SOKOŁOWSKI Mikołaj

Born on 13 August 1972 in Warsaw; son of the economist Mirosław Sokołowski and the teacher Danuta Binkowska. He completed advanced secondary education at the Stefan Batory Grammar School No. II in Warsaw, where he was a pupil in a class with Italian-language teaching. He started studying Polish philology, with a major in teaching, at the University of Warsaw (UW) in 1991. He graduated with a master's degree (graded summa cum laude) in 1996, submitting the thesis Aniołowie myśli. Mowa, pismo, mesjanizm wedle Mickiewicza (Angels of Thought: Speech, writing and messianism according to Mickiewicz), which was supervised by Prof. Maria Janion. He made his debut in 1995 with an excerpt of his master's thesis that was published in 1995 in "Teksty Drugie" (no. 6). From 1996, he was on the doctoral programme at the School of Social Sciences at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology (IFiS) of the Polish Academy of Sciences, developing a thesis with the working title Romantyzm i pismo (Romanticism and Writing). He also gave a series of guest lectures there on the subject of Italian philosophy. In 2001, he was appointed to a post at the Department of Romantic Literature at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IBL PAN). His research focused on Romantic literature as well as other themes, including the connections between Slavic and Romance (primarily Italian) literatures. His reviews, articles and translations from Italian appeared in periodicals including "Archiwum Historii Filozofii i Myśli Społecznej" (2000 and 2001), "Kresy" (2000, 2003, and 2006), "Przegląd Filozoficzny" (2000), "Pamiętnik Literacki" (2001, 2004, and 2005), "Teksty Drugie" (2004 and 2007), "Teatr" (2006-08, 2010, 2012, and 2014), "Kronos" (2007), "Studi Comparatistici" (2009) and "pl.it" (2013). In 2003, he was awarded a doctoral degree for his dissertation "Król Duch" Juliusza Słowackiego a epopeja słowiańska. Wybrane zagadnienia (Juliusz Słowacki's "King-Spirit" and Slavic Epic Poetry: Selected issues), which was supervised by Prof. M. Janion and for which he received second prize in the K. Szaniawski Award, presented by the Society for the Support and Propagation of Science. That year, he was appointed lecturer at IBL and a secretary at the IBL PAN Scientific Council. He served in this role until 2006, the same year that he was awarded a habilitation degree for his study Idee dodatkowe. Mickiewicz i włoski sensualizm (Auxiliary Ideas: Mickiewicz and Italian sensualism). From 2006 to 2009, he was deputy director for academic affairs and in 2010 was appointed director of IBL PAN. In 2009, he received a grant from the Foundation for Polish Science to conduct research at the Royal Library of Turin (Biblioteca Reale di Torino). In 2010, he was made associate professor, then in 2012 state-appointed professor and full professor at IBL PAN. In 2010, he was appointed to the Council of Directors of Scientific Institutes of the Polish Academy of Sciences, while in 2017 he was made Head of the Council of Understanding of Scientific Institutes of PAN (PIN PAN), an organization the brings together research institutions of the Polish Academy of Sciences in order to maintain their broadly conceived legal, research and economic autonomy. In 2011, he joined the scientific council of the publication series Czarny Romantyzm (Black Romanticism) and the editorial council of the periodical "Świat Tekstów". In 2013, he joined the board of the international journal "Ri-cognizioni" and the Scientific Council of the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences. He is a member of the Italian Association of Polish Studies Scholars (AIP). He lives in Warsaw.