Bio

Katarzyna Marciniak is a Classicist (MA 2000) and an Italian Philologist (MA 2003), a graduate from the Interdisciplinary Individual Studies in the Humanities (MISH 2003) at the University of Warsaw. Her PhD dissertation, defended summa cum laude at the Faculty for Polish Studies, University of Warsaw, in 2004, was supervised by Prof. Jerzy Axer and it regarded Cicero’s translations from Greek into Latin as a tool of ideological manipulation. She achieved the Habilitation degree in 2009 and the Full Professor academic title in 2019. She accomplished several research stays in Austria, Germany, and Italy. In 2012 she was elected a member of the Polish Young Academy at the Polish Academy of Sciences (1st term). For two terms she was the Ambassador Scientist of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Poland. At the Faculty of “Artes Liberales” UW she is the Director of the Centre for Studies on the Classical Tradition (OBTA) and the Head of the Cluster: The Past for the Present – the International Research and Educational Progamme. She was also the Vice-Dean for International Cooperation (terms 2016–2020 and 2020–2024).

Prof. Katarzyna Marciniak established the international programme Our Mythical Childhood, bringing together scholars from various continents in the aim of studying the reception of Classical Antiquity in children’s and YA culture. For this programme, she obtained the Loeb Classical Library Grant, Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Alumni Award for Innovative Networking Initiatives, and – for the first time in the Humanities in Poland – the European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator Grant and the ERC Proof of Concept Grant. She is laureate of the Prime Minister of Poland Prize for her PhD-dissertation, the Research Prize of the weekly “Polityka” (2012), the Medal of the 200th Anniversary of the University of Warsaw, the Italian Government Grants, the Humboldt Foundation Research and Return Fellowships, and the Foundation for Polish Science’s and the Ministry of Science and Higher Education’s scholarships for excellent young scholars, as well as a Lanckorońscy Foundation grant. The Chapter at the Polish Language Council at the Polish Academy of Sciences granted her the Title of the Young Ambassador of Polish Language.

Prof. Katarzyna Marciniak is involved in the popularization of Classical Antiquity. She introduces children into the realm of myths as the author of the trilogy Moja pierwsza mitologia (My First Mythology; two volumes published so far, 2nd ed. PWN, Warsaw 2021; third volume in preparation). For older readers, she wrote Mitologia grecka i rzymska. Spotkania ponad czasem (Greek and Roman Mythology. Meetings beyond the Time; 2nd expanded ed. PWN, Warsaw 2018), which was honoured with the Klio Award 2nd Class for the Best Historical Book of the Year (1st. ed., 2010). She translated into Polish the Latin monologues of Octavia in Pseudo-Seneca’s tragedy about Nero’s wife (ed. Małgorzata Borowska, Warsaw 2001) and the novel for youth The Corps of the Bare-Boned Plane by the American-Canadian author Polly Horvath. She also writes poems for children, e.g., about the cats that surf on the Internet and the mosquitoes that dance the tango. Her poetic collection Alfabet wśród zwierząt (Alphabet among the Animals) received the Nomination in the competition “Book of the Year 2016” of the Polish Section of the IBBY.

Main projects on the reception of Classical Antiquity:

Publications

Media