History of the Journal

Convivium. Germanistisches Jahrbuch Polen was founded in 1993 and published by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) until 2018. Following the political transformations in Central and Eastern Europe, several comparable journals were established with the aim of presenting the latest research in German Studies. From the outset, Convivium was conceived as an interdisciplinary journal covering linguistics, literary studies, and cultural studies. 

Its authors have included scholars from Poland, Germany, and Germanists from many other countries. The journal's language of publication was German. Convivium quickly became a highly respected forum for scholarly discussion within the Polish German Studies community, filling the gap left by the absence of a journal that extended beyond individual academic centres and provided a platform for exchange between Polish and German scholarship. The interdisciplinary profile of Convivium has always been one of its defining strengths. Since its inception, the journal has published articles in literary studies, linguistics, cultural studies, film studies, theatre studies, comics studies, digital studies, gender studies, media studies, German language teaching (German as a foreign language), translation studies, history, and political science. In addition, Convivium includes a review section and regularly reports on selected major academic events. 

Financial support from the DAAD played a crucial role in the journal's development. It made possible, among other things, the annual meetings of the editorial team, the Advisory Board, and the language editors, whose work was carried out by DAAD lecturers based at Polish universities. The first editors were Professor Stefan Kaszyński and Dr Martin Grimberg, a DAAD lecturer, both affiliated with the Institute of German Studies at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. Consequently, the editorial office of Convivium was located at Adam Mickiewicz University for many years. 

In 2016, the Advisory Board appointed a new editorial team consisting of Professor Beata Mikołajczyk, a linguist at Adam Mickiewicz University, Professor Joanna Jabłkowska, a literary scholar at the University of Łódź, and Professor Gudrun Heidemann, also a literary scholar at the University of Łódź. Professor Heidemann additionally serves as the Managing Editor. 

Since 2019, the yearbook has been funded by the Faculty of Philology of the University of Łódź. The Advisory Board continues to meet annually, although since 2020 these meetings have generally been held online. The Board determines the annual thematic focus, after which one or two of its members prepare the call for papers inviting scholars to contribute to the selected topic. At its meeting in 2025, the Advisory Board decided that, beginning with the 2027 volume, the thematic focus would alternate every two years between linguistics (including German language teaching) and literary studies (including cultural studies). This will allow for a more precise thematic profile of each volume, while continuing to welcome submissions that are not related to the annual focus. 

In 2023, Convivium celebrated its thirtieth anniversary. To mark the occasion, the editors from the University of Łódź organised the international conference "30 Jahre Convivium – aktuelle Grenz(über)fälle, Grenzbegehungen, Grenzgänge ab 2000. 4 Ukraine" in September 2023. Among the participants were several members of the Advisory Board as well as numerous authors who have published in Convivium. In 2026, the volume Grenz(über)fälle und Grenzgänge. Literatur, Kunst und gesellschaftliche Dynamiken ab 2000, edited by Maja Dębska and Gudrun Heidemann, will be published in the series Interkulturelle Rhizome. 

Since 2024, Convivium has also introduced thematic special issues edited by external research teams. 

Through its open-access model, Convivium successfully completed its digital transformation several years ago and has become even more accessible to the international scholarly community. At the same time, it continues to appear in print and is available in the major academic libraries in Germany and Poland. Both publication formats disseminate high-quality, peer-reviewed research on current issues in German Studies and related disciplines. 

The yearbook is indexed in major disciplinary databases and is present on international academic platforms and repositories. As a result, despite the word Polen ("Poland") in its title, Convivium enjoys worldwide visibility. The editors continue to expand the journal's international network of cooperation, and in recent years the journal has increasingly published articles in English alongside its traditional German-language contributions. 

The free exchange of scholarly knowledge and research findings across national borders—a principle that also guided the DAAD when Convivium was founded—has acquired renewed significance today. At a time of growing political, social, and digital fragmentation, such international academic dialogue represents an important contribution to safeguarding democratic values and an open scholarly public sphere.