Dr. Maja Figge

Univ.-Ass. (Post-Doc)

figge(at)mdw.ac.at

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4751-1011

 

Maja Figge (Dr. phil.) is a cultural and media studies scholar. Since March 2026, she works as a postdoctoral research assistant at the International Research Center Gender and Performativity (ICGP) at mdw. Prior, she was a (visiting) professor of Theory and Aesthetics of Digital Media at the University of Vienna (2024–26). Further, she held visiting professorships in media studies at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (2020/21), Braunschweig University of Art (2020), and University of Arts Linz (2017–2018). She had appointments as a (postdoc) research assistant at the Institute for Film, Theater, Media, and Cultural Studies at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (2021–2023), at the DFG Research Training Group “The Knowledge of the Arts” at the Berlin University of the Arts (2017–2021), at the Institute for Theory and History of Design at the Berlin University of the Arts (2014–2016), and at the Institute for Art and Visual Culture at the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg (2011–2014). In 2012, she earned her Ph.D. in Cultural History and Theory from Humboldt Universität zu Berlin.

Starting in July 2026, she will be Principle Investigator of the research project “Infrastructuring Solidarity: Towards careful abolition – A postdigital media theory of solidarity“ funded by VolkswagenStiftung („Open up – New Research Spaces for the Humanities and the Cultural Studies“, with Jun.-Prof. Dr. Jasmin Degeling, Bauhaus-Universität Weimar). From 2023 to 2025, she was Principle Investigator for the DFG-funded project “Gathering: Towards a Transdisciplinary Approach to Spaces, Traces, and Practices of Memorialization in Namibia and Germany” (with Prof. Dr. Henriette Gunkel, Ruhr University Bochum; Prof. Dr. Sarala Krishnamurthy and Dr. Phillip Lühl, both Namibia University of Science and Technology, Windhoek); from February to July 2023, she was a Fellow at the DFG funded Cluster of Excellence “Africa Multiple: Reconfiguring African Studies” at Bayreuth University; from August to October 2019, she was a Visiting Scholar at the Program in Literature at Duke University, Durham, and in August 2014, a Karl-Ferdinand-Theodor Fellow at the German Historical Institute in Paris (DHIP).

She is author of the monograph Deutschsein (wieder-)herstellen. Weißsein und Männlichkeit im bundesdeutschen Kino der fünfziger Jahre (2015) and co-editor of several anthologies, the latest being Künste dekolonisieren: Ästhetische Praktiken des Lernens und Verlernens (2023; with Juana Awad, Julian Sverre Bauer, Lisa Großmann, Wilma Lukatsch). In addition, she has published numerous essays and articles. Her article „Verstricken als Methode. Eine Skizze zur komplexen Untersuchung von Differenz/en im Film“ (nach dem film, Nr. 20/2022) was awarded the Karsten Witte Preis für den besten filmwissenschaftlichen Aufsatz 2023, her essay „Implikationen weißer Schuld im deutschen Kontext“ has received an honorable mention for the Best Publication Award Gender und Medien 2024. Currently, she is finishing her second monograph, Black (Post-)Cinemas. Genealogy, Aesthetics, Practices, which will be published by transcript Verlag.

Between 2017 and 2021, she served as a member of the board of Gesellschaft für Medienwissenschaft e.V., from 2019 to 2024 she was a member of the editorial board of Zeitschrift für Medienwissenschaft. Since 2020, she has been a member of the DFG research network „Gender Medien Affekt“. She has also served as a liaison officer and reviewer in the field of media, cultural, and art studies for Rosa Luxemburg Foundation since 2020.

Research Interests:

  • (Digital) media theory and aesthetics
  • Media Archeology
  • Gender Media Studies
  • Post/Decolonial Film and Media Studies
  • Aesthetics and Politics
  • Transnational and networked Moving Image Media
  • Post-Cinema, Social Media
  • Visual Cultures
  • Queer and Affect theories
  • Memory Politics and Theories
  • Eco Media Studies

Publications (Selection):

 

Books

 

  • Black (Post-)Cinema. Genealogies, Practices, Aesthetics, Bielefeld: transcript (in preparation)
  • Künste dekolonisieren: Ästhetische Praktiken des Lernens und Verlernens, Bielefeld: transcript Verlag 2023, DOI: 10.14361/9783839457726 [Ed. with Julian Bauer, Lisa Großmann, Wilma Lukatsch]
  • Black Diaspora and Germany. Deutschland und die Schwarze Diaspora, Münster: Edition Assemblage 2018 [Ed. with BDG Network]
  • Deutschsein (wieder-)herstellen. Weißsein und Männlichkeit im bundesdeutschen Kino der fünfziger Jahre, Bielefeld: transcript 2015
  • Scham und Schuld. Geschlechter(sub)texte der Shoah, Bielefeld: transcript 2010 [Ed. with Konstanze Hanitzsch & Nadine Teuber]
  • MOV!NG ON. Handlungen an Grenzen – Strategien zum antirassistischen Handeln, zweisprachiger Ausstellungskatalog, Berlin: Neue Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst 2005 [Ed. with AG MOV!NG ON]

 

Articles, Essays