Reinhold A. Bertlmann is a theoretical physicist and Professor Emeritus at the University of Vienna. His work spans quantum physics, entanglement, Bell inequalities, decoherence, quantum field theory and the foundations of quantum mechanics. He taught and supervised at the University of Vienna, organized conferences and workshops, and authored Anomalies in Quantum Field Theory as well as two books with Anton Zeilinger, Quantum [Un]Speakables I & II. Bertlmann held research positions in Dubna, at CERN, and in Marseille, Paris-Sud and Orsay.
Violetta L. Waibel was Professor of European Philosophy at the University of Vienna from 2009 to 2023. Her key publications include Hölderlin und Fichte (2000), Spinozas Affektenlehre (2012), and Fichte und Sartre über Freiheit (2015). She organized the 30th International Hegel Congress in 2014 and the 12th International Kant Congress in 2015 and co-edited the five-volume Natur und Freiheit (2019). Waibel also organized interdisciplinary Concert-Symposia with Klangforum Wien and Wien Modern and has published widely on consciousness, subjectivity, space, time and aesthetics.
Avital Ronell is the Jacques Derrida Chair and Professor of philosophy at the European Graduate School and Professor of the Humanities at New York University. Her work spans literary studies, philosophy, feminist and trans theory, media, technology, psychoanalysis and deconstruction. Born in Prague, she studied in Berlin, Princeton and Paris with Gadamer, Derrida and Cixous. She has held professorships in US and received major awards and fellowships, among them distinguished French cultural awards. She has appeared in theater and film, including this year’s “Surviving Derrida” by Mario Lozano.
Tanja Traxler is a quantum physicist, journalist, and lecturer at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. Her research focuses on the philosophical foundations of quantum physics and the societal impact of quantum technologies. As head of the science department of DER STANDARD she is a leading communicator of science and one of Austria’s most established science journalists. She was awarded several prizes for her work in science communication. At the UAAV she combines quantum physics with artistic practices and cross-disciplinary links between science, philosophy and the arts.
Arno Böhler teaches philosophy at the Department of Philosophy at the University of Vienna and aesthetics at the mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. He is the Principal Investigator of the PEEK project “Philosophy in the Arts : Arts in Philosophy. Cross-Cultural Research on the Significance of the Heart in Artistic Research and Performance Philosophy”, conducted at ARC-mdw and funded by the Austrian Science Fund FWF. He has been a visiting research fellow in Bangalore, Heidelberg, New York and Princeton, and a visiting professor in Vienna, Bremen and Berlin.
Soumyabrata Choudhury teaches at the School of Arts and Aesthetics, JNU. He has authored Theatre, Number, Event: Three Studies on the Relationship between Sovereignty, Power and Truth, Ambedkar and Other Immortals: An Untouchable Research Programme, Now It’s Come To Distances: Notes on Coronavirus and Shaheen Bagh, Association and Isolation and Thoughts of Gaza Far From Gaza.
Dr. Sandra Noeth is a professor at Berlin University of the Arts and a practising curator and dramaturge. She specializes in body-based research in the arts, society and politics. Recent projects have focused on the role, status and agency of bodies in bordering processes, on arts, bodies and unequal politics of protection, and on the body in international humanitarian law. She is the author of Resilient Bodies, Residual Effects (2019) and editor or co-editor of several key publications on embodiment and movement. Her work engages critically with artistic, social and political contexts today.
Susanne Valerie Granzer is an actress and a professor emeritus of acting at the Max Reinhardt Seminar, University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna (mdw). Alongside her acting career, she was awarded a PhD in Philosophy in 1995 (University of Vienna). From 2021 to 2025 she was teaching ‘Aesthetics as Ethics’ there. Her research focuses on the actor on stage and performance philosophy. She is currently a key-researcher in an international research project led by Arno Böhler at the Artistic Research Centre mdw ‘Arts in Philosophy: Philosophy in the Arts’.
Krassimira Kruschkova is a theatre, dance and performance theorist and dramaturge. She teaches at the University of Applied Arts and the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Habilitation in 2002; from 2003–2017 head of the Theory Center at Tanzquartier Wien. She curated numerous lecture and performance series and held guest professorships in Vienna, Salzburg, Frankfurt and over several years at FU Berlin. Publications include Ob?scene (2005), Tanz anderswo (2004), It takes place when it doesn’t (2006), Uncalled (2009), Wissen wir, was ein Körper vermag? (2014), and SCORES #0–#7 (2010–2017).
Veronika Reichl is a writer, lecturer, and artist based in Berlin. In 2023, her book Das Gefühl zu denken (The Feeling of Thinking), a collection of stories on reading theory, was published by Matthes & Seitz Berlin. In 2008, she released Sprachkino (Language-Cinema), which explores the interface between theoretical language and pictorality, published by Merz & Solitude, Stuttgart. She holds degrees in Communication Design and Media Art, and completed an artistic research Ph.D. at the University of Portsmouth.
