Louis Breitsohl, M.A.
DFG Graduiertenkolleg “Family Matters” (2024– )
Fabulating Differences – On the Historiographical Construction and Temporalization of Minority Identities and Forms of Community in Contemporary Queer Cinema
Louis Breitsohl completed a B.A. in Media Culture Studies at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf and a M.A. in Film Studies at Freie Universität Berlin. During their studies, they also worked as a tutor and mentor at the department. In addition to their academic work, Louis was actively involved in the cultural life of the city and gained significant organizational experience, such as serving as board member and organizer of the 16th Filmfest Düsseldorf in 2018 and co-organizer of a happening in 2019. For Louis, research and artistic practice go hand in hand: in addition to publishing several articles and giving lectures, they have gained experience in the film sector, ranging from large studio productions to festival work and film distribution, as well as in a variety of multimedia artistic projects that have been exhibited at art exhibitions and international film festivals. Louis’ research focuses on mental images and agential scenes, queer-feminist and intersectional thinking, psychoanalytic theory, and forms of film historiography.
The dissertation project examines a corpus of various films from international queer cinema that, with a deliberate focus on their own minority histories, assert a differential character of their identities, sensual perceptions, love and sexuality, and, not least, their language. Starting from these cinematic positions, the theory of a media-specific, queer historiography will be developed, in which speculative community-building, minority memory work, and historiographical practices intersect, culminating in the construction of queer temporalities that address current political-theoretical questions.
Lea Letzel, M.A.
Lea Letzel is an artist, director and pyrotechnician who develops interdisciplinary performative works at the intersection of sound, music, media art, dance and space. Her focus is on the concert format and exploring the conditions and conventions of performance situations. She studied applied theatre studies at Justus-Liebig-University in Giessen and media art at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne. Lea Letzel has participated in numerous international exhibitions and performances. From 2019 to 2022, she was a member of the ‘Junges Kolleg’ of the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences and Arts. Since 2024, she has been pursuing a doctorate in the inter-university programme ‘Science & Art’ in Salzburg. Since 2025/26 Lea Letzel holds a professorship for in Performance and New Musical Performance Practices at the HfK Bremen.
Anna Raisich, M.A.
DFG Project: Die Kunst der Gewerke (The Art of Crafts) (2022-2027)
Anna Raisich first studied Contrabass at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich before transferring to Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität to study theater and musicology, as well as gender studies as a minor. Her B.A. thesis deals with a critical reading of the actions of the Center for Political Beauty. She completed her master’s degree with a thesis on theater as a subject of sociological research. Following her master’s degree, she worked as a project assistant at the Festivalcampus of the Ruhrtriennale and as a research assistant at the Institute for Theater Studies in Munich.
Since September 2022, Anna Raisich has been working there on the DFG research project The Art of Crafts: A Praxeography of the Theater Apparatus. In her doctoral thesis (working title: Technical Details: Relationality, Materiality and Values in Theater), she examines, among other things, practices of order and organisation at the municipal theatre. By translating key concepts and insights from actor-network theory and Science and Technology Studies into theater studies, her work contributes to the ongoing methodological debate and the associated reconfiguration of the discipline, as well as to the search for relational and materialist ways of speaking about theater. The aim of this empirically grounded theory-building is to shed light on aspects of theater production that have hitherto been largely excluded, and to explore the question of what constitutes a better, more sustainable or future-proof theater in dialogue with practice.
Luise Barsch, M.A.
DFG Project: Die Kunst der Gewerke (The Art of Crafts) (2022-2025)
Luise Barsch holds a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and literature from the University of Erfurt. After initial professional experience in the non-academic sector, she successfully completed a Master’s degree in Theater Research and Cultural Practice at LMU Munich with a qualitative interview study on Technology and Theater. Aesthetics, Work and Gender on the Backstage. During her studies, she worked as a dramaturgy and directing intern at the Bavarian State Opera, Munich’s Residenztheater and Munich’s Gärtnerplatztheater with Simon Stone, Antonio Latella, Herbert Föttinger and Laura Olivi, among others. In 2020, the interdisciplinary Munich format Cultural Policy Lab was co-organized and directed by her.
Since September 2022, Luise Barsch has been employed in the DFG research project Die Kunst der Gewerke: eine Praxeografie des Theaterapparats (The Art of Crafts: A Praxeography of the Theater Apparatus), where she is completing her doctorate.
Sylvia Sobottka, M.A.
Acting 101. An ethnographic field study
Sylvia Sobottka studied performing arts at the University of Hildesheim and theater directing at the Otto Falckenberg School in Munich. In her artistic practice, she works as a director and dramaturg at municipal and state theaters (including Theater Bremen, Theater Freiburg, and the Bürgerbühne at the Staatsschauspiel Dresden), as well as in the independent theater scene. Since 2019, she has been a research assistant at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) in the Master’s program in Theater, focusing on contemporary theater, dramaturgy, disability and theater, and ethnographic research methods in the arts, as well as an external lecturer at various acting schools in German-speaking countries. She also serves as the Diversity Officer for the theater division within the Department of Performing Arts and Film at ZHdK.
Julia Thurn, M.A.
Dramaturge at Theater Fürth
Creation of atmospheres in the theatrical production process (2019– )
Julia Thurn studied Theater and Media Studies as well as English and American Studies at the FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg. After receiving her master’s degree in Theater Studies, she completed assistantships in press and public relations, directing and dramaturgy in the independent scene as well as at municipal theaters in the Nuremberg metropolitan region. Since 2019, she has been working on her doctorate at the LMU Munich alongside and about her work as a dramaturg at the Stadttheater Fürth. She currently works as dramaturg in chief and theatre pedagogue at Landestheater Eisenach.
Iva Brdar, M.A.
DAAD-Research Fellowship (2017-2022)
Dramaturgy of Connections. Digital Intimacy in Theater and Performance Text
Iva Brdar has completed studies of Dramaturgy at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade and earned a master’s degree in Theatre Studies at Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris III; she also completed the Women Studies Program at the Center for Women Studies in Belgrade. Furthermore, Iva Brdar is a prize-winning playwright, exploring her research interests in practice. Her play Daumenregeln (Rule of Thumb) won the Brücke Berlin Prize and Sterijino Pozorje Prize, with Geraniums Can Survive Anything, she won the Heartefact Foundation Prize, while Tomorrow Is (For Now) Always Here was shortlisted at Theatertreffen Stückemarkt. Her plays were staged in theatres worldwide (Schauspiel Stuttgart, Kosmos Theater Wien, Cherry Arts Ithaca, a. o.) and are represented in Germany by Rowohlt Verlag.
Currently, she is a PhD candidate in Theatre Studies at Ludwig- Maximilians-Universität München as a DAAD scholarship holder.
Dr. Miriam Höller
Project funds of the Volkswagen Foundation (2014-2019)
Traditional Progress. Electric modernism in provincial court theaters using the example of Stuttgart.
Dr. Miriam Höller studied German language and literature, Romance studies, and cultural anthropology/ethnology in Bonn and Münster. She received her PhD from LMU Munich in 2019 with a dissertation on theater and technology around 1900. In addition, she already supervised the development of digital museum formats. Since 2020, she has been employed as a museum educator with a focus on digital mediation at the German Mining Museum Bochum.
Co-supervision
Özgür Eren, M.Sc.
Acting in Social VR: An Immersive Learning Experiment (2025– , Supervision: Prof. Dr. Raphael Zender)
Özgür Eren is a research assistant at the Endowed Chair for Virtual Reality Systems at Zeppelin University in Friedrichshafen. His primary focus is on natural user interfaces in VR applications.
Stephanie Schneider, PhD
Art and the Artificial Eye. Algorithmic Views of the Human Body Pose (2019–2024, Supervision: Prof. Dr. Hubertus Kohle)
Stefanie Schneider is a research assistant at the Institute of Art History at the Philipps-Universität Marburg. With an academic background in Statistics, Computer Science, and Sociology, she earned her PhD in Art History in 2024.