Leeds Beckett University - City Campus,
Woodhouse Lane,
LS1 3HE
Dr Agata Fijalkowski
Reader
Originally from Chicago, Dr Agata Fijalkowski joined Leeds Law School as Reader in July 2019. Her research on the dispensation of justice in the aftermath of WW2 in Central, East, and Southeastern Europe is distinctly interdisciplinary. Agata’s research draws on extensive archival work. She has carried out research in Albania, Germany, Poland, Romania, and the UK. Agata is a member of the outstanding research community at the Institute for Advanced Legal Studies (IALS) as an Associate Fellow.
Agata completed her PhD in Law at the University of London on the importance of constitutional guarantees for judicial independence: the case study was Poland. The result was From Old Times to New Europe (Ashgate 2010). She has published extensively in the field of transitional justice, which includes the co-edited volume Transitional Criminal Justice in Post-Dictatorial and Post-Conflict Societies (Intersentia 2015) and various articles. Agata’s forthcoming monograph, Law, Visual Culture, and the Show Trial (Routledge Books) examines the dispensation of justice during communist rule in Albania, East Germany, and Poland and its reliance on legal propaganda, making the visual a fundamental part of the legitimacy of the law.
Agata is compiling the biographies of the individual members of the legal team at the Polish war crimes trials. Her most recent writing concerns the Polish lawyer/photographer Tadeusz Cyprian. Her 2021 SLSA-funded project ‘Defence Counsel "Maestro"’ looks at the defence lawyer Stanisław Hejmowski.
In 2022, she was an IRH Honorary Fellow at the dynamic Institute for Research in the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Agata also has been awarded the competitive EHRI/Conny Kristel Fellowship at the Netherlands Institute of War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies (NIOD).
Agata is an enthusiastic and committed teacher. She has taught research-informed modules on topics that include genocide and war crimes.
Agata is in her final year as a part-time MA student in Screenwriting at Leeds Beckett University. To date she has written several short film scripts and collaborated on a television drama series. She produced the short, 'arty' film ‘Musine Kokalari: An Unsung Hero (2017) (on IMDb) as part of an exhibition on the Albanian writer and political dissident Musine Kokalari (1917-1983) at the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford.
Current Teaching
- Genocide & War Crimes on the LLM International Law: Conflict, Security and Human Rights
- PGDL/LLM Independent Legal Research Project 20 credit project (Module Leader)
- European Law (UG and PGDL)
Research Interests
Agata’s book Law, Visual Culture, and the Show Trial with Routledge Books is in production. Listen to the podcast of her talk at the Center for Russia, East Europe and Central Asia (CREECA at University of Wisconsin-Madison) where she presented three vignettes from the book: Law and Visual Culture in Three Vignettes.
Ask Me About
- Film
- Law
- Photography
Selected Outputs
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Fijalkowski A (2021) Amnesty. In: Simić O ed. An Introduction to Transitional Justice. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 123-148.
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Fijalkowski A (2021) Truth and Reconciliation Commissions. In: Simić O ed. An Introduction to Transitional Justice. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 97-121.
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Fijalkowski AA (2018) Historical Politics and Court Redress in the Baltic States. In: Horne C; Stan L ed. Transitional Justice and the Former Soviet Union: Reviewing the Past, Looking toward the Future. Cambridge University Press, pp. 216-240.
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Grosescu R; Fijalkowski AA (2017) Retrospective justice and legal culture. In: Justice, Memory and redress in Romania: New Insights. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 100-123.
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Fijalkowski AA (2016) Truth and Reconciliation Commissions. In: Simic O ed. An Introduction to Transitional Justice. Routledge, pp. 91-112.
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Fijalkowski AA (2016) Amnesty. In: Simic O ed. An Introduction to Transitional Justice. Routledge, pp. 113-136.
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Fijalkowski A (2015) Transitional Criminal Justice: The Polish Way. In: Fijalkowski A; Grosescu R ed. Transitional Criminal Justice in Post-Dictatorial and Post-Conflict Societies. Intersentia Uitgevers N V, pp. 101-122.
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Fijalkowski A (2011) European Policy on the Death Penalty. In: Is the Death Penalty Dying?. Cambridge University Press, pp. 268-291.
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Fijalkowski A (2021) Book review: Law, Judges and Visual Culture. Law and Humanities, 15 (2), pp. 300-305.
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Fijalkowski A (2021) Tadeusz Cyprian: Polish War Crimes Prosecutor and Photographer. Law and Humanities
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Fijalkowski A (2021) Book Review: Soviet Judgment at Nuremberg: A New History of the International Military Tribunal after World War II. Social & Legal Studies
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Fijalkowski A; Valderhaug S (2017) Legal Decisions, Affective Justice, and ‘Moving On?’. Oñati Socio-Legal Series
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Fijalkowski A (2015) Musine Kokalari and the Power of Images: Law, Aesthetics and Memory Regimes in the Albanian Experience. International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique, 28 (3), pp. 577-602.
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Fijalkowski A (2014) The criminalisation of symbols of the past: expression, law and memory. International Journal of Law in Context, 10 (3), pp. 295-314.
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Fijalkowski A (2014) Politics, Law, and Justice in People's Poland: the Fieldorf File. Slavic Review, 73 (01), pp. 85-107.
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(2008) Book Reviews. Defense & Security Analysis, 24 (3), pp. 329-338.
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Fijalkowski A (2007) The Constitution of Law: Legality in a Time of Emergency By David Dyzenhaus, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. 266pp. ISBN 978-0-521-67795-5 £21.99, paperback ISBN 978-0-521-86075-8 £48.00, hardback. International Journal of Law in Context, 3 (4), pp. 389-395.
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Fijalkowski A (2007) The Paradoxical Nature of Crime Control in Post-Communist Europe. European Journal of Crime, Criminal Law and Criminal Justice, 15 (2), pp. 155-172.
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Fijalkowski A (2002) BOOK REVIEWSBOOK REVIEWSFijalkowskiAgataDrEuropa-Fellow, Europa-Universität Viadrina, Germany052002491143148M. Los; ZybertowiczA., Privatizing the Police-State: The Case of Poland, St Martin’s Press, New York 2000, 270 pp., $69.95. ISBN 0-312-23150-4.Copyright © T.M.C. Asser Press 20022002T.M.C. Asser PresspdfS0165070X00000371a.pdfdispartBook Reviews1.See HardingC., ‘The International and European Control of Crime’, in HardingC. and LimC.L., eds., Essays and Commentary on the European and Conceptual Foundations of Modern International Law (The Hague, Kluwer Law International 1999) pp. 189–219.2.See SajoA., Law and Politics Book Review, on http://www.polsci.vwu.edu/lpbr/subpages/reviews/losmaria.htm.3.PodgoreckiA., ‘Reappearance of Ex-Communist Structures as a Test for the Integrative Theory of Law. Netherlands International Law Review, 49 (01), pp. 143-143.
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Simic O (2016) An Introduction to Transitional Justice. Taylor & Francis.
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eds. Fijalkowski A; Grosescu R (2015) Transitional Criminal Justice in Post-Dictatorial and Post-Conflict Societies. Intersentia Uitgevers N V.
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Fijalkowski A (2010) From old times to new Europe: The Polish struggle for democracy and constitutionalism.
