Dr. habil. Karolina Wigura is a historian of ideas, sociologist, and journalist. She is member of the Board of Kultura Liberalna Foundation, based in Warsaw, and a Senior Fellow of the Center for Liberal Modernity, based in Berlin. Wigura is also lecturer at Warsaw University's Institute of Sociology and focuses on the political philosophy of the 20th century and emotions in politics, as well as sociology and ethics of memory, particularly transitional justice, historical guilt, and reconciliation. She is also an assistant professor and member of the European Council on Foreign Relations. From 2016 to 2018, she was a co-director of the Polish Programme in St. Antony's College at University of Oxford.

Wigura was awarded fellowships at Institute of Advanced Studies in Berlin, Robert Bosch Academy, Institute of Human Sciences in Vienna, German Marshall Fund, and St. Antony's College at University of Oxford. In 2008, she received the Grand Press prize for her interview with Jürgen Habermas "Europe in death paralysis." Wigura is the author of The Guilt of Nations: Forgiveness as a Political Strategy (2011) and The Invention of Modern Heart: Philosophical Sources of Contemporary Thinking of Emotions (2019) – both in Polish. Her work has also been published in The Guardian, The New York Times, Neue Zuercher Zeitung, Gazeta Wyborcza, and other periodicals.

Wigura was awarded fellowships at Institute of Advanced Studies in Berlin, Robert Bosch Academy, Institute of Human Sciences in Vienna, German Marshall Fund, and St. Antony's College at University of Oxford. In 2008, she received the Grand Press prize for her interview with Jürgen Habermas "Europe in death paralysis." Wigura is the author of The Guilt of Nations: Forgiveness as a Political Strategy (2011) and The Invention of Modern Heart: Philosophical Sources of Contemporary Thinking of Emotions (2019) – both in Polish. Her work has also been published in The Guardian, The New York Times, Neue Zuercher Zeitung, Gazeta Wyborcza, and other periodicals.

Her latest book co-authored with a conservative and catholic intellectual Tomasz Terlikowski is "Polish atheist vs. Polish Catholic" recently became one of bestsellers in Poland (2022). Wigura is currently preparing, together with Jarosław Kuisz, a book on the impact of the war in Ukraine on Central and Eastern Europe for Suhrkamp Verlag.

Wigura studied sociology, philosophy, and political science at University of Warsaw and University of Munich. She received her doctorate and habilitation from University of Warsaw.