With great joy we present to the readers the new, twentieth issue of Politeja: The Journal of the Faculty of International and Political Studies of the Jagiellonian University. It is a celebratory issue, published in a similar colour layout as the tenth, and likewise containing the presentation of the current structure and staff of the Faculty. Both volumes have two parts. The volume presented here is, however, special since it shows, both in English and in Polish, an important section of the problems studied by many Faculty members whose research focuses on cultural studies including regional approaches, diverse cultures and their historical entanglements.

Variety and diversity are two of the determinants of their research, incorporated into the project which they entitled “Jagiellonian Cultural Studies.” The name of the project highlights the tradition of our University, and especially emphasizes possibility of combining these two determinants in our Faculty’s studies, which are important for modern research and yet are conducted in accordance with the spirit of two eminent scholars of our University, Stanislaus of Skarbimierz (patron of the Faculty) and Paweł Włodkowic. The work of the latter is the reference point for the authors of “Jagiellonian Cultural Studies” as the identification of the need to see human dignity in every person was one of the achievements of Włodkowic, Rector of the Krakow Academy in the fifteenth century.