Dr Magdalena Zolkos

 

Qualifications


PhD, 2005, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
MA, 2001, University of Gdansk, Poland

Biography 


Dr Magdalena Zolkos is Research Fellow in Political Theory with the School of Humanities and Communication Arts. Prior to coming to Australia, she held an Izaak Walton Killam Postdoctoral Fellowship, at the University of Alberta, Canada. She has published and taught in the fields of democratic theory, continental/critical political theory, feminism, human rights and European politics

Areas of expertise

  • Politics of the past, the idea of reconciliation, public apology, gender and transitional justice
  • Cultural and psychoanalytic trauma theory
  • The ideas of community and solidarity in continental political thought
  • Literature and politics
  • Emotions, affect, subjectivity and vulnerability
  • Violence, war and masculinity
  • Post-humanist methodologies in political science and political theory

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Honours and Awards

  • Irmgard Coninx Research Grant, Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB), Germany, 2008.
  • Visiting Honorary Research Associate, Centre for Russian and East European Studies, University of Birmingham, UK, 2004-2007.
  • Marie Curie Research Fellowship, Dept. of Politics and International Relations, University of Kent at Canterbury, UK, 2003-2004.

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Current Projects


This project undertakes an examination of the post-Holocaust theory of reconciliation from the perspective of post-catastrophic community. It asks how political sociality and solidarity after the Holocaust disaster has been imagined in European philosophy, literature and film; and how reconciliation hinges on the theological imagination of how a catastrophic past is transformed into community's hopeful future. Its significance lies in the contribution it makes to theorizing the highly politically pertinent idea of reconciliation.

Parts of my research project have been presented as conference papers:
  • 2010 July, St Andrews, UK: ‘Post-Holocaust Public Apology and (Un)Doing the Catastrophic: Insights from Psychoanalysis’ at the Thinking With(out) Borders Conference, St Andrews University
  • 2009 Nov, Melbourne, Australia: ‘Apology, Undoing, Time’ at the Australian Society for Continental Philosophy Conference, Monash University
  • 2009 Sept, Sydney, Australia: ‘Hegemonies of Reconciliation and Their Disruptions’, at the Australian Political Science Conference, Macquarie University

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Selected Publications


Monographs and Edited Books

Co-editor with Anna Yeatman, Phillip Hansen, and Charles Barbour, Action and Appearance: Explorations in Hannah Arendt (Continuum, forthcoming in 2011)

On Jean Améry: Philosophy of Catastrophe (Lexington, forthcoming in December 2010)

Zolkos 2010 Book


Zolkos M. (2010) Reconciling Community and Subjective Life. Trauma Testimony as Political Theorizing in the Work of Jean Améry and Imre Kértesz, Continnum, New York.

 


 StateSecurity Subject Formation_AY&MZ

 Yeatman A. & Zolkos M., eds. (2010) State, Security and Subject Formation. Continuum, New York.

 

 


 BetweenLife and Death Zolkos ed

Berking S. & Zolkos M. (2009) Between Life and Death: Governing Population in an Era ofHuman Rights. Peter Lang, Hamburg.

 

 


Zolkos Defunct Federalisms

 Kavalski E. & Zolkos M. (2008) Defunct Federalisms: Critical Perspectives on Federal Failure. Ashgate, Aldershot.

 

 


 Challenge of Mobility in Baltic Sea Zolkos ed

Gicquel C., Makarov V. & Zolkos M. (2005) The Challenge of Mobility in the Baltic Sea Region. Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, Berlin.

 



Zolkos M. (2005) Conceptual Analysis of the Human Rights and Democracy Nexus in the Late- and Post-Communist Contexts. PhD Thesis. Department of Political Science pp. 315. University of Copenhagen.

 

Book Chapters

M.Zolkos (forthcoming in 2011) ‘Arendt on Marginality and Action: Metamorphic Figurations in “The Jew as Pariah”’ in A.Yeatman, P.Hansen, M.Zolkos and C.Barbour, Action and Appearance: Politics and Ethics of Writing in Hannah Arendt (Continuum)

C.Barbour and M.Zolkos (forthcoming in 2011) ‘Action and Appearance: Introduction’ in A.Yeatman, P.Hansen, M.Zolkos and C.Barbour, Action and Appearance: Politics and Ethics of Writing in Hannah Arendt (Continuum)

M.Zolkos (forthcoming in 2011) ‘Frau Mata Hari on Trial. Seduction, Espionage and the Gendered Abject in Reunifying Germany’ in S. Buckley-Zistel and R. Stanley, Gender and Transitional Justice (Palgrave)

S. Buckley-Zistel and M.Zolkos (forthcoming in 2011) ‘Introduction’ in S. Buckley-Zistel and R. Stanley, Gender and Transitional Justice (Palgrave)

M.Zolkos (forthcoming in 2010) ‘The Weight of the Other: Jean Laplanche and Trauma Theory’ in M. Broderick and A. Traverso, Trauma Anthology (Cambridge Scholars Press).

M.Zolkos (2010) ‘“Ka¿dy cz³owiek powinien wykonywaæ swoj¹ pracê z mi³oœci¹.” Prowokacje Jonathana Littella' in Z.Majchrowski and W.Owczarski, Wojna i Pamiêæ, (Slowo/Obraz Terytoria)

M.Zolkos (2010) ‘The Subject “At the Gates of the Polis”: Theorizing Transitional Civic Order from the Site of Trauma’ in A.Yeatman and M.Zolkos, State, Security and Subject Formation (Continuum)

M.Zolkos (2009) ‘Mapping Human Rights in the Polish Abortion Debates’ in S.Berking and M.Zolkos, Between Life and Death: Governing Population in an Era of Human Rights (Peter Lang)

S.Berking and M.Zolkos (2009) ‘Introduction. Human Rights and Population Governance’ in S.Berking and M.Zolkos, Between Life and Death: Governing Population in an Era of Human Rights (Peter Lang)

M.Zolkos (2008) ‘Forgiveness, Theologies of Justice and Améry’s Resenting Subject’ in J.-J. Defert, T.Tchir and D.Webb, Declensions of the Self: A Bestiary of Modernity (Cambridge Scholar Press)

E.Kavalski and M.Zolkos (2008) ‘Approaching the Phenomenon of Federal Failure’ and ‘Conclusions: Whither Defunct Federalisms’ in E.Kavalski and M.Zolkos, Defunct Federalisms: Critical Perspectives on Federal Failure (Ashgate)

M.Zolkos (2007) ‘An Ambivalent Denmark Faces Europe: On Danish Nationalism and Denmark’s Participation in the European Integration Project’ in I.Karolewski & A.Suszycki, eds., Nationalism and European Integration: The Need for New Theoretical and Empirical Insights (Continuum)

M.Zolkos (2006) ‘Human Rights and the Politics of Regional Articulation: A Post Scriptum to the CBSS Commissioner’s Office’ in B. Henningsen, ed., Changes, Challenges and Chances. Conclusions and Perspectives of Baltic Sea Area Studies (Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag)

C.Gicquel, V.Makarov and M.Zolkos (2005) ‘Conclusions: Moving on with Mobility’ in C.Gicquel, V.Makarov and M.Zolkos, eds., The Challenge of Mobility in the Baltic Sea Region (Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag)

M.Zolkos (2004) ‘Human Rights, Post-Communism and the “New Europe”: How Human Rights Matter in Democracies’ in U.Björneberg, ed., Whither Europe? Human Rights (Centre for European Research)

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Journal Articles

Zolkos M. (2010 forthcoming) Apocalyptic Writing: The Ideas of Trauma and Community in Imre Kertész’s Fateless. Angelaki (special issue ‘Philosophizing In/On Eastern Europe’)

Zolkos M. (2009) Language, Politics and Pluralities of History. Reflections on Quentin Skinner’s Interpretative Project. Studies in Social and Political Thought 16: 82-100.

Zolkos M. (2009) Reconciliation - No Pasarán. Trauma, Testimony and Language for Paul Celan. European Legacy 14(3): 269-282.

Zolkos M. (2008) The Time that was Broken, the Home that was Razed… De-constructing Slavenka Drakuliæ’s Stories of the Yugoslav War Crimes and War Criminals. International Journal of Transitional Justice 4: 214-26.

Zolkos M. (2007) Jean Améry’s Philosophy of Resentment at the Crossroads of Ethics and Politics. European Legacy 12: 23-38.

Zolkos M. & Kavalski E. (2007) The Hoax of War: The Foreign Policy Discourses of Poland and Bulgaria on Iraq, 2003-2005. Contemporary Journal of European Studies 15:  381-97.

Zolkos M. (2006) The Conceptual Nexus of Human Rights and Democracy in the Polish Lustration Debates 1989-97. Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics 22: 228-48.

Zolkos M. (2005) Human Rights and Democracy in the Polish Abortion Debates: Concepts, Discourses, Subversions. Essex Human Rights Review 3: 1-21.

Zolkos M. (2004) On Human Rights, Wittgenstein and Disciplinary Hegemonies: Methodological Reflections. Nordic Journal of Human Rights 22: 417-32.

Zolkos M. (2004) Human Rights and Polish Dissident Tradition: The Civic Republican Perspective. Studies in Social and Political Thought 10: 57-78.

Zolkos M. (2004) Concepts of Human Rights in the Democratic Thought: the Republican Alternative of Ferry and Renaut. Slagmark 39: 145-55.

Review Essays

Zolkos M. (2006) Seyla Benhabib’s Post-Metaphysics of Human Rights and the (Un)Bearable Heaviness of Politics. Nordic Journal of Human Rights 24: 248-55.

Zolkos M. (2006) How to Re-capture Human Rights within the Political: Validating the Discourse Theory Approach. Human Rights & Human Welfare 6: 43-52.

Zolkos M. (2004) What the Pre-modern Can Tell Us: Jacques Maritain on the Rights of Men. Nordic Journal of Human Rights 21: 470-7.

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Professional Activities

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