Aga Skrodzka
Associate Professor of World Cinema
Contact
Department of Interdisciplinary Studies
Office: 712 Strode
Phone: 864-656-3151
Email: askrodz@clemson.edu
Education
Ph.D. Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies, SUNY Stony Brook; M.A. English, SUNY Stony Brook; M.A. American Studies, Warsaw University; B.A. American Studies, Warsaw University
Courses
Film Theory and Criticism; Sexuality and the Cinema; Alterity and Difference on Screen; The Essay Film
Research Interests
Film and Media Theory, Feminist Thought, Erotics of Screen, Political Economy of the Visual Commons, Transnational Cinemas
Dr. Skrodzka's recent research and pedagogy interests include world cinema, cinematic worlding, transnational classrooms, and narratives of sex work. Dr. Skrodzka is the author of Magic Realist Cinema in East Central Europe (EUP, 2012) and the lead editor of The Oxford Handbook of Communist Visual Cultures (OUP, 2020), which brings together thirty-three international scholars in a single-volume collaboration. She is a member of the peer-review college for the UK-based journals Studies in European Cinema and Studies in Eastern European Cinemas. Dr. Skrodzka provides her expertise in film and media studies in vetting the nominees for the Society for Cinema and Media Studies annual book awards and the Fulbright awards for the Polish and Egyptian Fulbright Commissions. In 2012-14, Dr. Skrodzka spearheaded the creation of Clemson University's interdisciplinary World Cinema major. Forthcoming from the Edinburgh University Press, her current book project, titled The Sex Slave in Cinema: An Inegalitarian Spectacle, focuses on the ways in which the image of sex slave circulates in the libidinal economy of late capitalism. Dr. Skrodzka welcomes supervising doctoral research in all aspects of screen media, with emphasis on gender, race & class dynamics, media & pedagogy, public memory & visual commons. Invested in the processes of shared governance and institutional reform, Dr. Skrodzka has served as a member of the Clemson University’s Faculty Senate and the Faculty Grievance Board.
Selected Professional Works
Books (Published)
The Oxford Handbook of Communist Visual Cultures. Aga Skrodzka (Lead Editor), Xiaoning Lu, Katarzyna Marciniak, eds. Oxford University Press, online 2019, print 2020.
Magic Realist Cinema in East Central Europe. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2012.
Journal Articles & Book Chapters (Published)
“Feminist Worlding and World Cinema: The Case of Malgorzata Szumowska,”Studies in World Cinema Special Issue, January 2022.
"'I Cannot Be Sure That I Will Not Be Erased or Voided’: In Conversation with Katarzyna Kozyra” MAI: Feminism & Visual Culture [Special Issue on Photography & Resistance], Summer 2022.
"Strawberry Bondage and Disabling Discipline in a New Series of Cyborg Video Sonnets,” Poetry, February 2022
“Walerian Borowczyk: Seventies Sexploitation Through Sublimation” Shocking Cinema of the 70s. Eds. Xavier Mendik and Julian Petley. [Bloomsbury Academic, pp. 35-49, 2021]
“Introduction” The Oxford Handbook of Communist Visual Cultures. Eds. Aga Skrodzka, Xiaoning Lu, Katarzyna Marciniak [Oxford University Press, online 2019, print 2020]
“Komunistki: Visual Memory of Communist Female Agency” The Oxford Handbook of Communist Visual Cultures. Eds. Aga Skrodzka, Xiaoning Lu, Katarzyna Marciniak [Oxford University Press, online 2019, print 2020]
“Leaving the Art House: Commerce and Commodity in Borowczyk’s Controversial Cinema” Studies in Eastern European Cinema [pp. 117-131, vol. 9:2, 2018]
“Xenophilic Spectacle in Recent Films About Sex Slavery” Transnational Cinemas [pp. 85-103, vol. 9:1, 2018]
"Disempowering Knowledge: How to Teach Not to Help" Teaching Transnational Cinema, eds. Katarzyna Marciniak and Bruce Bennett. [Routledge AFI Series, pp. 236-254, 2016]
“Why ‘goEast’ When They Are All Coming West?” Film Quarterly. [pp. 107-111, vol. 70:1, 2016]
“Cinematic Fairytales of Female Mobility in Post-Wall Europe: Hanna v. Mona” East, West and Centre: Reframing post-1989 European Cinema. Eds. Michael Gott and Todd Herzog [Edinburgh University Press, pp. 109-124, 2015]
“Subjectivity and the Ethics of Duty in Michael Mann’s Cinema” The Philosophy of Michael Mann. Ed. Steven Sanders [University Press of Kentucky, pp. 200-214, 2014]
“Woman’s Body and Her Pleasure in the Celluloid Erotica of Walerian Borowczyk” Studies in European Cinema [pp.67-79, vol. 8:1, 2011]
“Clandestine Human and Cinematic Passages in the United Europe: The Polish Plumber and Kieślowski’s Hairdresser” Studies in Eastern European Cinema [pp.75-90, vol. 2:1, 2011].
“The American Gangster Is Dead: The Incarnate Emptiness in Martin Scorsese’s The Departed” The Philosophy of Martin Scorsese. Ed. Mark T. Conard. [University Press of Kentucky, second edition, pp. 247-261, 2009].
“History from Inside Out: The Vernacular Cinema of Jan Jakub Kolski” KinoKultura [Special Issue 2, 2005; http://www.kinokultura.com/specials/2/skrodzka.shtml].
“Body, Technology, and Identity Politics in John Woo’s Face/Off” genre: An International Journal of Literature and the Arts [pp. 126-139, vol. 25, 2005]
Journal Articles & Book Chapters (Accepted or Submitted)
"Peddling Eastern European Bodies: Exploiting Race in Films about Sex Slavery” Eastsploitation: Eastern Europe and the Cinematic Lowbrow. Eds. Richard Nowell and Jindriska Blahova [Bloomsbury Academic, under review]
Reviews & Interviews
“Strawberry Bondage and Disabling Discipline in a New Series of Cyborg Video Sonnets” Poetry [Special Issue, February 2022. Open Access: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet-books/2022/02/strawberry-bondage-and-disabling-discipline-in-a-new-series-of-cyborg-video-sonnets]
“Aesthetics and Politics of Corporeality: Reflections on (Mostly) Male Cinematic Bodies” Studies in Eastern European Cinema [pp. 193-195, vol. 8:2, 2017]
“Looking Beyond the National Paradigm in Polish Film Studies” Studies in Eastern European Cinema [pp. 195-197, vol. 6:2, 2015]
“Streets of Crocodiles in the New Europe” Third Text [pp. 663-668, vol. 25:5, 2011]
Conference Presentations (Delivered)
“Turkish Soap Operas and Post-Communist Poland’s Dialogue with the Arab World” Conference on Cinema of the Arab World, The American University of Cairo, Cairo, Egypt, March 2018.
“Sexploitation Through Sublimation: Walerian Borowczyk’s Arty Contribution to the 70s Euro Pudding” Cine-Excess X, Birmingham City University, Birmingham, UK, November 2016.
"Women and the Polish Communist Legacy in Pawel Pawlikowski's Film IDA (2014)" The Association for the Study of Nationalities Conference, Columbia University, NYC. April 2016.
“Mediating the Warsaw Uprising: Polish National Memory in Recent Popular Media” The Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference, Montreal. March 2015.
Grants
Clemson University-SEED Grant, Fall 2021, Funded.
Fulbright Scholar Fellowship, Poland, Spring 2019. Funded.
Diversity and Inclusive Excellence Grant, 2016-17. Funded.
Critical Thinking Faculty Institute Grant, Summer 2015. Funded.
CAAH Lightsey Fellowship, 2012-2013. Funded.
Gentry Endowment for Teaching Excellence in Humanities, 2012-13.
English Department’s Faculty Research Completion Award, 2012. Funded
Vending Machine Committee grant for the Clemson edition of The Southern Circuit Independent Filmmakers Series, 2010-2011. Funded.
Idol-South Award, 2010, Clemson. Funded.
National Endowment for the Arts Grant. In Support of The Southern Circuit Independent Filmmakers Series, 2008-2010. Funded.
Women’s Studies Forum Research Grant, 2008, Clemson. Funded.
Central European University, George Soros Summer University Fellowship, 2001, Budapest. Funded.
