IN WONDERLAND. What did Lewis Carroll do to girls? Prof. Dawid Osiński MASTER LECTURE #1

About the event

We are launching a new series of MASTER LECTURES at Big Book Cafe MDM. The guide to the world emerging from "Alice in Wonderland," created by the man hiding under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll, will be the captivating literary historian Prof. Dawid Maria Osiński. The partner of the lectures is the publishing house Prószyński i S-ka, which released the Polish translation of the book "Lewis Carroll in Wonderland: The True Story of Alice" by Robert Douglas Fairhurst. Big Book Cafe has taken patronage over this remarkable book. During three lectures, Prof. Osiński will take us into the world of meanings and references hidden in Alice's world, but which also mark our contemporary times. We speak Alice, that is, the language of codes, and our pop culture is full of inspirations drawn from it. The lectures will be a journey through cultural changes and influences of one of the most important books of all time. 📅 Lecture #1: What did Lewis Carroll do to girls? Why did Lewis Carroll correspond with girls for a very long time, miniaturize his letters to young recipients, and collect their photographs? What did he write about in his letters? Did he treat his recipients seriously as equal dialogue partners? What resulted from the fact that the author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland empowered a girl, giving her the opportunity to experience adventures similar to those of a boy protagonist, and was this a step toward nineteenth-century emancipation? 📅 Tuesday, October 7, 7:00 PM 📍 Big Book Cafe MDM, ul. Koszykowa 34/50 🎟️ Free admission Join us in person, the lecture will not be streamed! ABOUT THE MASTER Dawid Maria Osiński (1981) – PhD, professor at the University of Warsaw, literary historian, works at the Department of Literature and Culture of the Second Half of the 19th Century at the Faculty of Polish Studies at UW. Chairman of the Capital District Committee of OLiJP (since 2016), Deputy Director of ILP UW (since 2020), editor-in-chief of "Przegląd Humanistyczny" (since 2025). Author of the monographs Aleksander Świętochowski in Search of Form: Biography of Thought (2011), The Positivists' Legacy of the Enlightenment: Directions and Forms of Reception (2018), co-author of the monograph Difficult Places – A Transdisciplinary Research Model: On the Space of Piłsudski Square and Defilad Square (2019). Research interests include the theory of language of positivists and modernists, Siberian themes in 19th-century literature, and 19th and 20th-century translation studies. UPCOMING MASTER LECTURES 📅 Lecture #2: Killing Time and the Cat's Smile, or Alice in Polish November 4, 7:00 PM The magic of Alice's language revolutionized children's literature and the possibilities of literature in the second half of the 19th century and the 20th century. To what extent do we realize that "we speak Alice" when we look through the looking glass, fall down the rabbit hole, go to tea with the Mad Hatter, spill a puddle or sea of tears, or ponder the meaning of the famous idiom "kill time." Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is one of the three most famous texts in the world, and each translator faced the extraordinary challenge of constructing Alice's world in their language, puns, word games, and the meaning of portmanteau words. Polish translations demonstrate craftsmanship, as evidenced by expressions that have become rooted in our language. 📅 Lecture #3: In the Algorithm of Oddities: Carroll's Biographical Controversies December 2, 7:00 PM Who among us doesn't have quirks and isn't attached to certain rituals, repetitive actions, or specific preferences? Starting from such a full understanding assumption, we will consider the preferences and choices of one of the most fascinating figures of the second half of the 19th century – Lewis Carroll. The biography of the author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is still little known. When pointing to one of his most important heroines and literary characters in world literature – Alice, it is impossible not to show the controversies and fascinations associated with her author, Pastor Charles Ludwig Dodgson – mathematician, photographer, artist, writer, collector. What did Carroll collect, why did he have an obsession with symmetry, mirroring, precision, what scared him, and does it somehow scare us today? Was a great original, a mad language creator, breaking norms hidden under the guise of a bore and provincial bungler? The event was funded under the Permanent Cultural Program of the capital city of Warsaw. Thank you!