Associate Professor Mary Zournazi

My Expertise

Film & Documentary, Culture & Emotion, Hope, Visual Cultures, Justice, Peace, Human & Non-Human relations, Animal Studies
Technological cultures & change, Sociologies of Ageing and Culture, Social Theory , Digital and Screen Media, Experimental Theatre and Writing, Migration
Postcolonial Studies

Keywords

Biography

Mary Zournazi is Associate Professor in the School of Social Sciences, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, UNSW.

Mary has published numerous books including Inventing Peace with the German Film director Wim Wenders & Justice and Love with former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams. She is an award winning documentary film maker, her most recent films are Dogs of Democracy (2017) and My Rembetika Blues (2021). She has produced and written...view more

Mary Zournazi is Associate Professor in the School of Social Sciences, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, UNSW.

She currently teaches and researches in areas of visual sociology, cinema, culture and emotions, social justice, digital cultures, ideas of hope, peace, political love, the body and self, and issues of communal belonging. Her previous research has explored issues of war, terror, language, hope, and the impacts of migration and displacement on the self and familial life. She is currently interested in creative responses to social and economic crisis, care, justice and peace. She has a passion for writing and directing essay style documentaries.

Her work traverses both traditional academic practices and creative research in film, theatre and radio.

Research Areas

Visual sociology, cinema, politics, culture, emotion, migration, belonging, identity, peace, psychoanalysis, philosophies of hope, postcolonial theory.

My Grants

Grants from University of Wollongong: Early Career Researcher Publishing Research Grant, 2005; New Researcher Grant, 2006; Staff Research Assistance Grant
Alliance Francaise, Sydney and French Embassy Financial Assistance For French Study, July, 2001
NIDA Vocal Performance Award, 2000
Alliance Francaise Sydney Financial Assistance For French Study, August, 2000
French Embassy Translation Research Funding, 2000
Humanities and Social Sciences Support Fund for Translation, (University of Western Sydney), 1996
Women’s Research Centre Small Grant for Research (University of Western Sydney)
Research Centre in Intercommunal Studies Small Grant for Research (University of Western Sydney)
University of Western Sydney Humanities and Social Sciences Travelling Fellowship, 1995
Nepean Postgraduate Research Award, University of Western Sydney, 1993

My Awards

Mary's documentary films have won several awards the following nominations and awards for Dogs of Democracy:
US Film Award: Spirit of Achievement Award at the Nevada Women’s Festival.
Impact Documentary Awards, April 2017. Director’s Choice Award, Social Justice Film Festival 2017 (US),
Best Feature Documentary, Imagine This International Women’s Film festival, 2017 (US) & Shortlisted Telling Tales International Film and Audio Festival.

My Rembetika Blues has been nominated for
Best Documentary Film at the Los Angeles Greek Film (2021)
Best Documentary Film, Nevada Women's Film Festival (2021)
Winner Gold Remi Award for Documentary World-Fest Houston International Film Festival (2021)
My Rembetika Blues is currently doing the International and National Festival Circuit.

My Engagement

Visiting Fellowships

Visiting Fellow Department of Psychosocial Studies, Birkbeck College, University of London, 2015.
Visiting Fellow Concordia University, Montreal May – July 2011
Visiting Fellowship by invitation, Institute of Global Justice, Goldsmiths College, University of London, April-May, 2007
Writer in Residence, Queensland Performing Arts Centre, June, 2004
Visiting Junior, Scholar Fellowship Program, Peter Wall Institute for Advance Studies, University of British Columbia, 2002

Radio Documentary Work & Commissions

ABC Radio National Commission for Inventing Peace, 2014
ABC Radio National Commission for Keywords to War, 2006-2007
ABC Radio National Commission for ‘Anti-Globalisation, Keywords’, 2005
ABC Radio Audio Arts, Commission for Anti-Globalisation Protest Movements, radio feature, 2002-2003
ABC Radio Audio Arts, Commission for Mad Love, radio feature, 2001-2002
ABC Radio Audio Arts, Commission for Walking with the Surrealists, radio feature, 2001
ABC Radio National Commission for Hope radio feature, 2000
ABC Television Commission to present and produce 2 Shot program, 1999
ABC Radio National Commission for Foreign Dialogues series, 1998

My Teaching

Teaching areas
Sociology, Social Justice, Sociology of Images, Cultural Identities, Experience, Media, culture

Current teaching
ARTS 2874 Culture and Emotion, ARTS 3872 Media, Culture and Power, ARTS 3886 Living Social Justice

Areas of HDR supervision:
Visual cultures, culture, emotion, migration, belonging, identity, peace, cinema, psychoanalysis, philosophies of hope, postcolonial theory, documentary, ethnography.

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