Wstęp. Antropologia rocka – antropologia codziennych dźwięków

Rock is an important part of culture. Song studies, a subdiscipline of sound studies and an interesting context in contemporary humanities, have sought to enter the Polish discourse of cultural science for some time now. The anthropology of rock is a topic still in need of studying. Polish research in this respect is rather modest compared to other parts of the world, particularly the English speaking countries, where reflection on rock has been popular for many years. In Poland, its origins date back to 2009 when the first nationwide conference ‘Unisono na pomieszane języki’ [Language mix in unison], organised by Radosław Marcinkiewicz, took place in Tułowice near Opole. Eleven editions of the conference have been held so far – since the third session under the motto ‘Unisono w wielogłosie’ [Polyphony in unison]. Six volumes of the conference materials have been published (2010–2014, 2019). Their significance results not only from the fact that they are the first series of such studies in Poland but also that they have laid the foundations for Polish rock music studies. A few years earlier, in 2003, A po co nam rock? Między duszą a ciałem [What do we need rock for? Between soul and body], edited by Wojciech Burszta and Marcin Rychlewski, came out as the first multi-authored monograph on the topic. This shows that rock anthropology research is a relatively young discipline in Poland – not even 18 years old yet. In this issue we will focus on studies by Polish researchers. Ten years before the release of A po co nam rock?, Wojciech Siwak published his pioneering work, Estetyka rocka [The aesthetics of rock] (1993). The last decade (2009–2019) has seen a real flood of works on rock culture.