Sławomir Łotysz, PhD, Associate Professor

20.06.2020 | 21.01.2026

Associate Professor

History of Technology Research Unit Room: A02 Office hours: Warsaw – last Thursday of the month 12:00-3:00pm (any changes listed here); Kraków/online – any other Thursday 10:00-1:00pm (please arrange in advance via phone or e-mail E-mail: s.lotysz@gmail.com ORCID: 0000-0003-4426-6401 Personal website: https://lotysz.webd.pl/

Academic interests

• History of inventiveness
• Environmental History of Polesie
• UNRRA activity in Poland
• Disability and technology

Education, academic degrees and titles

• 2014 DSc (habilitacja), Institute for the History of Science, PAS, Warsaw
• 2005 PhD, Institute for the History of Science, PAS, Warsaw
• 1996 MSc in Architecture, Poznan University of Technology

Employment

• 2014 Institute for the History of Science, PAS
• 2014–2016 Higher Vocational School in Kalisz
• 1998–2014 University of Zielona Góra

International experience

• 2022 Pripet Marshes. Nature, knowledge, and politics in Polish Polesie until 1945 Polish, Studies Center, Indiana University w Bloomington (USA)
• 2015 Prague, Czech Republic, exchange between the Polish Academy of Sciences and Akademie věd České republiky, 1 week
• 2014–2015 The Netherland Institute for Advanced Studies (NIAS), Wassenaar, Holland, Andrew Mellon Fellowship, 5 months
• 2012 Engineers, germs, and politicians. The difficult beginnings of the antibiotics industry in Eastern Europe. Invited lecture at the Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
• 2012 Centre for the History of Science, Technology & Medicine and Wellcome Unit, University of Manchester, Great Britain –  research stay within the European Science Foundation “DRUGS” programme, 2 weeks
• 2012 Laboratoire d’Etude du Phénomène Scientifique, Université Lyon 1, France– research stay within the European Science Foundation “DRUGS” programme, 2 weeks
• 2008 Before Kevlar: The Amazing Transnational Quest for the Bulletproof Vest. Invited lecture at the East Central European Center, Columbia University, New York, USA
• 2008 Silk Against Bullets: The Birth of Modern Soft Armor. Invited lecture at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA
• 2007–2008 SHOT International Scholar, 2 years
• 2007–2008 Chemical Heritage Foundation, Philadelphia, USA, The Charles Price Fellowship, 9 months
• 2004 New School University, New York, United States, The Kosciuszko Foundation Fellowship, 5 months

Participation in national and international research projects

• Project Leader of “Media and Epidemics Technologies of Science Communication and Public Health in the 20th and 21st Centuries” project in the CHANSE  http://lotysz.webd.pl/
• 2022–2025: “Media and Epidemics: Technologies of Science Communication and Public Health in the 20th and 21st Centuries”. International project (together with the University of Heidelberg, University of Birmingham, and the University of Bucharest) financed by the CHANSE programme (Coordinator of the Polish Research Team)
• 2021 “Expertise in authoritarian societies. Human sciences in the socialist countries of East-Central Europe”. GAČR EXPRO (Grantová agentura České republiky) research project at the Masaryk University in Brno (team member)
• 2020 „Pomóżcie zapomnieć, do czego nie nadaję się z powodu kalectwa, powiedźcie co mogę robić i dajcie mi taką pracę”. Pomoc społeczności międzynarodowej w rehabilitacji osób z niepełnosprawnościami w Polsce po II wojnie światowej. PFRON research project (Principal Investigator)
• 2019 „Nowoczesność, jakość i estetyka” wyposażenia gospodarstw domowych. Wpisywanie ideologii w artefakty kultury materialnej w socjalistycznej Polsce (1970–1989). NCN research project (team member)
• 2016 „Druga Holandia” czy naturalna forteca? Kwestia osuszenia Polesia w II Rzeczpospolitej. NCN research project (Principal Investigator)
• 2015 Od programu pomocowego do embarga strategicznego. Społeczność międzynarodowa wobec dążeń krajów Środkowej i Wschodniej Europy do uzyskania penicyliny po II wojnie światowej. NCN research project (Principal Investigator)
• 2011–2013 Making Europe: Technology and Transformations, 1850–2000 (team member)

Membership in scientific councils and editorial boards of journals and publishing series

• History of science and technology (Історія науки і техніки), member of the Editorial Board
• Icon: Journal of the International Committee for the History of Technology, member of the Editorial Board
• Kwartalnik Historii Nauki i Techniki, member of the Editorial Board

Membership in scientific societies and organisations

• International Committee for the History of Technology (ICOHTEC)
  2021–2023 Webmaster
  2017–2021 President
  2013–2017 Secretary General
  2008–2011 member of the Executive Committee
  2006– member
• Society for the History of Technology (SHOT)
  2022–2024 member of the Nominating Committee
  2017– member
• Commission on the History of Science of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences
  2015–2022 – member

Selected Publications

Authored and co-authored books

• (2022) Pińskie Błota. Natura, wiedza i polityka na polskim Polesiu do 1945 roku, Cracow: Universitas, 572 pp.
• (2022) Pripet Marshes. Nature, knowledge, and politics in Polish Polesie until 1945, Cracow: Universitas, 572 pp. (www.pinskieblota.lotysz.webd.pl)
• (2020) Factories as Aid. Penicillin behind the Iron Curtain, 1945-54 (in Polish: Fabryka z darów. Penicylina za żelazną kurtyną 1945-1954), Warsaw: Aspra JR, 250 pp.
• (2018) Polscy wynalazcy. 100 polskich wynalazców na 100-lecie Urzędu Patentowego RP, Bielsko-Biala: Dragon, 191 pp.
• (2013) Wynalazczość polska w Stanach Zjednoczonych, Warsaw: Aspra-JR, 346 pp.

Chapters in edited volumes

• Praczyk, M., Szmytka, R., Szpak, E. (2024) ‘Historia środowiskowa polskich miast od nowożytności do końca XX w. – synteza problemów badawczych’, in: Kuklo, C. and Walczak, W. (eds.) Człowiek twórcą historii. T. 1. Człowiek i praca w procesie modernizacji społecznej i gospodarczej. Białystok: Uniwersytet w Białymstoku, pp. 25-39.
• (2021) ‘Knowledge as aid: Locals experts, international health organizations and building the first Czechoslovak penicillin factory, 1944–9’, in: Reinisch, J. and Brydan, D. (eds.), Europe’s Internationalists: Rethinking the History Internationalism. London: Bloomsbury, pp. 140-157. DOI: 10.5040/9781350118546.0016.
• (2021) ‘A bargain or a ‘mousetrap’? Reused penicillin plant and the Yugoslavians quest for a healthier life in the early post-war era (1946–1950)’, in: Krebs, S. and Weber, H. (eds.) The Persistence of Technology. Histories of Repair, Reuse and Disposal. Bielefeld: Transcript, pp. 185–204. DOI: 10.1515/9783839447413-010.
• (2019) ‘<Gdyby zamiast Rosji było morze…>. Techniczne i polityczne problemy odwodnienia Polesia w II Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej’, in: Zasztowt, L. and Szumski, J. (eds.) Rok 1918. Odrodzona Polska i sowiecka Rosja w nowej Europie, T. I. Warsaw: Instytut Historii Nauki PAN, pp. 435–450.
• (2017) ‘Postęp kontra natura na marginesie dyskusji o planowanym osuszeniu Polesia w II Rzeczypospolitej’, in: Milecka, M. (ed.) Kulturowe i cywilizacyjne postawy Polaków. Sztuka jako inspiracja do działań. Lublin: Wydział Ogrodnictwa i Architektury UP w Lublinie, pp. 123–131.
• (2016) ’89mm From Europe: Mediating Railway Mobility on Russia’s Western Peripheries’, in: Fari, S. and Moraglio, M. (eds.) Peripheral Flows. A Historical Perspective on Mobilities between Cores and Fringes. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 100–126.

Articles

• (2025) ‘The Fear of AIDS in Late Socialist Poland’, Balkanistic Worlds, 1(3), pp. 208–223. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17116565
• (2025) ‘Contempt and Dread: Jewish Farming in Interwar Poland’, Agricultural History, 99(3), pp. 443–475, https://doi.org/10.1215/00021482-11778248
• Sobechowicz, Ł., Obremska, M., Brykała, D., Ćwiek-Rogalska, K., Gąsiorowski, M., Konopski, M., Mulczyk, A., Samojlik, T., Siwek, W. A., Słowiński, M., Szewczyk, K., Stadnicka, M., Targowski, M., Theuerkauf, M., Wolski, J., Związek, T. (2025) ‘With or against the river? Tracing changes and relationships between social and ecological systems on the central Vistula floodplain over the last 200 years’, The Anthropocene Review, 12(2), pp. 302-326. https://doi.org/10.1177/20530196251348937
• Jethron Ayumbah Akallah, Nelson Arellano-Escudero, Animesh Chatterjee,Saara Matala, Min Fanxiang, Stefan Poser, Hugh R. Slotten, and Magdalena Zdrodowska, ‘History of Technology in Global Perspectives’, Icon, 29(1), pp. 9-45, https://doi.org/10.11590/icon.2024.1.01
• (2024) ‘From ghetto to swamps? Lasting Nazi fake news about sending deported Jews to drain the Pripet Marshes’, Journal of Modern Jewish Studies, 23(3-4), pp. 604–620, https://doi.org/10.1080/14725886.2024.2316149
• (2023) ‘Muzyka epoki hałasu. Recepcja <Odlewni stali> Aleksandra Mosołowa w międzywojennej Polsce’, Studia z Dziejów Rosji i Europy Środkowo-Wschodniej, 58(1), pp. 101-114. DOI: 10.12775/SDR.2023.1.05
• (2022) ‘<Bajecznie egzotyczne Polesie>? Reportaż z krainy tęsknych pieśni Maksymiliana Emmera w perspektywie ekokrytycznej’, Kwartalnik Filmowy, 118, pp. 113–125, DOI: 10.36744/kf.1103
• (2021) ‘Niewykorzystany kapitał. Pomoc międzynarodowa a początki rehabilitacji zawodowej w Polsce po II wojnie światowej’, Kwartalnik Historii Nauki i Techniki, 66(1), pp. 25–54. DOI: 10.4467/0023589XKHNT.21.002.13386.
• (2020) ‘Desert Mould: Witold Odrzywolski and His Work on Crude Penicillin in a Military Hospital in the Middle East in 1944’, Kwartalnik Historyczny, 127(4), pp. 77-103. DOI: 10.12775/KH.2020.127.SI.1.03.
• (2020) ‘Pomiędzy Lwą a Stwigą. Stanisław Kulczyński i jego projekt utworzenia poleskiego parku natury z 1932 roku’, Kwartalnik Historii Nauki i Techniki, 65(2), pp. 29–48. DOI: 10.4467/0023589XKHNT.20.011.11992.
• (2020) ‘Walka z hałasem ulicznym w międzywojennej Warszawie. Moda czy konieczność?’, Teksty Drugie, 2, pp. 324-344. DOI: 10.18318/td.2020.2.20.
• (2019) ‘Władysław Szafer i Józef Próchnik w debacie o przyszłości poleskiej przyrody’, Analecta: Studia i Materiały z Dziejów Nauki, 1, pp. 189–211. PDF.
• (2018/2019) ‘Hot commodity: Designing, Making and Selling electric irons in post-war Poland’, ICON: Journal of the International Committee for the History of Technology, 24, pp. 150–184. PDF.
• (2018) ‘Penicylina i protezy. Pomoc UNRRA w odbudowie polskiego przemysłu medycznego po II wojnie światowej’, Kultura Współczesna: teoria, interpretacje, krytyka, 3, pp. 118–130. DOI: 10.26112/kw.2018.102.10.
• (2018) ‘Inventing independence. Negotiating the industrial property law for future Poland at the end of the First World War’, International Journal of Legal Studies, 1, pp. 319–336.
• (2018) ‘Kraków czy Tarchomin? Historia sporu o lokalizację fabryki penicyliny przekazanej Polsce w ramach programu pomocowego UNRRA (1946–1947)’, Analecta: Studia i Materiały z Dziejów Nauki, 23(1), pp. 289–310.
• (2018) ‘Transeuropejska droga wodna przez Polesie a kwestia jego osuszenia w II Rzeczpospolitej’, Kwartalnik Historii Nauki i Techniki, 63(1), pp. 7–37.
• (2017) ‘International Health Organizations and the dissemination of penicillin production methods in the early Cold War era. The case of UNRRA activities in Europe, and the work of ABMAC in China (originally in Chinese: 国际卫生组织与冷战初期盘尼西林 生产方式的传播 – 以联合国善后救济总署在欧活动和美国 医药援华会在华事务为例)’, Journal of the Social History of Medicine and Health (医疗社会史研究), 2(1), pp. 3–31.
• (2017) ‘Prace na przygotowaniem ustaw patentowych w okresie Tymczasowej Rady Stanu Królestwa Polskiego, 1917–1918,’ Analecta: studia i materiały z dziejów nauki, 26(2), pp. 37–53.
• (2017) ‘Nieznany obraz rzeczywistości okupacyjnej: kwestia uprawy roślin kauczukodajnych we wspomnieniach więźniarek Auschwitz, rolników i dzieci’, Kultura Współczesna: teoria, interpretacje, krytyka, 2, pp. 66–81.
• (2016) ‘Sailors and syphilis on Europe’s waterways. International Health Organizations and the Rhine Commissions, c. 1900–1953’, Hygiea Internationalis, 13, (1), pp. 49–64.
• (2014) ‘Tailored to the Times: The Story of Casimir Zeglen’s Silk Bullet-Proof Vest’, Arms & Armour, 11(2), pp. 164–86. DOI: 10.1179/1741612414Z.00000000040.
• (2014) ‘A <Lasting Memorial> to the UNRRA? Implementation of the Penicillin Plant Programme in Poland, 1946–1949’, ICON: Journal of the International Committee for the History of Technology, 20(2), pp. 70–91.
• (2014) ‘Controlling the Production and Distribution of Drugs in Communist Poland’, Medicina nei Secoli, 26(2), pp. 519–556.

Conferences (selected)

• 2025: Medicine as propaganda. Representation of the wartime health crisis in North Korea in the Polish media. 25. Biennial Meeting The European Association for the History of Medicine and Health “Health Beyond Medicine”, Berlin, Germany.
• 2025: Broadcasting wellness. Raising health awareness through radio. 27. International Congress of History of Science and Technology – “Peoples, Places, Exchanges, and Circulation.” Dunedin, New Zealand (ZOOM platform).
• 2025: Humanitarianism and Propaganda: Eastern European Medical Assistance to North Korea, 1950-1957, “Disease and International Relations”, Oxford, Great Britain.
• 2024: Health by Radio. Referat na KASTS 2024 International Conference “Rethinking Science, Technology, and Care in the Age of Multiple Disasters”, Korea Institute for Advanced Study, Seoul, South Corea.
• 2024: Health promotion through postage stamps in Eastern Europe. Referat na konferencji 49th ISHM International Congress of the History of Medicine, Salerno, Italia.
• 2024: Reuse for better health. International Committee for the History of Technology – Society for the History of Technology (ICOHTEC-SHOT): „Reparando / Repair in the History of Technology”, Viña del Mar, Chile.
• 2024: From denial to fear: Changing narratives of the AIDS/HIV crisis in late socialist Poland. Konferencja Media and Epidemics:  Technologies of Science Communication and Public Health, 20th-21st Centuries, Bukarest, Romania.
• 2024: Infrastructure of Fear. The AIDS/HIV Crisis in the Polish State Media in the Late 1980s, Transformations of postwar Europe: medicine, bodies and technologies, Sofia, Bulgaria.
• 2023: Internationalization of Deaf Film Making in Eastern Europe, 1950s-1990s. Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) Annual Convention: “Decolonization”, Philadelphia, USA.
• 2023: Health message: Postage stamp as a tool of health communication. Society for the History of Technology (SHOT) Annual Meeting, Los Angeles, USA.
• 2023: Promoting health through philately International Committee for the History of Technology (ICOHTEC) 13/08/2023 Tallinn/Tartu, Estonia.
• 2023: Deafness, public health, and technologies of science communication in Poland, 1950s-2020s. 11th Nordic Network on Disability Research (NNDR) Research Conference, Reykjavik, Islandia.
• 2022: Tkanina kuloodporna – prawdziwa historia wynalazku. „Jan Szczepanik. Geniusz, wynalazca, konstruktor. Międzynarodowe Sympozjum Naukowe towarzyszące wystawie z okazji 150. rocznicy urodzin wynalazcy”. Krosno, Poland.
• 2022: Nieudana modernizacja czy uniknięta katastrofa ekologiczna? Sprawa niedokończonej melioracji Polesia w II RP. „Historia środowiskowa w Polsce – przegląd badań”. Poznań.
• 2021: The first ‘talkie’ spoke in a female voice. Helen and Joseph Tykociner’s unacknowledged revolution in film making, Society for the History of Technology Annual Meeting, Nowy Orlean, USA (via Zoom).
• 2021: Al Jolson or Helen Tykociński? A controversy over who was the first to give voice to a film, 26th International Congress of History of Science and Technology, Praga, Czechy (via Zoom).
• 2020: ‘If there was a sea instead of Russia…’ Technical and political aspects of reclaiming the Pripet Marshes in interwar Poland. The International Committee for the History of Technology Annual Symposium (ICOHTEC), Eindhoven, Holandia (platforma ZOOM).
• 2019: Lousy, ugly, but persistent. Making electric irons in socialist Poland, 1960s–1980s. Society For The History of Technology Annual Meeting (SHOT), Milan, Italy
• 2019: Nature and power in interwar Poland. 10th Biennial conference of the European Society for Environmental History (ESEH): „Boundaries in/of Environmental History”, Tallinn, Estonia.
• 2019: He-Chaluc means Pioneer: The question of Jewish agricultural colonization in Pripet marshes. International Committee for the History of Technology Annual Symposium (ICOHTEC): „Technology and Power”, Katowice.
• 2019: Not even a foot of swamp. Jewish agricultural settlement and the planned amelioration of the Pinsk Marshes in interwar Poland. Agricultural History Society Annual Meeting, Washington, USA.
• 2019: Struggle for the swamp. Ethnic problems of the Pripet Marshes in the Second Polish Republic. Association for the Study of Nationalities World Convention, New York, USA.
• 2019: Harnessing nature and bodies. Swamps, health, and biopolitics in interwar Poland. A Symposium on the Medical Humanities: „Sites of Health”, Shanghai, China.
• 2018: Technology transfer through obsolete artefacts and out-of-date designs. Histories of Technology’s Persistence, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxemburg.
• 2018: „Gdyby zamiast Rosji było morze…” Techniczne i polityczne problemy odwodnienia Polesia w II Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej. „Rok 1918 – koniec starej i narodziny nowej Europy. Odrodzone państwo Polskie i Sowiecka Rosja”, Warsaw.
• 2018: Progress or nature? Dilemmas around the planned amelioration of Polesie marshes in Poland’s Second Republic. Baltic Conference on the Environmental Humanities and Social Sciences (BALTEHUMS), Riga, Latvia.
• 2018: Managing natures in interwar Poland. The case of Pripet Marshes. International Committee for the History of Technology Annual Symposium (ICOHTEC), Saint-Etienne, France.
• 2017: Prime movers or cogs in a machine? Doctors, scientists, and engineers in forging international rehabilitation programs. 25th International Congress of the History of Science and Technology (ICHST), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
• 2017: Engineering for social order? Ethnical and societal aspects of planned draining of the Polesie Marshes in interwar Poland. Tensions of Europe Conference: „Borders and Technology”, Athens, Greece.
• 2017: Hydro or social engineering? The question of draining the Polesie Marshes in interwar Poland. Society For The History of Technology Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, USA.
• 2016: Agents or actors? How Czech scientists helped shape UNRRA’s penicillin plant programme, 1944–49. 7th International Conference of the European Society for the History of Science (ESHS): „Science and Power, Science as Power”, Prague, Czech Republic.
• 2016:   Penicillin is not enough. The role of international organizations in fighting STDs in early post-war Europe. International Committee for the History of Technology Annual Symposium (ICOHTEC): „Technology, Innovation, and Sustainability: Historical and Contemporary Narratives”, Porto, Portugal.
• 2016:   Spreading the strains of life. International Health Organizations and the dissemination of penicillin production methods in the early Cold War era. „International Health Organizations (IHOs): People, Politics and Practice in Historical Perspective”, Shanghai, China.

Popularisation of science

• (2022) Radio talk on Pińskie błota. Natura, wiedza i polityka na polskim Polesiu do 1945 roku (OFF Czarek broadcast at Radio TOK.FM (13 juin).
• (2021) ‘Penicylina. Sukces nauki zorganizowanej [Penicillin. The success of organized science]’, Mówią Wieki, special issue Gospodarka Wojenna, 2, pp. 108–113.
• (2021) ‘<Nowa Holandia> na Polesiu. Koniec mitu’, Mówią Wieki, 7, pp. 77–80.
• Author of ca. 40 biographical entries of the Polish inventors, technicians, and engineers for the Giants of Science platform: https://gigancinauki.pl/.

Back