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about
I am a Ph.D. student at the Interdisciplinary Doctoral School at the University of Warsaw. I study Polish Sign Language (PJM) and Deaf culture in Poland, as well as social and cultural aspects of mental health care. My background is in cultural studies, but I draw from sociolinguistics, cognitive linguistics, anthropology, ethnomethodology, philosophy, and history. I started learning PJM in high school – it all started with Oliver Sacks’ book Seeing Voices. Enchantment turned into passion, passion into the first research and eventually into the topic of my PhD. After obtaining a Diamond Grant (DI2018 009348), I was able to start large-scale research activities and really try my hand at academia. For me, being part of the university community means acting with other people who also care about learning about and describing the world. I’m also a first-year graduate in Polish Sign Language Philology at the Faculty of Polish Studies at UW, so the basis of my academic development has always been respect for the Deaf community and PJM. In the future, I would very much like to write a book about my experiences traveling, as a hearing and signing person, to communities formed by the Deaf.