
Magdalena is a political theorist specializing in the fields of memory politics; historical justice and reconciliation; cultural and psychoanalytic trauma theory; emotions and affect; contemporary democratic theory; and feminist theory.
She has held the Izaak Killam Postdoctoral position at the Department of Political Science, University of Alberta (Canada); the Irmgard Coninx Research Grant at Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin Sozialforschung (Berlin); and Marie Curie Research Fellowship at the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Kent at Canterbury (UK).
She is interested in how the legacy of historical trauma affects the trajectories of democratic transition and consolidation, conditions the play of affective politics, and inspires, though at times also constrains, practices of emancipatory politics and resistance.
She is currently working on two research projects. The first project focuses on memory objects and mnemonic object-worlds in politics and aesthetics of memorialization. It regards specifically the counter-monumental tradition of traumatic representation, as well as the recent scholarly and artistic attempts to establish non-humans as subjects of collective memory formation. The second project focuses on humanitarian restitution as a response to population displacement and dispossession – the project explores the genealogy of restitution, as well as critiques the contemporary restitutive politics, imaginaries and sentiments, while exploring its alternatives.
T (02) 9739 2727
E Magdalena.Zolkos@acu.edu.au