In analyzing selected aspects of the debate over offending religious feelings, the author discusses Saby Mahmood’s argument that religiousness in public discourses of the Western world is basically perceived as a speculative phenomenon concerning the sphere of abstract beliefs. It is assumed therefore that the harm that can be produced by the publication of a blasphemous illustration is lesser and less palpable than in the case of hate speech directed toward a race or sexual orientation. The author’s analysis, which is undertaken from a Durkheim perspective, shows that, for example, the caricaturized presentation of a religious symbol constitutes not so much an act of undermining the abstract image as—in the affective perspective of the religious—an act violating the sense of ontological security of a given moral community which that symbol represents. At the same time, the Durkheim perspective facilitates an understanding of why religious symbolic resources can be ambivalently used in processes of legitimating social actions, beginning with constructive forms of civil public religions to extreme fundamentalist movements making use of violence and the discourses of political extremism.

In the article, the authors propose a typology of political knowledge from online learning activities and test its validity in an empirical qualitative study. The essence of their proposal is that meaningful study of the process of acquiring knowledge (rational analysis of factors modifying attitudes) must take into account both the perspective of the citizen (the demand for information) and an analysis of the publicly available knowledge (the supply of information). The authors distinguish three main methods of acquiring information: heuristic, reflective, and by-product learning. They note the importance of generational factors in shaping the cognitive activity of Internet users. There has been a gradual increase in the importance of source management, with simultaneous alienation and skepticism towards information obtained on the Internet. While the authors’ analysis is restricted to the Internet, their approach is not reductionist in that they consider the internet to be a medium for traditional media and its influence on civic attitudes.

The author refers to Roland Barthes’s early concept of mythology in analyzing the films of Jerzy Kawalerowicz, one of the most outstanding Polish directors of the twentieth century. He interprets three of Kawalerowicz’s films, Pociąg [Night Train], Matka Joanna od Aniołów [Mother Joan of the Angels] and Faraon [Pharoah], which are read in the mythological register and in the political context. First the statements of the director in regard to each film are presented, then the judgments of film critics are provided, and finally the author gives his own interpretation. Night Train is shown as a film addressing the wrongs of the Stalinist era, and the problem of a totalitarian state. Mother Joanne of the Angels questions the sense of ideology in a totalitarian world, and is partially the director’s search for political identity, while Pharoah is a look at the post-October reformers and the reasons for their failure. Pharoah also provides a new vision of the state.

The author of the article proposes a relational analysis of literary culture. Relational research treats the newest model of literary production as a set of complex relations between the author and his or her image, the text, economics, marketing, criticism by the work’s audience, the media, the technological framework, and so forth. These relations provide the sphere of possibilities for literature and its agents. Increasingly intricate relations are drawing the fields of literature, the media, and economics nearer to each other; these fields are becoming more accessible in order to facilitate the exchange of various kinds of capital and to create conditions for the development of literary fame and author brands. The relational concept of literary culture provides a better tool for the analysis of the contemporary phenomenon of writer-celebrities, which is key to understanding the functioning of the entire field of literature.

This paper addresses issues of feminism, masculinity, and the emotional culture of middle-class men who self-declare as feminists. The author discusses feminist theories on masculinity and its relations with femininity, critical theories of masculinity, and the role of emotional culture in the expression of masculinity. Feminists have proposed a dimorphic definition of feminism as a political movement and personal attitude critical of masculine domination. The critique of patriarchal, hegemonic masculinity has led feminists either to identify with “positive” masculinity or to reject masculinity for a post-gender narrative or material-discursive fact of “being a man,” which suggests an inadequacy of the sex/gender distinction in the description of gender identity. The identification with feminism allows men to avoid the crisis of traditional masculinity and the perspective of gendered emotions, as well as to gain insight into gendered determinants of emotional expression.

Although currently pole dancing is growing in popularity due to its sport dimension, it seems that such a form of expression is still commonly associated with strip clubs and connotes above all the erotic performance of a woman in front of a male audience. And yet, as one can find by frequenting dance studios that teach pole dancing, it is practiced not only by women, but also by men and children. Thus keeping in mind the ambiguity that arises at the intersection of competing optics in decoding the pole dance—with regard to “perpetuate interpretation logic” and the everyday experience of people undertaking the activity—the aim of this paper is to reflect on the issue of constructing and interpreting the meanings of actions and processes within the context of pole dancing. These processes can be seen as a reflection of the everyday life in which they occur.

For several decades of the last century, semiotic arrangements enriched the sociology of culture. The aim of the article is to show the achievements of the empirical school of sociology of culture in the perspective of the significant semiotic issues on the example of selectively selected works of the eminent scientist Antonina Kłoskowska and the “Łódź school” which she created. Thanks to Antonina Kłoskowska, the empirical way of the “Łódź school” sociology of culture led from literature reception research to visual arts research. Her students made a significant contribution to Polish sociology of art, sociology of literature, sociology of film, sociology of theater, and visual sociology. The text attempts to sketch semiotic theoretical inspirations, a characteristic theoretical and methodological approach to the study of symbolic culture. The problems of research on the reception of works were described in the context of selected studies on film reception. The starting point was the empirical research of Antonina Kłoskowska regarding the reception of the screening of the Wedding (dir. A. Wajda, 1973).

This essay contains reflections on the problems of discourse that appear in analyzing written historical sources. The author refers to Krzysztof Gajewski’s book, Reprezentacje komunizmu. PRL z perspektywy badań literackich i kulturowych [The Representation of Communism: The PPR from the Perspective of Literary and Cultural Studies] (2018). The primary findings concern the necessity of taking into account the linguistic framework of the given era.

One of the key issues in contemporary urban studies is to consider the city from the perspective of culture and consumption, which are treated as new drivers of urban development and economic prosperity, the essence of urban ways of life, and arenas for the implementation of urban policies. In a consumer society, cities become important nodes where collective and individual consumption takes place on a massive scale. The urban system organizes capabilities and provides the resources for consumption, thus facilitating various kinds of lifestyles. As a result, the urban space operates as an arena of competition, where different consumer orientations and social categories strive physically and symbolically to occupy ground, produce meanings, and create belonging in the spaces and places that constitute the city. In applying Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of a “social field,” the aim of the article is to show how the space of social positions corresponds to the space of cultural practices. Drawing on the study of cultural and leisure activities in Wrocław, four general categories of urban residents are revealed and characterized by their distinct positions in different dimensions of the social space. The analysis also points to social capital (social networks) as an efficient new principle of cultural differentiation. The paper closes with the author’s concluding remarks and guidelines for further research.

Given the whole spectrum of doubts and controversies that arise in discussions about laws affecting historical memory (and their subcategory of memory laws), the question of assessing them in the context of international standards of human rights protection – and in particular the European system of human rights protection – is often overlooked. Thus this article focuses on the implications and conditions for introducing memory laws in light of international human rights standards using selected examples of various types of recently-adopted Polish memory laws as case studies. The authors begin with a brief description of the phenomenon of memory laws and the most significant threats that they pose to the protection of international human rights standards. The following sections analyse selected Polish laws affecting historical memory vis-à-vis these standards. The analysis covers non-binding declaratory laws affecting historical memory, and acts that include criminal law sanctions. The article attempts to sketch the circumstances linking laws affecting historical memory with the human rights protection standards, including those entailed both in binding treaties and other instruments of international law.

This article explores investment protection under Chinese international investment agreements (IIAs), particularly under the China-Poland bilateral investment treaty (BIT). As a state that both imports and exports foreign direct investment, China currently promotes balanced and safeguarded BITs that protect its increasing overseas investments and preserves the necessary space to regulate in the public interest. The Chinese government remains reluctant to be directly involved in investment arbitration as a respondent, while Chinese investors are active in taking advantage of the IIAs’ regime. When compared to China’s recent treaty practice and new developments in global investment governance, the China-Poland BIT is relatively outdated in terms of investment protection, promotion, social clauses, and dispute settlement. In terms of the investment protection effects of BITs, China is seemingly in a more urgent position to update the China-Poland BIT. However, if we evaluate the overall effects of a modernized BIT on investment promotion, regulation, and dispute settlement, an updated China-Poland BIT will fit the interests of both the Polish and Chinese governments. Notwithstanding the on-going negotiation between the EU and China, this article aims, along with presenting the Chinese practice regarding BITs, to describe de lege lata the state of protection offered to Chinese and Polish investors under the China-Poland BIT.

This article contributes to the growing literature on Art. 7 TEU by showcasing the strong and weak points of this provision in the context of the on-going rule of law backsliding in Hungary and Poland – backsliding which threatens the very fabric of EU constitutionalism. The article presents the general context of the EU’s institutional reactions to the so-called “reforms” in Poland and Hungary, which are aimed at hijacking the state machinery by the political parties in charge. Next it introduces the background of Art. 7 TEU and the hopes the provision was endowed with by its drafters before moving on to analysis of its scope and all the mechanisms made available through this instrument, including the key procedural rules governing their use. The author posits that it may be necessary to put our hopes in alternative instruments and policies to combat the current rule of law backsliding, and the article concludes by outlining three possible scenarios to reverse the backsliding, none of which are (necessarily) connected with Art. 7 as such.

This article is an attempt to identify the essence of new positivism, described by Ludwik Ehrlich as a method of interpretation of international law. The evolution of his views on international law is examined with respect to the place of this method from the beginning of 1920s until his retirement in 1961. The article expounds on both the theoretical and methodological aspects of new positivism, according to which judicial decisions should be taken into account in addition to international treaties and customs for the determination of international law. The question of the obligatory force of international law is discussed as being related to the principle of good faith, which is at the core of Ehrlich’s views on international law. The article offers suggestions on how the method of new positivism might be used and what tasks it can fulfil today. It also makes an attempt to critically analyse Ehrlich’s method and to characterize it both in general and in the context of the theory of international law.

The idea of a Multilateral Investment Court seems to be one of the most prominent initiatives of the “multilateralization” of international investment law during this century. The creation of a new international, permanent court concentrated on settling investor – state disputes is an extraordinary challenge. Possible problems relate not only to the negotiations concerning the organizational and procedural aspects necessary to ensure the efficient operation of this type of body. It is also necessary to take into account the dynamics of the functioning of international adjudication as such, as well as the controversies surrounding the international legal protection of foreign investments.

The article provides an overview of the supranational bank resolution regime established under the Single Resolution Mechanism framework. Both the substantive rules governing the resolution process and its procedural requirements are explained. The main focus of the article is the decision-making practice of the Single Resolution Board (SRB), an EU agency responsible for the execution of the resolution framework, which has already intervened in a number of cases in which banks were considered “failing or likely to fail” by the European Central Bank. The article analyses the existing decisions on resolution action in order to establish how the substantive rules on resolution are interpreted by the SRB in its decision-making practice.

The “plain and intelligible language” requirement performs a dual function within the framework of Council Directive 93/13/EEC of 5 April 1993 on unfair terms in consumer contracts. First, it is listed as a requirement for application of the exemption included in Art. 4(2) as regards policing terms relating to the main subject matter of the contract or to the adequacy of the price and remuneration. Second, the “plain and intelligible language” requirement is a general requirement addressed at all consumer contracts executed in writing (Art. 5). This paper examines the boundaries of the precept, and places particular emphasis on the recent developments in both EU and Polish law, where the requirement has been used to imply a host of information duties aimed at enhancing consumers’ capacity to foresee the consequences of the terms that they are assenting to. This apparently novel approach, which has been developing in piecemeal fashion in the CJEU’s ever-expanding case law, may trigger significant consequences in the field of consumer contract law. In some ways, expansion of the substantive scope of the requirement may be said to be motivated by the fact that courts, under Art. 4(2) of Directive 93/13, are unable to subject the adequacy of the price and remuneration against the services or supply of goods received in exchange to the substantive fairness test under Art. 3(1) (examination of terms through the prism of the notions of good faith and significant imbalance in the parties’ rights and obligations to the detriment of the consumer).

This article concerns constitutional problems related to the implementation of EU directives seen from both the legal and comparative perspectives. The directives are a source of law which share a number of characteristic features that significantly affect and determine the specificity of Member States’ constitutional review of the directives as well as the legal acts that implement them. The review of the constitutionality of EU directives is carried out in accordance with the provisions of national implementing acts. Member States’ constitutional courts adopt two basic positions in this respect. The first position (adopted by, inter alia, the French Constitutional Council and German Federal Constitutional Court) is based on the assumption of a partial “constitutional immunity” of the act implementing the directive, which results in only a partial control of the constitutionality of the implementing acts, i.e. the acts of national law implementing such directives. The second position, (adopted, explicitly or implicitly by, inter alia, the Austrian Federal Constitutional Court, Czech Constitutional Court, Polish Constitutional Court, Romanian Constitutional Court and Slovak Constitutional Court) concerns the admissibility of a full review of the implementing acts. This leads to the admissibility of an indirect review of the content of the directive if the Court examines the provision as identical in terms of content with an act of EU law. Another issue is related to the application of the EU directives as indirect yardsticks of review. The French Constitutional Council case-law on review of the proper implementation of EU directives represents the canon in this regard. Nonetheless, interesting case studies of further uses of EU directives as indirect yardsticks of review can be found in the case law of other constitutional courts, such as the Belgian Constitutional Court or Spanish Constitutional Court. The research presented in this paper is based on the comparative method. The scope of the analysis covers case law of the constitutional courts of both old and new Member States. It also includes a presentation of recent jurisprudential developments, focusing on the constitutional case-law regarding the Data Retention Directive and the Directive on Combating Terrorism.

In EU law a lot of attention has recently been paid to personal data protection standards. In parallel to the development of the general EU rules on data protection, the Members States also develop cooperation between law enforcement agencies and create new information exchange possibilities, including the processing of personal data of participants in criminal proceedings. The aim of this article is to analyse whether the personal data of victims of crime are safeguarded according to the standards of the Charter of Fundamental Rights. For this purpose, the author analyses two directives: 2012/29/EU, which regulates minimum standards of victims of crime; and 2016/680/EU (also known as the Law Enforcement Directive), which regulates personal data processing for the purpose of combating crime. Based on the example of the Polish legislation implementing both directives, the author comes to the conclusion that the EU legislation is not fully coherent and leaves too much margin of appreciation to the national legislator. This results in a failure to achieve the basic goals of both directives. The author expects the necessary reflection not only from the national legislator, but also from the European Commission, which should check the correctness of the implementation of the directives, as well as from national courts, which should use all possible measures to ensure that the national law is interpreted in the light of the objectives of the directives.

This article focuses on mobility of companies in the European Union in the light of the Court of Justice’s judgment in the C-106/16 Polbud – Wykonawstwo sp. z o.o. case. The Court of Justice has once again interpreted the treaty provisions relating to the EU freedom of establishment in the context of cross-border conversion of companies. The in-depth analysis of the case from the substantive law perspective as well as from the conflict-of-law perspective has raised some doubts with regard to the background of the judgment. Therefore, the article assesses whether the cross-border transfer of a seat took place in the Polbud case or the cross-border conversion, or possibly a new company has come into existence. Most of the analysis is aimed at exposing the risks related to the companies’ mobility under the rules adopted in the Polbud judgment, in particular in the absence of respective European and national regulation.

This article critically evaluates the summary procedure introduced by Protocol No. 14 to the European Convention on Human Rights, adopted within the reform of the European Court of Human Rights system. The summary procedure, now set out in Art. 28(1)b of the Convention, was instituted in order to facilitate expediency and to reduce the case load of the Court. This article argues that while judicial economy is a legitimate goal, the summary procedure under Art. 28(1)b has considerable deficiencies that undermine some of the systemic goals and core values of ECHR law. There is a manifest lack of remedies vis-à-vis the choice of the procedure, choice of applicable law, and no appeals against final decisions rendered in the course of the summary procedure. Notably, the concept of “well-established case-law” seems to be neither clear nor reliable, as evidenced in the cases analysed in the article. These cases, which involve the issue of socially- owned property in Serbia, serve to demonstrate some of the significant errors in interpretation and decision-making which can result from application of the summary procedure.