Marianna Szczygielska
Marianna Szczygielska
QUALIFICATIONS
2017 Ph.D., Comparative Gender Studies, Central European University
2010 M.A., Gender Studies, Central European University
2009 M.A., Philosophy, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań
PRINCIPAL RESEARCH INTERESTS
History of science; Human-animal relations; Zoological collections; Environmental history; Gender and sexuality; Critical Race Theory; Feminist Science and Technology Studies; History of veterinary science; Nature conservation; Central and Eastern Europe
RESEARCH PROFILE
Marianna Szczygielska is a feminist historian of science. Her research focuses on the history of zoological collecting and animal husbandry to underscore the transformations in human-animal relations in the Anthropocene. She brings queer and decolonial approaches into reflection on animal studies. Szczygielska graduated from the Central European University in Budapest and authored a doctoral dissertation on zoological gardens. She worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin. With a background in philosophy and gender studies, her research interests include environmental humanities, queer ecologies, and feminist science and technology studies. Szczygielska studies more-than-human aspects of cultural and environmental change, often engaging creative means of science communication. She is an associate editor of the Humanimalia journal.
Edited Volumes and Special Issues
2020 Tranimacies: Intimate Links Between Animal and Trans* Studies. London: Routledge. (co-editors Steinbock, Eliza, Anthony C. Wagner)
2019 Plantarium: Human-Vegetal Ecologies. Special issue of Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, and Technoscience, 5(2), (co-editor Cielemęcka, Olga)
2017 Thinking Linking. Introduction to the special issue “Tranimacies: Intimate Links between Affect, Animals, and Trans* Studies.” Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities 22(2): 1-10. (co-editors Steinbock, Eliza, Anthony C. Wagner)
2013 The Conditions of Praxis: Theory and Practice in Activism and Academia. Special issue of Graduate Journal of Social Science 10(3). (co-editors Nitis, Maja, Whitney Stark)
Journal Articles
2024 War on Extinction: Wildlife as Statecraft in Interwar Poland. Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences 54(2): 244-267.
2023 The Many Boar Identities: Understanding Difference and Change in the Geographies of European Wild Boar Management. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management (co-authors von Essen, Erika, Kieran O'Mahony, Thortsen Gieser, Virginie Vaté, Anibal Arregui, & Ludek Broz)
2023 Tracing Viral Trajectories. Epistemic and Bodily Reservoirs in Interspecies Health. History and Technology 39(2): 176–192. (co-author Kowalewska, Agata)
2023 Reading Teeth: Ivory as an Artifact of Classed Whiteness. Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences 53(3): 308-331.
2023 The evolution of the bison image and its implications for current species conservation. PLOS ONE 18(1): 1-18. (co-authors Samojlik, Tomasz, Piotr Daszkiewicz, Anastasiia Fedotova, Aurika Rickiene, Olga Cielemęcka)
2022 Animal Sex in Public: Warping Time and Sexuality in the Zoo. Environmental Humanities 14(3): 641–660.
2022 Undoing extinction. The role of zoos in breeding back the tarpan wild horse, 1922–1945. Centaurus: Journal of the European Society for the History of Science 64(3): 729-750.
2021 Guarding the "Balkan Route" on the postsocialist frontier: revisiting Maja Weiss’ “Varuh meje.” International Feminist Journal of Politics 23(5): 811-828 (co-authors Baker, Catherine, Špela Drnovšek Zorko)
2021 Od kości słoniowej do plastiku, czyli nienaturalna historia materialności w epoce antropocenu. [From ivory to plastic, or the unnatural history of materiality in the age of the Anthropocene] Kultura Współczesna 113 (1): 28-42.
2020 Elephant Empire: Zoos and Colonial Encounters in Eastern Europe. Cultural Studies 34(5): 789–810.
2019 Thinking the Feminist Vegetal Turn in the Shadow of Douglas-firs: An Interview with Catriona Sandilands. Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, and Technoscience 5(2): 1-19. (co-author Cielemęcka, Olga)
2017 “Jedząc kebaba…” Zwierzęta i zwierzęcość a islamofobia. [“Eating a kebab…” Animals/Animality and Islamophobia.] Praktyka Teoretyczna 26(4): 238-248.
2017 Hyenas and Hormones: Transpecies Encounters and the Traffic in HumAnimals. Angelaki: Journal of Theoretical Humanities 22(2): 61-84.
2015 Posthumanizm: dzień po rewolucji. [Posthumanism: A Day After the Revolution.] Czas Kultury 184(1): 140-147.
2013 Transbiological Re-imaginings of the Modern Self and the Nonhuman: Zoo Animals as Transbiological Entities. Identities: Journal for Politics, Gender and Culture 10(2): 101-110.
Book Chapters
2024 Textured Taxidermy: The Strange Afterlives of Zoo Animals. In Janečková, Hana, Michal Novotný (eds.) The Heart of a Giraffe is Twelve Kilos Lighter. Prague: National Gallery Prague, pp. 64-70. [Czech Catalogue for the 60th Venice Biennale]
2024 Critical History of Technology. In Rapp, Regine (ed.) Matter of Flux. Art, Biopolitics, and Networks with Care. Berlin: Art Laboratory. (co-authors Kaur, Baldeep, Selen Solak, Hanwen Zhang)
2024 Lion Capital: Zoo Acquisition Strategies in Interwar Poland. In Andratschke, Claudia, Charlotte Marlene Hoes, Annekathrin Krieger (eds.) Colonial Dimensions of the Global Wildlife Trade. Veröffentlichungen des Netzwerks Provenienzforschung in Niedersachsen, pp. 130-146.
2023 Naïve Boars and Dummy Sows: Porcine Sex and the Politics of Purity. In Aavik, Kadri, Kuura Irni, Maria Joki (eds.) Feminist Animal and Multispecies Studies: Critical Perspectives on Food and Eating. Brill Press, pp. 45-69. (co-author Kowalewska, Agata)
2021 The Future of the Zoo: A New Cosmopolis. / Przyszłość zoo. Nowa kosmopolis. in Bakke, M. (ed.) Refugia: The Survival of Urban Transspecies Communities / Refugia. (Prze)trwanie transgatunkowych wspólnot miejskich. Poznań: Adam Mickiewicz University Press, pp. 178-204. [bilingual publication]
2019 "Good Change" and Better Activism: Feminist Responses to Backsliding Gender Policies in Poland. In Krizsán, Andrea, Conny Roggeband (eds.) Gendering Democratic Backsliding in Central and Eastern Europe. A Comparative Agenda. Budapest: CEU Press, pp. 120-160.
2019 Pandas and the Reproduction of Race and Sexuality in the Zoo. In McDonald, Tracy, Daniel Vandersommers (eds.) Zoo Studies. A New Humanities. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, pp. 211-236.
2017 Zoos. In Salazar Parreñas, Juno (ed.) Gender: Animals. Macmillan Interdisciplinary Handbooks. Farmington Hills: Macmillan, pp. 247-262.
2010 The heroines of sustainable development. Gender and sustainable development in a critical perspective. In Fogelberg Eriksson, Anna (ed) Proceedings from the international conference Equality, Growth & Sustainability. Do they mix? Linköping University Press, pp. 135-42.
Ongoing Projects and Grants
2022-2025 Veterinarization of Europe? Hunting for Wild Boar Futures in the Time of African Swine Fever. ERC project (BOAR 866350) Postdoctoral Researcher.
Past Projects and Grants
2017-2017 Short-Term Academic Mission. The University of Vienna, Faculty of Social Sciences. Source: COST Action IS1307 mobility grant. Researcher.
2016-2017 Plantarium: Re-Imagining Green Futurities. The Seed Box. A Mistra-Formas Environmental Humanities Collaboratory Seed Grant; Source: Mistra: Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research. Co-Principal Investigator.
Editorial Work
Since 2020 Humanimalia, Associate Editor
Board Memberships
Since 2025 Member of the Program Council for the Baltic Gallery of Contemporary Art in Słupsk (Poland).
Since 2024 Chair of the Diversity Committee of the European Society for Environmental History.
2023-2024 Member of the Scientific Committee for the 11th conference of the European Society for the History of Science in Barcelona.
External Reviewing
Project Evaluation: Fullbright Commission in the Czech Republic, American Academy Berlin (External applications reviewer)
Book Proposal and Manuscript Evaluation: Manchester University Press.
Journal Articles Manuscript Review: Humanities and Social Sciences Communications; Society Register; Source: Notes in the History of Art; Configurations; Gender, Place and Culture; Isis; Czas Kultury; Itinerario: Journal of Imperial and Global Interactions; Human Rights Review; Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte; Journal of Agricultural & Environmental Ethics; Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space; Journal of the History of Biology; Gender & History; Transpositiones: Journal for Transdisciplinary and Intermedial Culture Studies; Performance Philosophy; European Journal of Women’s Studies; Prace kulturoznawcze; Studia Litteraria Historica; Transgender Studies Quarterly; Geographica Helvetica; Adeptus; Etyka; Humanimalia: A Journal of Human/Animal Interface Studies; NORMA: International Journal for Masculinity Studies; UnderCurrents: Journal of Critical Environmental Studies; Graduate Journal for Social Science; Journal of Comparative Research in Anthropology and Sociology Compaso.
Invited Talks, Public Lectures or Roundtables
2024 September, 25. Keynote lecture “Colonial Creatures and Imperial Beasts: Global Animal History in Eastern Europe.” Between the Local and the Global: Unpacking Environmental History of Ukraine conference. Center for Advanced Studies in Sofia.
2023 October, 6. Invited lecture “Lavender Green: On Queer Ecofeminism.” Gardening Ecofeminisms Symposium. Kafkárna Centre for Art and Ecology of UMPRUM, Prague, Czechia.
2023 July, 29. Invited lecture “Queer Ecology as a Multispecies Worlding.” LES: Woods. More-than-Human Curiosity Symposium. Orlickie Hory, Czechia.
2023 January, 7. Invited talk at the “Membranes Out of Order” bioart exhibition. Kunstquartier Bethanien, Berlin.
2022 September 12. Invited panelist in the debate “Przyszłość dzikości” (The Future of Wilderness) at the Bomba Megabitowa2 Festival in Kraków.
2021 October, 9. Panelist at the meet-up session “Boxes as Methods.” 4S Annual Meeting, University of Toronto.
2021 September, 9. Invited moderator of the panel discussion “Oppression and Resistance: LGBT+ Activism in Hungary and Poland,” Institute for Ethnology and Social Anthropology at Warsaw University.
2021 April, 16. Invited panelist for discussion “Co widzimy, gdy patrzymy na zwierzęta?” [“What do we see when we look at animals?”], Contemporary Museum in Wrocław.
2021 September, 14. Invited panelist “Gender research under pressure: consequences for research communication?” organized by Kilden genderresearch.no. at the 10th European Feminist Research Conference. Georg-August-University Göttingen.
2018 April, 10. Invited public lecture “Ogród (nie)ludzkich spotkań. Reforma ZOO w obliczu Antropocenu.” [The garden of (non)human encounters. Zoo reform in the Anthropocene]. Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź (Art Museum Łódź).
2013 August, 9. Invited speaker at a discussion “Feminism in Central and Eastern Europe” at Transatlantyk Film Festival Poznań.
Conference and Workshop Organisation
2024 Ecological Anthropology Seminar Series. Institute of Ethnology, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague. (co-organizers Keil, Paul G., Ludek Broz).
2024 August, 20. Moving animals, developing expertise. Double panel at 4th the World Congress of Environmental History, University of Oulu. (co-organizer Fedotova, Anastasia).
2024 July, 16. Symbiotic methods: more-than-human companions for knowing. Double panel at the joint meeting of the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST) and the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) in Amsterdam. (co-organizers O’Mahony, Kieran, Paul G. Keil, Laura Kuen).
2023 November, 9. Queer and Feminist Approaches to Extinction: De-Extinction, and Species Revival. Double panel at the 4S conference in Honolulu (online). (co-organizers Bezan, Sarah, Kate O'Riordan, Sandra Nelson, Meg Perret).
2023 August, 23. Elephants' Tales: the wild, the tamed, and the pampered. Double panel at the 12th Biennial European Society for Environmental History Conference. University of Bern. (co-organizer Fedotova, Anastasia).
2023 June, 23. Integrating Elephants into More-Than-Human Narratives. Workshop. University of Lyon. (co-organizers Pouillard, Violette, Eric Baratay).
2023 June, 16. Critical Histories of Technology workshop. Matter of Flux: Women/FLINTA* in Art, Science and Technology Festival, Berlin. (co-organizers Kaur, Baldeep, Selen Solak, Hanwen Zhang).
2020 August, 21. Disciplining the Senses double panel at the joint meeting of the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST) and the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S)in Prague (online). (Co-organizer Calkins, Sandra).
2020 June, 11-12. Global South Cosmologies & Epistemologies: A Trans-Hemispheric Conversation workshop, Max Planck Institute for the History of Sciences. (co-organizers Mavhunga, Clapperton Chakanetsa, Dagmar Schäfer, Lisa Onaga, Shehab Ismail).
2018 May, 11-12. Feral Incursions workshop. Central European University. (co-organizers Fowkes, Maja, Reuben Fowkes, Alan Watt, Guntra Aistara, Hyaesin Yoon).
2018 May, 29. Panel discussion “Making Families Great Again? Intersectional Perspectives on the Global Right’s Gendered Politics.” Central European University. (co-organizers Beres-Deak, Rita, Heather Tucker, Adriana Quibaiova, Debjyoti Ghosh).
Public Outreach and Online Essays
2023 Interview about ivory for popular science podcast “Brzmienie świata z lotu Drozda.” Episode 140. (in Polish).
2022 Feral ethics. Thinking feral with pigs. New Alphabet School Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) blog (co-authors Kuen, Laura, Kieran O’Mahony, Paul G. Keil).
2021 “Creature Comforts: Animals, Zoos, and Exotic Trafficking in Eurasia” lecture and podcast interview at the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies at the University of Pittsburgh (REEES).
2020 Three keywords to better understand the Polish abortion protests. ZOiS Spotlight 41 [also in German “Drei Stichworte, um die polnischen Abtreibungsproteste besser zu verstehen”]. (co-author Piotr Goldstein)
2020 Rainbow Resistance: The Fight of LGBTQ Activists in Poland against Post-Election Repressions. LeftEast.
2020 One mask fits all? Gender and care work in Covid crisis. The Mask-Arrayed. Online storytelling project of the MPIWG.
2019 Poland’s wild boar targeted in pointless cull that could actually spread swine fever. The Conversation.
2018 Captive breeding has a dark side – as disturbing Czech discovery of trafficked tiger body parts highlights. The Conversation.
2018 Wild Boars and Family Values in Poland. Bewildering Boar Blog.
