
Mary Zournazi is Associate Professor in the School of Social Sciences, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, UNSW.
Mary has published numerous books including Inventing Peace with the German Film director Wim Wenders & Justice and Love with former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams. She is an award winning documentary film maker, her most recent films are Dogs of Democracy (2017) and My Rembetika Blues (2021). She has produced and written radio documentaries for over the last twenty years for ABC Radio National.
She currently teaches and researches in areas of visual sociology, cinema, culture and emotions, social justice, digital cultures, ideas of hope, peace, political love, the body and self, and issues of communal belonging. Her previous research has explored issues of war, terror, language, hope, and the impacts of migration and displacement on the self and familial life. She is currently interested in creative responses to social and economic crisis, care, justice and peace. She has a passion for writing and directing essay style documentaries.
Her work traverses both traditional academic practices and creative research in film, theatre and radio.
Research Areas
Visual sociology, cinema, politics, culture, emotion, migration, belonging, identity, peace, psychoanalysis, philosophies of hope, postcolonial theory.
Mary's documentary films have won several awards the following nominations and awards for Dogs of Democracy:
US Film Award: Spirit of Achievement Award at the Nevada Women’s Festival.
Impact Documentary Awards, April 2017. Director’s Choice Award, Social Justice Film Festival 2017 (US),
Best Feature Documentary, Imagine This International Women’s Film festival, 2017 (US) & Shortlisted Telling Tales International Film and Audio Festival.
My Rembetika Blues has been nominated for
Best Documentary Film at the Los Angeles Greek Film (2021)
Best Documentary Film, Nevada Women's Film Festival (2021)
Winner Gold Remi Award for Documentary World-Fest Houston International Film Festival (2021)
My Rembetika Blues is currently doing the International and National Festival Circuit.
Visiting Fellowships
Radio Documentary Work & Commissions
My Teaching
Teaching areas
Sociology, Social Justice, Sociology of Images, Cultural Identities, Experience, Media, culture
Current teaching
ARTS 2874 Culture and Emotion, ARTS 3872 Media, Culture and Power, ARTS 3886 Living Social Justice
Areas of HDR supervision:
Visual cultures, culture, emotion, migration, belonging, identity, peace, cinema, psychoanalysis, philosophies of hope, postcolonial theory, documentary, ethnography.