Agata Zborowska
I am a cultural historian with a background in cultural studies and historical anthropology. Currently, I am a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Action Fellow at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. My project “Critical Archives of Ordinariness: Vernacular Moving Image Practices and Migrant Identity in Polish Chicago” (short form: “Not-So-Ordinary”) 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. For the first phase of the project, I spent three years (2023–2026) based at the University of Chicago, collecting nearly 3,000 films and videotapes from private and family collections across the Windy City.
In 2024, I took part in the rediscovery of the original 16mm camera film of Góralskie wesele (Highlanders Wedding, 1961), the only known surviving material from this feature-length amateur musical made by Polish Highlander migrants in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood. I initiated its preservation and secured funding from the National Film Preservation Foundation for 4K digitization and a new 16mm print. I also coordinated the transcription and translation of the dialogue and the preparation of an English-subtitled version. The restored film was first shown at Chicago’s Highlanders House in March 2026, followed by its first screening with English subtitles at the University of Chicago in May 2026 and its Polish premiere in Zakopane in September 2026.
I completed my PhD at the University of Warsaw (2018, summa cum laude) in the material culture of post-WWII Poland and have held the position of assistant professor there since 2022. My first book Życie rzeczy w powojennej Polsce [The Life of Things in Post-War Poland] introduced three analytical categories of things – found, hospitable, and newfangled – and showed how they improve our understanding of the relationships between people and material objects in the situation of austerity and displacement. The book was published by the University of Warsaw Press (2019) and won Inka Brodzka-Wald Award for the best doctoral dissertation in the contemporary humanities in Poland. In 2022, I was awarded a competitive (success rate of 12.5%) Scholarship of the Minister of Science and Higher Education for outstanding young scientists.
My scholarly work was funded by individual grants: PRELUDIUM (2015–19) and ETIUDA (2017–18) from the National Science Centre in Poland (I also received NCN's SONATA grant, 2023-2026, but had to decline it due to the implementation of Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship); the Kosciuszko Foundation Scholarship (2022); and the University of Warsaw's "Excellence Initiative – Research University" program (2022-2023). I was a research team member in the Horizon 2020 project “Re-Past – Revisiting the Past, Anticipating the Future”, and “Traps of Industrialization, Temptations of Consumption, the Search for ‘Harmonious Progress’ and Care for Earth’s Future. Environmental Challenges in socialist Poland” (Excellence Initiative – Research University, IDUB).
I have published articles in numerous Polish and international academic journals, including History and Anthropology, Journal of Intercultural Studies, Archival Science, 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.
Since 2024 ,I have been a member of the editorial team of the Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, the academic journal of the International Association for Media and History.
Since July 2026, I have served as co-chair of the Small Gauge and Amateur Film Committee of the Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA).
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