MOCARSKA-TYCOWA Zofia

Born on 1 September 1943 in the village of Brzostowo (Łomża district); daughter of the farmers Stanisław Mocarski and Eleonora, née Polkowska. She attended the Grammar School in Grajewo. After completing advanced secondary education in 1961, she studied Polish philology at the Nicolaus Copernicus University (UMK) in Torun. She was awarded a master's degree in 1966 and subsequently worked at the Institute of Polish Philology (later the Institute of Polish Literature) at UMK. She was initially appointed trainee assistant and then assistant in 1967 before becoming a senior assistant in 1969. Her research focused on the history of nineteenth-century literature, the history of ideas, and the intersections of literature and painting. She published her first scholarly article in 1966, Warstwy stylistyczne w powieści Stanisława Czernika „Ręka” (Stylistic Layers in Stanisław Czernik's Novel Ręka [The Hand]), in the journal "Językoznawca" (nos 14/15; as: Z. Mocarska). The following year she married Andrzej Tyc, a mathematician who later became the voivode of the Torun voivodeship and served as a senator during the Polish senate's second term (1991-1993). She and her husband were involved in the Torun branch of the Club of Catholic Intelligentsia (KIK). She was awarded a doctoral degree from UMK in 1972 for her dissertation Działalność krytycznoliteracka Teodora Jeske-Choińskiego wobec przełomu antypozytywistycznego (Teodor Jeske-Choiński's Literary Criticism in the context of the Anti-Positivist Turn), which was supervised by Dr Bożena Osmólska-Piskorska. She was appointed lecturer a year later. From 1974 to 1990 she collaborated with Polish institutions specializing in teaching methods, giving lectures on contemporary Polish literature to teachers of Polish in various cities. She was also a member of the District Committee of the Olympiad in Polish Literature and Language. She published scholarly articles and literary pieces in periodicals including the monthlies "W drodze" (1975–77) and "Znak" (1975 and 1981). Between 1978 and 1989, she gave numerous talks as part of the Weeks of Christian Culture. She received four research fellowships that enabled her to visit Italy: in 1979 she received a fellowship from the J.S. Umiastowski Foundation, while in 1982 she visited Perugia and in 1983 Rome and Urbino thanks to grants from Centro Incontri e Studi Europei. In 1987 she received a grant from the John Paul II Institute of Christian Culture to visit Rome. She was a member of the Independent Self-governing Trade Union Solidarity (NSZZ "Solidarność") from 1980 to 1990. She was awarded a habilitation degree from UMK in 1990 for her study Wybory i konieczności. Poezja Asnyka wobec gustów estetycznych i najważniejszych pytań swoich czasów (Choices and Necessities: Asnyk's poetry in the context of the aesthetic tastes and key questions of his epoch). That year she joined the Torun Scientific Society, while from 2004 to 2007 she was secretary of its Philosophical-Philological Section II. She was also a member of the Commission for Specialist Teaching Qualifications (Komisja do spraw Stopni Specjalizacji Nauczycielskich) in Torun from 1991 to 2000. She was appointed president of the Torun Branch of the Adam Mickiewicz Literary Society in 1992. She was made associate professor at UMK in 1995, subsequently serving as head of the Department of Romanticism and Positivism. She was made state-appointed professor in 2007, before being appointed head of the Department of Cultural Studies at UMK the following year. She held this position until her retirement in 2011. She lives in Torun.