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Open Access Working Paper
Infectious Ideas and Viral Images: Questioning Immunological Metaphors in Digital Communications
(2026-03) Paehr, Isabel
Why are images and imaginations of ‘infections’ and virality so appealing for digital communications? This article problematizes immunological metaphors by discussing a research report submitted to the United States (U.S.) Department of Defense entitled Exploring the Utility of Memes for U.S. Government Influence Campaigns (Zakem / McBride / Hammerberg 2018), in which the authors develop an epidemiological model to analyze and engage memes to ‘inoculate’, ‘infect’, and ‘treat’ the effects of adversarial messaging for influence campaigns. As work pursued in feminist/gender and critical disability studies shows, these framings of communications as ‘infectious’ resonate with immunology’s historical framing of the body as a bounded object at war with the outside world, the immune system as a normative cognitive system, and the ableist idea that sickness, disability, and queerness result from and lead to moral failures. Images of viruses and infections are present in the recent memetic alt-right trope of the Social Justice Warrior (SJW), and they echo with National Socialist (NS) propaganda posters that equated social groups with infectious diseases. Following ‘infectiousness’ as part of the basic aesthetic vocabulary of racist, anti-Semitic, and ableist ideologies, this article offers an analysis of selected alt-right memes and NS visual propaganda materials by incorporating the crip method of image descriptions into a method for analyzing contemporary memes offered by Nowotny and Reidy (2022). By critically following immunological metaphors through both textual and visual depictions I
hope to show some of the concerns that arise when understanding images as ‘infectious’.
Open Access Hochschulschrift
MINT-Berufs-/Studienfachwahl, Gender und Familie
(2021) Jeanrenaud, Yves Marcel
Ausgangspunkt der vorgelegten, publikationsbasierten Habilitationsschrift ist der nach wie vor niedrige Frauenanteil in MINT-Fächern, insbesondere in den Ingenieurwissenschaften, denen gerade vor der Kulisse einer beschleunigten Digitalisierung in vielen gesellschaftlichen Bereichen eine besondere Bedeutung zu kommt. Dies bedeutet wiederum, dass weiterhin Frauen* nicht im gleichen Maße an der Gestaltung, den Beschäftigungs- und Erwerbsperspektiven und dem Bedeutungszuwachs der Digitalisierung via MINT teilhaben wie Männer*, was nicht nur unter Gleichstellungsgesichtspunkten problematisch ist, sondern auch für den Wirtschaftsstandort Deutschland in Bezug auf den spezifischen MINT-Fachkräftemangel. Das ist in Politik und Wissenschaft längst bekannt und mit unterschiedlichen Maßnahmen und Projekten bedacht worden. Ausgehend von der These, dass mehrere ursächliche Aspekte entlang der Bildungskette sich gegenseitig bedingen und verstärkend zum Phänomen der vergeschlechtlichten Partizipation an MINT beitragen, ist das Ziel der hier vorgelegten Forschung jedoch, theoretisch wie empirisch begründet Vektoren und Handlungsansätze für Maßnahmen und Projekte zur Steigerung des Frauen*-Anteils in MINT zu identifizieren und zu verdichten, die aus dem Stand der Ursachenforschung erwachsen und entsprechende Maßnahmen sowie Handlungs- und Forschungsbedarfe zu eruieren, die multidimensional nutzbar und entsprechend erfolgsversprechend sein könnten.
The starting point of this publication-based habilitation thesis is the still low proportion of women in STEM subjects, especially in engineering, which is of particular importance against the backdrop of accelerated digitization in many areas of society. This in turn means that women* are still not participating to the same extent as men* in the shaping, employment and career prospects and growing importance of digitization via STEM, which is not only problematic from an equality perspective, but also for Germany as a business location in terms of the specific STEM skills shortage. This has long been known in politics and science and has been considered with various measures and projects. Based on the thesis that several causal aspects along the educational chain are mutually dependent and contribute to the phenomenon of gendered participation in STEM, the aim of the research presented here is, however, to identify and condense theoretically and empirically justified vectors and approaches for measures and projects to increase the proportion of women* in STEM that arise from the state of causal research and to elicit corresponding measures as well as needs for action and research that could be multidimensionally usable and accordingly promising.
Open Access Working Paper
Discomfort, Disruption, Disgust: Queer Feminist Curating and the Affective
(2026-04) Sadzinski, Sylvia
This article examines how queer feminist curating operates through affect, emphasizing discomfort, disruption, and disgust as politically productive forces. Drawing on affect theory and queer theory, it positions the curatorial as a critical practice that unsettles normative regimes and destabilizes entrenched power relations. Through analysis of the exhibitions Fat Femme Furious by Julischka Stengele and Und ich hab schon wieder Hunger/You make me very hungry by Lisa Holzer, the article demonstrates how negative affects reveal internalized social norms regarding bodies, gender, care, and visibility. Rather than mitigating dissonance, queer feminist curating can strategically mobilize affective responses to expose hegemonic structures and cultivate spaces for various marginalized communities. Affect thus functions as both a methodological lens and a mode of cultural critique, enabling reflection on representation, spectatorship, and the transformative potential of exhibitions within contemporary social contexts.
Open Access Working Paper
Porn as Queer(ing) Feminist Utopia. Pornotopia Revised
(2026-03) Held , Sarah; Sadzinski, Sylvia
Shown from 31 March to 4 May 2022, the exhibition pornotopia revised at Kunsthalle Exnergasse in Vienna explored the interstice of art and post-porn in its visual and material culture. The exhibition showed contemporary works that deal with desire, sexuality, and their representations and demonstrate the grey area between porn and art. Therefore, pornotopia revised was not limited to audiovisual explorations: contemporary sculptures, paintings, and video works in the so-called Porno Plüsch Platzerl [Porn Plush Place] reflected on narratives and representations of bodies and desire. The overall focus was not primarily on voyeurism or provocation through nudity or sexual acts, but on resistance and emancipation. The artistic works took up moments from porn, queered them or used them, for example, to debate the categorization, sexualization, and objectification of bodies and to question norms around sexuality and gender binary. The exhibition deliberately played with readings and aesthetics between so-called high and low culture, between trash, kitsch, and minimalism, between analogue craft and digital expression.
Open Access Working Paper
Queering Minoritarian In_Visibilities in Art & Visual Culture Renegotiated. Introduction to the Special Issue
(2026-03) Nastold, Friederike
Visibility, invisibility, and political agency have developed into a solid triad in the recent past. My long-time accomplice in science and art Thari Jungen and I were thinking a lot about this and the associated ambivalences of visibility (Schaffer 2008) again in summer 2023. The reason for this revisit was the conference Sichtbar machen – werden – sein: in queer_feministischer Perspektive von Kunst und Design (June 2023), taking place at the Muthesius Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Kiel. I would, therefore, like to share some introductory thoughts from our engagement with the affirmation of visibility and, in particular, highlight the ambivalences of visibility that go hand in hand with this. This serves as a basis for the introduction of the present Special Issue entitled “Queering Minoritarian In_Visibilities in Art & Visual Culture Renegotiated” and at the same time as an invitation to interweave the various contributions of it.
Firstly, Thari Jungen and I asked ourselves why the paradigm of visibility not only opens up a dichotomy between invisible powerlessness and powerful visibility, but may also reproduce the ambivalences of the dominant, marginalizing logic of representation. Secondly, we asked ourselves what exactly the political nature of visibility is if the production of visibility is to become effective as a political act. And finally, which accomplices require visibility to become political? (Jungen; Nastold 2025).