Madeline Klimek graduated from Trinity College at the University of Toronto in 2016, earning her Honours Bachelor of Arts with High Distinction in International Relations and History. Research endeavours during her undergraduate education included the disintegration of Yugoslavia in the 1990s and the memory of Joseph Stalin in the Republic of Georgia. Furthermore, Madeline was a research assistant for Professor Doris Bergen, a leading Canadian scholar of the Holocaust.
Working under the guidance of Professor Volker Berghahn and Professor Heather Jones at Columbia and the LSE, respectively, Madeline investigated the treatment of female enemy aliens during World War II in Great Britain. She focused particularly on the legal denaturalisation of British women married to foreigners and the restrictions placed upon their freedom during war. Madeline’s analysis of a British Home Office suspicious of British women marrying outside the White-Anglo fold brought to the fore legal nationality conundrums British women faced if they married foreigners, and the dangerous nature of denaturalisation laws during conflict. Additionally, her dissertation revealed British Home Office officials’ implicit racism and biases surrounding women, both foreign and domestic.
In September 2018, Madeline will be a JD Candidate at the University of Western Ontario, Class of 2021.
Outside of academics, Madeline is a classically trained soprano and pianist. She is also a dog enthusiast, particularly fond of her two Australian Shepherds, Oscar and Hamish.
