Maddalena Zaglio

Maddalena ZAglio is a doctoral student in Contemporary History at the University of Geneva, Switzerland.  She holds a B.A. in International Relations and an M.A. in Middle East Studies from the same institution.  Her research, Lost at Home:  The Italian Settler Community in Postcolonial Libya (1943-1970), explores the evolving role of Italian settlers in Libya after independence, with a focus on elite power networks.  Bridging history and sociology, she employs a mixed-method approach that integrates social network and quantitative text analysis with in-depth qualitative research.  

Maddalena has been invited to present her research at leading institutions, including the French School in Rome and the Research Institute for Contemporary Maghreb in Tunis.  She was a visiting researcher at Sapienza University of Rome (February-July 2023) and has received multiple scholarships and awards, including the German Oriental Society Prize (DMG).  She is also learning Modern Standard Arabic to expand her access to unpublished sources and literature.  

In addition to her research, Maddalena has been teaching at the University of Geneva’s Global Studies Institute for five years.  She lectures Master’s students and has designed her own course on modern and contemporary Libyan history.  

Publications (as of February 2025): 

Zaglio, Maddalena. 2024.  “Power, knowledge, and being:  the emergence and persistence of coloniality in Libya”.  The Journal of North African Studies 29 (6): 961-997.

[Submitted] Zaglio, Maddalena.  “The End of Libya’s “Puppet State” Narrative:  the Birth of the National Bank of Libya”.