Polish Science Fiction: Literature, Film, and Cultural Legacy (edited collection)
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Organization: Edited collection
Polish Science Fiction: Literature, Film, and Cultural Legacy
Despite the international prominence of Stanis?aw Lem and, more recently, Andrzej Sapkowski's The Witcher, Polish science fiction and speculative literature remain strikingly underrepresented in English-language scholarship. Existing criticism tends to orbit a small number of canonical figures and a handful of frequently revisited texts, leaving a rich, historically complex tradition, spanning censorship-era political allegory, post-1989 transformation, contemporary literary crossover, and a distinct national cinema largely unexamined outside of Polish-language scholarship.
This edited collection seeks to address that gap. We invite chapter proposals that expand the scope of English-language engagement with Polish speculative fiction and film: introducing under-translated authors, revisiting canonical figures through new critical lenses, and treating Polish science-fiction cinema as a subject rather than solely through the lens of a single adaptation.
We welcome contributions from literary scholars, film scholars, translation studies specialists, and researchers in Slavic and Central European studies. We are especially interested in proposals that
· move beyond Lem and Sapkowski as the sole representatives of the tradition.
- Bring new theoretical frameworks (postcolonial theory, translation studies, media studies, gender studies, posthumanism) to bear on Polish speculative texts
- Address film and other media as legitimate objects of study, not only as adaptations of literary source material
- Situate Polish SF within broader Central/Eastern European or global speculative fiction discourse
Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
Historical Foundations:
Science fiction under the Polish People's Republic
Censorship, allegory, and political subtext in Cold War-era SF
Fandom, zines, and early SF publishing culture in Poland
Lem Beyond Solaris
Underexamined works: (e.g. The Cyberiad, His Master's Voice, Fiasco, Return from the Stars)
Lem's philosophy of science, epistemology, and technology
Lem as critic and theorist of the genre (Fantastyka i futurologia)
Post-1989 and Contemporary Voices
Jacek Dukaj, Jaros?aw Grz?dowicz, Marek Huberath, and other contemporary authors
Speculative elements in literary/crossover fiction (e.g. Olga Tokarczuk)
Polish fantasy and its relationship to the SF tradition (including Sapkowski)
Translation, Circulation, and Reception
The politics and practice of translating Polish SF into English
Publishing history: which authors and works reach Anglophone readers, and why
Comparative reception of Polish SF in the West versus domestically
Polish Science Fiction on Screen
Polish-made dystopian and speculative cinema (e.g. Piotr Szulkin's tetralogy, Andrzej ?u?awski)
Adaptation studies: Lem's Solaris and its cinematic afterlives, approached through fresh angles (production politics, reception history, or contemporary resonance) rather than as a straightforward novel-versus-film comparison
Polish SF's influence on or intersection with games and other media (e.g. CD Projekt Red)
Send an abstract of 300-500 words and a short (150-word max) academic biography by October 15, 2026, to Dr. Agnieszka Gutthy at agutthy@selu.edu
When accepted, full chapter (5000-8000 words including notes and bibliography) will be due May 15, 2027.
Dr. Agnieszka Gutthy