Dr Anna Szorenyi

Biography/ Background

Anna Szorenyi has a PhD in Women's Studies and Gender Research from Monash University and has taught in gender studies and media studies courses at Monash and Deakin Universities. Her research work utilises feminist, critical race and postcolonial approaches to visual culture, testimonial literature, and embodiment. Her PhD thesis examined the themes of silence and speech in popular representations of refugees, including photography, documentary film and written testimonies.

Qualifications

BA (Hons); Grad Dip (Movement & Dance); PhD

Teaching Interests

Gender theory; transnational/postcolonial/global feminisms and gender issues; race and gender in popular culture; social theory and policy more generally.

2009 teaching: Gender and Race in a Postcolonial World; Popular Media and Society; and the core Honours course Critique and Construct in Gender Studies.

In other years:  Introduction to Gender Studies; Gender, Social Policy and Citizenship in Australia. 

Research Interests

Refugees and representation

Representations of suffering

Critical race theory and Whiteness studies

Documentary film and photography

Transnational feminisms

Corporeal feminism, embodiment and the senses

Testimonial literature and autobiography

Publications

Refereed articles

Szorenyi, A 2009 (forthcoming) 'Distanced Suffering:  Photographed suffering and the construction of white in/vulnerability.’  Social Semiotics 19.2

Szorenyi, A 2009 (forthcoming) ''Till Human Voices Wake Us: Reading refugee testmony' scheduled for publication in Life Writing, October.

Szorenyi, A & J. Rogers 2006 'Congealed by law: Terror, torture and the possibilities of critique.' Terror, Torture and Critique: Special Issues of the Australian Feminist Law Journal Vol 24 June 2006 pp 1-22.

Szorenyi, A, 2006 'The images speak for themselves? Reading Refugee Coffee Table books'. Visual Studies 21.1 (April). pp 24-42.

Szorenyi, A, 2004 'The face of suffering in Afghanistan: Identity, authenticity and technology in the search for the representative refugee.' Australian Feminist Law Journal Vol 21 (Dec) pp 1-22. *Received Honourable Mention for the Monash University School of Political & Social Inquiry Postgraduate Publications Award.

Book Chapter

Szorenyi, A 2009 (forthcoming) 'Distanced Suffering:  Photographed suffering and the construction of white in/vulnerability.’  In The Racial Politics of Bodies, Nations and Knowledges, edited by  Barbara Baird and Damien W. Riggs, forthcoming with Cambridge Scholars Press in 2009.

Edited Journal Issues

Rogers, J and A Szorenyi 2006 Terror, Torture and Critique: Special Issues of the Australian Feminist Law Journal Vol 24 June 2006.

Reviews

Szorenyi, A. 2005 'Urgent Interventions', Review of Butler, Judith, 'Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence' (Verso 2004). Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Association Journal 1.1. http://www.acrawsa.org.au/journal/issue1.htm .

Szorenyi, A, 2004 'Conversations with the waiting', Review of Leach, Michael and Mansouri, Fethi, 'Lives in Limbo: Voices of refugees under Temporary Protection' (UNSW Press 2004). Australian Women's Book Review Vol 16 No 2. http://emsah.uq.edu.au/awsr/awbr/issues/138/index.html .

Popular articles

Szorenyi, A 2002 'People without borders: Imagining refugees' Speaking Out! (The Newsletter of the NSW Women's Speakout Association) 11 (Winter) pp 6-8.

Szorenyi, A 2001 'Economies of speech and silence' Overland 164 , (Spring) pp 41-43.

Professional Associations

Anna serves on the Editorial Board of the Australian Feminist Law Journal, has been a Council representative at the Institute of Postcolonial Studies in Melbourne, and is Treasurer of the Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Association. She is also a member of the Australian Women's Studies Association and the Cultural Studies Association of Australia. 

Entry last updated: Tuesday, 26 May 2009