- E-Mail:
- sebastian.althoff@uni-paderborn.de
- Phone:
- +49 5251 60-5674
- Office Address:
-
Mersinweg 3
33100 Paderborn - Room:
- W1.106
- Office hours:
Nach Vereinbarung per Mail.
About Sebastian Althoff
Curriculum Vitae
Since 01.03.2023: Research Associate and Lecturer (PostDoc), Department of Media Studies, University of Paderborn
(since 03/2023) Chair of Digital Cultures/ Digital Humanities
17.07.2022 - 28.02.2023: Visiting Researcher, Centre of Applied Philosophy, Politics and Ethics (CAPPE), University of Brighton
Supervisor: Clare Woodford
03.05.2021 - 15.07.2022: Research Associate and Lecturer (PostDoc), Department of Media Studies, University of Paderborn
Chair of Media Theory and Media Culture
01.02.2021: Dr. phil., Ruhr-University Bochum
Supervisors: Friedrich Balke (Bochum), Maria Muhle
01.04.2017 - 31.03.2020: Member, DFG-Research Group Media and Mimesis (FOR 1867)
PhD position within the subproject Mimetic Modes of Existence, part of the research group Media and Mimesis funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG)
01.04.2017 - 31.03.2020: Associated Member, International Doctoral Program MIMESIS at LMU Munich
01.04.2017 - 31.03.2020: Research Associate and Lecturer (PraeDoc), Academy of Fine Arts, Munich
Philosophy | Aesthetic Theory
01.01.2019 - 31.08.2019: Visiting Researcher, Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths College, University of London
01/2019 - 06/2019) Supervisor: Emily Rosamond
30.09.2015: M.A. Political Theory, Goethe-University Frankfurt/ Technical University of Darmstadt
30.09.2012: B.A. Philosophy & Economics, University of Bayreuth
2025: Hating Men
(together with Laura Mücke), 雷速体育_中国竞彩网￥官网比分直播 “(Kein) Mann sein”, organised by the Working Group Gender/ Queer Studies and Media Studies, Vienna
2025: Abolition and Digital Violence
film- und medienwissenschaftliches Kolloquium, Düsseldorf/ Kneipengeflüster Paderborn
2024: The Condemnation of Hate and the Violence of the Status Quo
雷速体育_中国竞彩网￥官网比分直播 on “Hate”, TU Dresden/ Annual Conference of the Association of Social and Political Philosophy, Durham University
2024: Digital Hate and the Construction of the 'Good' Discourse
Bremer Kolloquium für Politische Theorie/ Conference of the Network Critical Communication Studies, Paderborn/ Conference “Tausend Plattformen”, Berlin
2023: 'I detest the Tories': The Discursive and Affective Boundaries of Democratic Debates
Annual Conference of the Working Group Gro?britannien Forschung on “Political Culture and Culture Politics”, Berlin/ 雷速体育_中国竞彩网￥官网比分直播 on “Sicherheit - differentielle und anthropomediale Perspektiven”, Universit?t Weimar
2023: Scenes of Survival
Interdisciplinary Colloquium of the Centre for Postcolonial and Gender Studies, Trier University
Publications
Latest Publications
(All-)Tage im Internet. Unzuverl?ssige Erz?hlungen
D. Wolf, L. Mücke, S. Althoff, Ffk Journal (2025).
K-Pop Demon Hunters: Selbstakzeptanz ohne Solidarit?t
S. Althoff, Zeitschrift für Medienwissenschaft, ZfM Online, GAAAP_ The Blog (2025).
Walking with Images: Mimetic-Automatic Production in Hasan Elahi’s Tracking Transcience
S. Althoff, in: G. Gasparavicius, M. Toteva, T. Williams (Eds.), Walking with the Enemy: Reclaiming the Language of Power and Manipulation in the Post-Truth Era, Manchester University Press, Manchester, n.d.
The Condemnation of Hate and the Violence of the Status Quo
S. Althoff, Cultural Politics 20 (2024) 45–59.
Hass im Netz und die Konstruktion des 'guten' Diskurses: Eine machtkritische Analyse
S. Althoff, merzWissenschaft 68 (2024) 113–125.
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Teaching
Current Courses
- Kritische Technoscience
Further Information
Current research projects
The interwoven research projects I currently work on deal with the notion of 'survival' on the one hand, and the condemnation of hate and the delegitimization of social media on the other. Both projects respond to crises that democracies face today. 'Survival' increasingly circulates as a term in contexts such as climate activism, flight/refuge, Black Lives Matter, or trade union movements. However, different meanings are attached to the term, which can have different consequences in the political orientation towards survival. The project examines different scenes of survival to tease out these different meanings—conservative-preservative, transformative, exotic, everyday—and their effects. The approach allows us to confront philosophical and sociological texts on a politics of survival and anti-racist, abolitionist, feminist, and queer survival guides with media objects that explore survival as a digital afterlife, in disaster, zombie, or horror films, in jungle (game) shows, or in computer games.
The project on the condemnation of hate is similarly committed to this approach of evolving political theory through the consideration of media objects. This project sets out to rethink the relationship between hate and democracy by speculating that hate may be an appropriate response to the various, current crises and to the injuries they entail. To this end, it refers, for example, to hatred of the police or of politicians responsible for the EU border regime. The affective and discursive boundaries that are performatively created through a condemnation of hate seem, in contrast, too limiting to express the violence of the status quo. In this regard, the association of hate and social media predestines the latter as an object through which to examine the exclusive positing of dialogue as a democratic tool par excellence. While the trans activist Eric Stanley criticizes dialogue as a "liberal technique of liquidation," social media are considered inferior precisely because they do not promote a deliberative process. Radical democratic theories, on the other hand, provide means to describe processes such as the distinction between 'we'/'you'—based on Schmitt's friend/enemy distinction—as essential to democratic struggles and to critically examine charges that on social media 'anyone' can say 'anything'.
Research Focus
Political Theory
Media Studies
Democratic and Affect Theory
Queer Theory