The article presents the discipline of celebrity studies and the perspectives of applying it to Polish historical research. Intended to be a discussion opener rather than a complete literature overview, it provides readers with basic information on the discipline, indicates potential problems, and explains the beneficial effects of developing research based on terms and definitions in celebrity studies.

Jürgen Habermas’ theory of the public sphere has provoked a massive reaction in European historiography in the last thirty years. However, methodological debates driven by the new questions that it inspired in Germany, England, or France had no equivalent in Poland and more broadly in Eastern Europe. This essay suggests why this might have been the case and argues for the deeper engagement of Polish historians with the Habermasian theory. In the text, I reintro-duce the aims of the theory of the public sphere and look for the possible roots of its lacklustre reception among Polish historians in the idea about the Polish case’s supposed incompatibility with the course of modern history assumed by Habermas. I argue against this view, emphasising the flexibility and open‑endedness of the main Habermasian concepts, as well as underlining the necessity for a specifically Polish answer to Habermas’ theoretical enterprise. In the final part, I present the opportunities brought by adapting the theory to the Polish case, claiming that the original history of the Polish public sphere could be a prospective topic for both Polish historians and other historians of the public sphere.