The meeting of witches known as the “witches’ Sabbath” is a semantic construct that denotes a set of imaginary ritual and magical actions. The female participants of these meetings – known as witches – were believed to free themselves from all the constraints of mundane mortal existence. Visions of the world losing its structure during a “devil’s feast” on top of the “bald mountain” was bound to inspire fear, a reaction further intensified by the sense of a person losing one’s bearings in the dark of the night. The night became a category perpetually combined with the figure of the witch for at least the following reasons: diminished self-confidence brought on by a person’s wandering in the dark; lack of a set of rules that governed such meetings; uncritical belief in the reality of these meetings.

In her article, Magdalena Ziółkowska discusses the anthropological implications of the categories of night and darkness present in “fantastic” stories. Literature of the fantastic includes genres such as horror, fantasy and science fiction. In each of them there are categories of night and darkness and they are closely related to their anthropological interpretation in culture and society. The process of symbolizing these categories is present in popular culture. Cultural connotations in “fantastic” literature are based, on the one hand, on people’s natural fear of night and darkness, and, on the other, on narrative consistency with the cultural and social competences of the readers.

In this article, Anna Barska examines the events significant for Ramadan, the ninth month of the Muslim calendar and a month of fasting, practiced by the followers of Islam in the Maghreb countries. Ramadan introduces an inversion day and night. This subject matter has made necessary reflections on the essence of time, and especially on the specific understanding time and the night in Islam. Barska shows the way in which Ramadan is celebrated through the behavior of the Maghreb people in private and public spaces. She focuses on the time when the fasting is interrupted, on the foods consumed, on celebrations both at home and on the streets, in cafes, as well as on the strength of the religious experience.

The aim of this article is to report on the social attitudes adopted by representatives of the anti-vaccine movement in response to the threat caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus pandemic. Thanks to the critical discourse analysis applied to texts reproduced in the virtual space, the characteristic features of the anti-vaccine narrative were identified, which were shaped in response to the information about the need to develop and deliver a vaccine against the coronavirus. The analysis covered mainly texts from the alternative news portal "Wolne media", where the author found the most popular conspiracy theories, directly referring to the world view of vaccine opponents.

In their studies of the clothing of the former Sądecczyzna region conducted so far, scholars have omitted its variability. The idea of there being only one variant of the traditional costume, embraced and copied both by researchers and by local regionalists, was effectively fixed in the consciousness of the group identified as Sądecki Lachs. The region, thus hermetically sealed and supposedly resistant to any transformation, has become identified as an area where this variant has exclusively occurred. The use of traditional Lach costumes is an important element of social discussion, and its analysis stimulates further research problems, e.g.: Is a new creation/recomposition a continuation of the phenomena of folklore? Is it folklorismus? Or is it a completely different phenomenon in the context of autofolklorization?

Bogdan Zeler’s aim in this article is to indicate the most important issues that should be addressed within the framework of contemporary media education. As his point of departure, Zeler has chosen the reflections of the American media expert and communication theoretician Paul Levinson on the phenomenon of the new new media and the communication shifts caused by them and necessitating significant changes in all areas of human activity. Zeler draws attention to the role of the experience acquired when performing the new activities and during the immersion in the online world. He also draws attention to the special place assigned in this process to young people, whose way of seeing the world becomes dominant both through and in the internet. Zeler refers to the insights of researchers concerning the user of the new new media, the characteristics of Man 2.0 and of Democracy 2.0. After Tadeusz Miczka, Zeler regards education “towards the media” as the most essential task of contemporary education, its aim being the shaping of optimal (appropriate) communication behaviors related to the responsible use of new new media.