TOMASIK Wojciech

Born on 14 October 1955 in Bialystok; son of the professional soldier Józef Tomasik and Maria, née Gładki. In 1961, he and his parents moved to Bydgoszcz where he attended the L. Szenwald Grammar School No. IV, completing his advanced secondary education in 1974. He started a degree in theoretical physics the same year at the Nicolaus Copernicus University (UMK) in Torun, but abandoned the programme soon afterwards. From 1975, he studied Polish philology at the Higher School of Education (WSP) in Bydgoszcz. He was chair of the Student Academic Circle of Polish Philologists in 1978/79 at WSP in Bydgoszcz. In 1978, he was awarded the Wacław Borowy Prize of the Secretary of the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN). He defended his master's thesis in 1979 and was appointed assistant at the Department of Polish Philology at WSP in Bydgoszcz shortly afterwards. In 1981, he published the report Działalność koła naukowego polonistów w WSP w Bydgoszczy (Activities of the academic circle of Polish philologists at WSP in Bydgoszcz) in the WSP journal "Zeszyty Naukowe WSP w Bydgoszczy”. The same year he also published Wykaz prac magisterskich wykonanych w latach 1977-1979 w Zakładzie Filologii Polskiej WSP w Bydgoszczy (Overview of master's theses submitted between 1977 and 1979 at the Department of Polish Philology at WSP in Bygodszcz) in "Studia Filologiczne" (vol. 11 "Filologia Polska"). He made his debut as a literary historian the following year with the article W przedpokoju literatury nowej. (Historycznoliteracki kontekst powieści Jalu Kurka „Andrzej Panik”) [In the antechamber of new literature (The literary-historical context of Jalu Kurek's novel "Andrzej Panik")], which appeared in "Ruch Literacki" (no. 3/4). He submitted his doctoral thesis, Polska powieść tendencyjna 1949-1955. Problemy perswazji literackiej (Polish littérature engagée 1949-1955: Issues of literary persuasion), which was supervised by Prof. Michał Głowiński, at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IBL PAN) in Warsaw in 1985. That year, he was appointed lecturer at Bydgoszcz WSP. From 1986, he was involved in the District Committee of the Olympiad in Polish Literature and Language at WSP in Bydgoszcz (which later became the Bydgoszcz Academy and then the Kazimierz Wielki University), initially as a member and then as the chair of the Committee from 1996. He was awarded a habilitation degree in 1993 for his study Od Bally’ego do Banfield (i dalej). Sześć rozpraw o „mowie pozornie zależnej” (From Bally to Banfield, and beyond: Six essays on "free indirect speech"), which he defended at IBL PAN in Warsaw. His articles and reviews, largely on socialist-realist literature with a focus on both literary history and literary theory, appeared in periodicals including "Pamiętnik Literacki" (1985-95, and again 2000-03) and "Ruch Literacki” (1986-88). In 1990, he started collaborating with the journal "Teksty Drugie" (to 1995, and again: 1999-2000, 2003, and 2007-08), while he also published in "Kwartalnik Artystyczny" (1994 and 1997-99). In 1993, he was appointed head of the Department of Poetics at the Institute of Polish Philology (IFP) at WSP in Bydgoszcz. He was also appointed associate dean for education at the Faculty of Humanities there, before being made deputy director of the IFP. In 1994, he was made associate professor at WSP. In 1995/96, he was awarded a grant from George Soros' Open Society Foundation to conduct the research project Socialist Realism. A Survey of Recent Accounts. He was a member of the Chapter of the Academic Prizes and Grants of the President of the City of Bydgoszcz (1995-98) and later of the Chapter of the President of the City of Bydgoszcz Prize (2002-05). Between 1996 and 2003, he was chair of the editorial committee of the bilingual Polish-German periodical "Konfiguracje", which appeared as part of the series Zeszyty Naukowe WSP w Bydgoszczy. He was appointed to the Scientific Council of IBL PAN in 1999. The same year, he joined the Committee on Literary Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences (KNoLP; which in 2003 became the Committee on Literary Studies – KNoL). From 2007 to 2010, he was chair of the KNoL Prize Commission. In 2000, he was made state-appointed professor. WSP in Bydgoszcz became the Bydgoszcz Academy in 2000 and the following year, he was appointed Chair of Contemporary Culture at IFP, a role that he retained after restructuring and the formation of the Kazimierz Wielki University in 2005. Between 2002 and 2005, he held leadership positions at the Academy, serving as vice-rector for organizational affairs and development. He was also a member of the Academy's Senate. From 2002 to 2010, he was on the editorial team of the Bydgoszcz-based international journal "Blok", which focused on Stalinist-era and post-Stalinist culture. From 2005 to 2012, he was on the editorial board of "Dyskurs", the yearbook of the Institute of Polish Studies and Cultural Studies at the University of Szczecin. Between 2003 and 2010, he was also employed at the Bydgoszcz Campus of the Lodz Higher School of Humanities and Economics (which in 2009 became the University of Humanities and Economics in Lodz), serving as Chair of Cultural Studies from 2007. Alongside his post at the Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz, he also worked at the State School of Higher Vocational Education in Ciechanów from 2010 to 2015. He was mentor of the programme in cultural studies at the Faculty of Health and Humanities. He gave lectures at universities in Sweden (Stockholm and Uppsala in 2001), USA (New York in 2001 and Chicago in 2002), Canada (Toronto in 2002) and Belgium (Brussels in 2005). He joined the international scholarly associations, the International Association for Multidisciplinary Approaches and Comparative Studies related to Emile Zola and his Time, Naturalism, Naturalist Writers and Artists, Naturalism and the Cinema around the World (AIZEN; in 1999), the Society of Historians of East European and Russian Art (SHERA; in 1999) and the Canadian Association of Slavists (CAS; in 2000). In 2008, he became a member of Towarzystwo Popierania i Krzewienia Nauk (the Society for the Support and Propagation of Science). He married the Polish language teacher Małgorzata Podlasińska in 1979; they have a son, Piotr. He lives in Bydgoszcz.