Dr Zuzanna Olszewska
Dr Zuzanna Olszewska
Junior Research Fellow in Oriental Studies
Teaching Interests
Social Anthropology, in particular the anthropology of migration and diaspora, literature and cultural production.The social history and anthropology of contemporary Iran and Afghanistan and their diasporas. Modernist Persian literature and other arts.
Research Interests
My doctoral research focused on the poetry of Afghan refugees in Iran as a social phenomenon, linking poetic output to the individual biographies of poets and to their wider social context of a marginal existence in today's Iran. Based on this, I have become increasingly interested in the intellectual history of Iran and Afghanistan, the continuities and ruptures between classical and modern Persian poetry as modes of discourse, the social role of the poet-intellectual and the ongoing importance of poetry as a frame for much intellectual discourse among contemporary Persian speakers. My forthcoming projects include translations of Afghan Persian-language poetry and fiction which are almost entirely unknown in the West, the publication of my DPhil dissertation, and language, literary production and identity in the Persian-speaking Afghan diaspora throughout the world.
Publications
My recent publications include:
Fariba Adelkhah and Zuzanna Olszewska, "The Iranian Afghans," Iranian Studies, vol. 40 no. 2, April 2007, pp. 137-165.
Zuzanna Olszewska "A Desolate Voice': Poetry and Identity among Young Afghan Refugees in Iran," Iranian Studies, vol. 40 no. 2, April 2007, pp. 203-224.
Other Information
My research interests tie together my background in Social Anthropology (BA Harvard College, 2001; DPhil University of Oxford, 2009) and Forced Migration (MSt Refugee Studies Centre, Oxford, 2002). I am a board member of the Polish Migration Forum, a non-profit organisation established in 2006 with the aim of promoting respect for aliens' rights in Poland, particularly those in need of protection such refugees and trafficked persons. Between 2005-2007 I also conducted, with Anna Maciejko, a research project on Chechen refugees in Central Europe funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
