions include the following:

Can aesthetic experience be described as a process of contamination and which further conceptual tools seem most appropriate for this description?

Is contamination always mutual or can it also remain unilateral? What is the relationship between contamination and the fusion of elements?

Can synesthesia be characterized as sensory contamination?

What is the relationship between contamination and atmosphere/ambiance? What role does emotional contamination play in the aesthetic experience (e.g., contagious sadness and laughter, attunement as atmospheric contagion in mass popular culture events, etc.)?

What impact does the contamination of values have on the aesthetic experience (e.g., when moral criteria influence environmental appreciation and political values, the assessment of social-aesthetic phenomena)? In particular, how can different values intermingle or collide in the appreciation of literally contaminated landscapes?

How can the model of contamination enrich theories about artistic production? Can collective artistic emulation be subsumed to contamination? What about the empathic identification of writers and actors with their characters?

In which ways can contamination shed new light on the theory of intermediality in art?

How can insights into spatial contamination (e.g., between a work of art and its environment) and temporal contamination (e.g., when authoritarianism, intolerance, and violence gradually “seep” into society) foster new approaches in aesthetics?

Submission deadline: 31 January, 2027.

Author Guidelines: We ask Authors to read our guidelines posted under the tab For Authors, as well as to double-check the completeness of each submission (please do not forget to collectively submit: the abstract, keywords, bibliography, and a biographical note about the author) before submitting.

Only complete submissions sent through the submissions page will be accepted—submission page: https://submissions.pjaesthetics.uj.edu.pl/index.php/PJA

All submitted articles are subject to double-blind reviews. Articles published in The Polish Journal of Aesthetics are assigned DOI numbers.

Robert T. Tomczak: Studenci z Rzeczypospolitej na Uniwersytecie w Bazylei w latach 1500–1800. Studium prozopograficzne [Students from the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth at the University of Basel, 1501–1800. A prosopographical study].

Robert T. Tomczak: Studenci z Rzeczypospolitej na Uniwersytecie w Bazylei w latach 1500–1800. Studium prozopograficzne [Students from the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth at the University of Basel, 1501–1800. A prosopographical study]. Poznań: Adam Mickiewicz University Press 2026. DOI: 10.14746/amup.9788323245278

 

Wprowadzenie (https://press.amu.edu.pl/pub/media/productattach/w/p/wprowadzenie_tomczak_studenci_z_rzeczypospolitej_2026_amup.pdf)

Spis treści (https://press.amu.edu.pl/pub/media/productattach/s/p/spis_tresci_tomczak_studenci_z_rzeczypospolitej_2026_amup.pdf)

Summary (https://press.amu.edu.pl/pub/media/productattach/s/u/summary_tomczak_studenci_z_rzeczypospolitej_2026_amup.pdf)

Zusammenfassung (https://press.amu.edu.pl/pub/media/productattach/z/u/zusammenfassung_tomczak_studenci_z_rzeczypospolitej_2026_amup.pdf)

Książka Studenci z Rzeczypospolitej na Uniwersytecie w Bazylei w latach 1500–1800 stanowi pierwsze kompleksowe opracowanie poświęcone obecności Polaków i Litwinów w jednym z najważniejszych ośrodków intelektualnych Europy nowożytnej. Autor, wykorzystując metody prozopograficzne i ilościowe, rekonstruuje sieć kontaktów akademickich łączących Bazyleę z elitami Rzeczypospolitej oraz analizuje ich motywacje, pochodzenie społeczne, wyznanie, kierunki studiów i dalsze kariery. Praca ukazuje, jak wczesnonowożytna mobilność akademicka kształtowała przepływ idei, wiedzy i książek między Polską a Szwajcarią, a także jak stereotyp „hojnego Polaka” wpłynął na integrację studentów w środowisku reformowanym. To interdyscyplinarne studium łączy historię uniwersytetów, kultury i religii, wpisując dzieje polskich peregrynantów w szerszy kontekst europejskiej res publica litteraria.

Call for Papers: Metals, Minerals, and Material Worlds: Art, Extraction, and Knowledge in Central Europe and Beyond

Call for Papers: Metals, Minerals, and Material Worlds: Art, Extraction, and Knowledge in Central Europe and Beyond

An International Symposium of the Minescapes Research Project

Institute of Art History, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague May 19-21, 2027.

We invite proposals for papers for an international symposium, Metals, Minerals, and Material Worlds: Art, Extraction, and Knowledge in Central Europe and Beyond, to be held at the Institute of Art History of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague on May 19–21, 2027. Proposals are due October 1, 2026 (see submission details below).

This symposium, organized by Tina Asmussen (German Mining Museum Bochum: Leibniz Research Museum for Georesources) and Pamela Smith (Center for Science and Society, Columbia University), with Sylva Dobalová and Martin Mádl (both Institute of Art History, Czech Academy of Sciences), is part of the ongoing series Minescapes: Socio-Natural Sites of Resource, Extraction, and Knowledge that investigates the complexity and dynamics of human-environmental interactions in mining landscapes using the concept of a “material complex.” Research on a material complex begins in a study of the natural materials and follows them through reciprocal interactions with human bodily practices, techniques, and skills into substances and objects that are given meaning, used, consumed, desired, and studied by human communities. Each of these stages—the materials; the human–material interactions via skilled practice; and the objects and subjects and their meanings in production, use, consumption, and afterlives—can and often do form self-contained sites of study and analysis. In contrast, the Minescapes events aim, through drawing upon the archives of nature (mines, forests, water systems) and society (archives, libraries, art collections), to bring together these often rich separate areas of study into a unified field in order to raise fruitful questions for individual disciplines as well as for the whole.

The Prague symposium brings together scholars from across disciplines to examine the material worlds of metals and minerals—following them from the geological and mineralogical conditions of their formation, through their extraction, smelting, processing, transport, and trade, into the objects, images, and substances they become, and on to their use, consumption, and afterlives. Central Europe—with its long and densely documented history of metal and mineral extraction, its merchant-capitalist enterprises, and its movement of materials across local and global networks—offers a rich setting for these questions, while contributions that extend the perspective beyond the region are equally welcome.

We welcome proposals from scholars in any discipline and at any career stage whose work speaks to the symposium theme. We are especially interested in contributions that bridge the disciplinary boundaries by which the study of metals and minerals has conventionally been divided. Relevant fields and approaches include, but are not limited to:

●       the history of art and art conservation, including technical art history and conservation science, with particular interest in early modern sculpture, metalwork, and the material culture of metals and minerals

●       the history of early modern science, technology, and medicine, including metallurgy, mineralogy, and alchemy

●       environmental, economic, and political-economic history, including the organization of mining, labor, capital, and trade

●       the history of mining and of mining knowledge

●       the natural sciences, including geology, geochemistry, geography, forest science, and materials science

By bringing these conventionally separate fields into conversation, the symposium aims to construct a more integrated history of art and making as human engagement with the materials of the natural environment.

Practical information

This symposium is generously supported by the Getty Foundation's Connecting Art Histories program, through the project The Material Complex of Copper in Central Europe and Beyond. In keeping with the program’s aims, the symposium seeks to bridge the historical geo-political divisions that have long separated research networks across Europe, and therefore especially encourages the participation of scholars based at Central and Eastern European institutions. Scholars from all regions and institutions are warmly invited to apply; please note, however, that the symposium's capacity to provide full financial support for travel and accommodation will be limited.

Proposals should include full name, current affiliation, and email address; a paper title; an abstract of no more than 300 words; a short CV (max. 2 pages with PhD or other terminal degree completion year or expected completion).

Submissions are due October 1, 2026, and should be sent to minescapes2027@gmail.com.