Oriental Studies – Chinese Studies

The first to be established in Poland, the Department of Sinology takes its origins from the Chinese Department created in 1933 at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the University of Warsaw. The most eminent professors associated with the Warsaw Sinology were Witold Jabłoński (1901-1957), Janusz Chmielewski (1916-1998), Olgierd Wojtasiewicz (1916-1995), Tadeusz Zbikowski (1930-1989), Mieczysław Jerzy Kunstler (1933-2007), and Zbigniew Ślączka (1934-2020). Their legacy includes numerous translations of Chinese literary works into Polish (Zhuangzi; Qu Yuan’s Songs from Chu; Confucian Analects; Journey to the West; Romance of the Three Kingdoms), academic writings (Notes on Early Chinese Logic; Sinitic Languages), and publications addressed at the general public (Anthology of Chinese Literature; Chinese Art; History of Chinese Culture).

At present, the academic staff of the department includes one full professor (Lidia Kasarełło), two associate professors, three PhD holders, one lecturing native speaker, and three contracted lecturers from China and Taiwan. The Department of Sinology enrols students on a yearly basis for its first-cycle and second-cycle study programmes, offering courses in modern Chinese (both traditional and simplified characters, mainland and Taiwan standards), classical Chinese, Chinese history, literature, politics, linguistics, history of Chinese art, and translation. Students can apply for long term and short term scholarships to mainland China and Taiwan. Postgraduates may enrol at one of doctoral schools of the University of Warsaw.

The Warsaw Department of Sinology participates in academic exchange with numerous centres in Europe and around the world. Thanks to the support of the Chinese Center for Language Education and Cooperation (former name: Hanban), the Taiwanese Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation, and Huayu Teaching Center, the department library is constantly being enlarged and updated.

Our staff, next to lecturing duties, pursue their own research and publish widely. Their most recent contributions include literary translations: two large anthologies of Chinese and Taiwanese literature, Chinese modern and classical poetry, Chinese philosophy (Mencius with commentaries), and academic writings (Chinese Symbolic Culture; Chinese Female Namings; The Past in the Ideology of the Communist Party of China; Chinese Ghosts and Magic: On the Multilayer Character of the Soushenji; Tired of Modernity).

The Department of Sinology conducts research in the following fields:

• Chinese culture: literature, art and theatre, popular culture of China and Taiwan
• Chinese linguistics
• Teaching Chinese as a second language
• Early Confucian political philosophy
• Modern Chinese politics
• Modern Chinese literature
• History of Chinese Muslims and Chinese nationalism
• Chinese mythology and the religions of Ancient China, Chinese sectarian traditions