Agata Zborowska is a cultural historian with a background in cultural studies. Her research interests lie in the intersection of material and visual cultures, property relations, critical archival studies, and media archeology. She completed a PhD at the University of Warsaw (2018, summa cum laude) and has held the position of assistant professor there since 2022. Author of a book Życie rzeczy w powojennej Polsce [The Life of Things in Post-War Poland] that won the Inka Brodzka-Wald Award for the best doctoral dissertation in the contemporary humanities in Poland. Recipient of the Scholarship of the Minister of Science and Higher Education for outstanding young scientists (2022). She is currently a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Fellow at the University of Chicago and Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. Her project “Critical Archives of Ordinariness: Vernacular Moving Image Practices and Migrant Identity in Polish Chicago” investigates home movies and related oral histories of Polish Chicago before the digital era to challenge and broaden our understanding of evolving migrant and diaspora identities. As a Chicago Film Archives scholar-in-residence, she works on the Polish diaspora film collection to increase community access to archival materials.
Her research has been supported by the Excellence Initiative – Research University, Polish National Science Centre, European Commission, Kosciuszko Foundation, Franke Institute for Humanities at the University of Chicago, Al Larvick Conservation Fund, and the National Film Preservation Foundation. She has published articles in numerous Polish and international academic journals, including History and Anthropology, Journal of Intercultural Studies, Fashion Theory, Critical Studies in Fashion and Beauty, Teksty Drugie, Kultura i Społeczeństwo, Konteksty, Kultura Współczesna, Kultura Popularna, Kwartalnik Filmowy, Czas Kultury, View. Theories and Practices of Visual Culture.
She is a member of the editorial team of the Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, an academic journal of the International Association for Media and History.