MITOSEK Zofia

Born on 6 February 1943 in Kazimierz Dolny; daughter of the craftspeople Kazimierz Dunia and Janina, née Szymanowska. After completing her education at a grammar school in Kazimierz Dolny in 1961, she studied Polish philology at the University of Warsaw (UW), while also taking a degree in philosophy from 1963; she graduated with a master's degree in both subjects in 1966 and 1968 respectively. She married the hydrologist Henryk Tadeusz Mitosek in 1965. In 1966, she joined the doctoral programme at the Faculty of Polish Philology at UW. In 1967, she made her debut with the article Zygmunt Łempicki – sens niekonsekwencji (Zygmunt Łempicki: The meaning of inconsistency), which appeared in the journal "Studia Filozoficzne" (no. 3). She was employed as senior research assistant in 1972 before being awarded a doctoral degree in 1973 for her thesis Funkcje stereotypów w literaturze (The functions of stereotypes in literature), which was supervised by Prof. Stefan Żółkiewski. She was then appointed lecturer at the Departement of Literary Theory and Poetics as the Faculty of Polish Philology at UW. From 1976 to 1979, she was employed as a tutor in Polish language at the Université des Sciences Humaines in Strasbourg. She was awarded a habilitation degree in 1982 for her study Teorie badań literackich. Przegląd historyczny *Theories of literary studies: A historical overview). The following year, she was appointed senior lecturer at UW. Between 1987 and 1990, she served as associate dean at the Faculty of Polish Philology at UW. During this period, she travelled to Paris for three research fellowships, each lasting several weeks, as part of the Action Thématique Programmée. Her research included searching for evidence on French opinions on Adam Mickiewicz, while she also attended seminars by Gérard Genette and Jacques Derrida). Between 1992 and 1995, she was a tutor and lecturer in Polish literature at Université de Provence in Aix-en-Provence. Upon returning to Warsaw, she resumed her post at the Institute of Polish Literature (ILP) at the Faculty of Polish Philology at UW. She was made appointed professor in 1996. Between 2000 and 2005, she was head of the Department of Literary Theory at ILP at UW. From 2000 until 2003, she was chair of the Commission for Literature and Documentation of the State Committee for Scientific Research. From 2002 to 2005, she was a member of the Scientific Council of the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IBL PAN) and the Committee on Literary Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences (KNoL). She joined the International Comparative Literature Association. In May 2003, she was a visiting lecturer at the Institut National des Langues Orientales in Paris, while in autumn 2004 she spent three months at the Department of Comparative Studies at the Université de Montréal. That year, she was appointed full professor at UW. From 2005 to 2008, she served as director of the Centre de Civilisation Polonaise at Université Paris IV (Paris Sorbonne), where she was also a lecturer. She continued to work at ILP at UW. In 2008, she initiated the Niedziele Literackie (Literary Sundays) book club in Kazimierz (in 2016 it became Soboty Literackie – Literary Saturdays), serving as its director until 2018. After retiring in 2013, she continued to teach courses on novels as part of the UW general course offering until 2018. In 2015, she received the Prize of the Prime Minister of Poland in recognition of her outstanding academic achievements. She was awarded the Gold Cross of Merit in 1989 and the Knight's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta in 2002. She lives in Warsaw and Kazimierz Dolny. She has two daughters, the Romance studies scholar and lawyer Małgorzata (b. 1968; married name: Poësson), and the economist Barbara (b. 1984; married name: Kosewska).