Phd in STUDIES IN ENGLISH LITERATURES, LANGUAGE AND
TRANSLATION

email: rafal.boryslawski@us.edu.pl
phone:
building: Institute of English
room: room 4.57

Rafał Borysławski is an Associate Professor in the Institute of Literary Studies, University of Silesia, Poland, and his research focuses chiefly on Old English culture and literature as well as on the questions of medieval culture associated with the field of social history. He has published a book on the idea of enigmaticity in Old English literature and over fifty papers discussing topics devoted to Old English philosophical and cultural outlooks, Middle English romances and fabliaux, and Old French literature and visual culture. He has also co-edited several scholarly volumes of papers related to medieval studies and the intersections of history, historiography and philology. Rafał Borysławski has also co-authored a project resulting in a book of his poetry and computer art inspired by medieval culture. He is a member of ISSEME (International Society for the Study of Early Medieval England), and he has lectured at the Universities of Oslo, Reykjavik, Tarragona, Vilnius, Warsaw, and York St. John. Between 2014 and 2017 and since 2020 he has co-ordinated an international exchange programme for students and scholars wishing to study in Scandinavia and Poland, and, as the supervisor of H/Story (a doctoral research group exploring interdependencies between literary and philological studies), he has organized a number of successful international conferences. 



Main publications:



Books (refereed) edited and co-edited:

1. Rafał Borysławski, Alicja Bemben eds., Emotions as Engines of History (New York: Routledge, 2021), pp. 1-288. ISBN 978-0-367-89405-4

2. Jakub Morawiec, Rafał Borysławski eds., Aspects of Royal Power in Medieval Scandinavia (Katowice: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego, 2018), pp. 1-168.

3. Rafał Borysławski, Justyna Jajszczok, Jakub Wolff, Alicja Bemben eds., Histories of Laughter and Laughter in History. HistoRisus(Newcastle Upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016), pp. 1-245. Book chapters:

4. “’They Could Not Let Her Go With Dry Eyes…’: Manifesting Emotions In the Encomium Emmae Reginae” in: Rafał Borysławski, Alicja Bemben eds., Emotions as Engines of History (New York: Routledge, 2021), pp. 113-131.

5. “The Monsters that Laugh Back: Humour as a Rhetorical Apophasis in Medieval Monstrology” in: Hannah Burrows, Daniel Derrin eds., The Palgrave Handbook of Humour, History, and Methodology (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), pp. 239-256.

6. “Memory and the Transformative Fear In the Exeter Book riddles” in: Jennifer Neville, Megan Cavell eds., Riddles at Work in the Anglo-Saxon Tradition: Words, Ideas, Interactions (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2020), pp. 146-160.

7. “Into the Darkness First: Neoplatonism and Neurosis in Old English Wisdom Poetry” in: Ruth Wehlau ed., Darkness, Depression and Descent in Anglo-Saxon England (Kalamazoo: Western Michigan University Press, 2019), pp. 146-160.

8. “Wundor Wearð on Wege ‘A Wonder Happened On the Way’: Shifting Shapes and Meanings in Old English Riddles” in: Santiago Barreiro and Luciana Cordo Russo eds., Shapeshifters in Medieval North Atlantic Literature (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2018), pp. 21-42.

9. “Hlæfdige and Hlaford: Gendered Power and Images of Continuity in Encomium Emmae Reginae” in: Jakub Morawiec, Rafał Borysławski eds., Aspects of Royal Power in Medieval Scandinavia (Katowice: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego, 2018), pp. 99-112.

10. “Pearl and the Psychosomatics of Dream: Parasomnias as Narrative Strategies in Medieval Dream Visions” in: Jacek Fisiak, Magdalena Bator, Marta Sylwanowicz eds., Essays and Studies in Middle English (Frankfurt am Main–Berlin–Bern–Bruxelles–New York– Oxford–Wien: Peter Lang Verlag, 2017), pp. 283-297