Introducing Fortunoff/Vienna Wiesenthal Institute Research Fellow Maria Bogdan

Dr. Maria Bogdan is a media researcher and a social scientist. Her main research interest is related to media representation of Roma, racism, cultural memory, and cultural trauma. She received her Ph.D. from the Film, Media, and Culture Theory Doctoral Program of the Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest (2018). She was the first Romani Rose Postdoctoral Researcher fellow at the Antigypsyism Research Center of Heidelberg University (2019-2020). She is a founding member and managing editor of the Critical Romani Studies journal. She is a Fulbright Alumna and has done part of her Ph.D. research at Columbia University.

As Fortunoff Research Fellow, Dr. Bogdan’s primary focus with be to conduct original research on testimonies in the Fortunoff Video Archive (FVA) related to the Sinti and Roma experience. As part of this work, she will contribute actively to an ongoing effort to promote use of Slovak-language Sinti and Roma survivor testimonies together with the archive’s partner and affiliate Milan Šimečka Foundation (MSF) in Bratislava. There more than a dozen testimonies closed to the public due to issues related to privacy and legal permissions. Dr. Bogdan will work with MSF to coordinate this effort to open the collection and encourage its use in teaching and research, including conducting field work within Roma communities in Slovakia. In addition to the above, Dr. Bogdan will develop her current research project to examine the social process of cultural trauma in European Romani communities.