Prof. Dr. Erich Hörl

21335 Lüneburg, Universitätsallee 1, C5.302
Fon +49.4131.677-2760, erich.hoerl@leuphana.de
Professor*in, Professorship of Media Culture and Media Philosophy
Institute of Culture and Aesthetics of Digital Media
DFG-Researchgroup "Cultures of Critique"
Leuphana Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture and Society

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Vita

Prof. Dr. Erich Hörl has held the professorship of Media Culture and Media Philosophy at Leuphana University Lüneburg since 2014 and has held the position of Vice President for Research since 2022. He is also co-director of the Leuphana Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture and Society and deputy speaker of the DFG Research Training Group "Cultures of Critique." In November 2024 he has been appointed as an Extraordinary Professor at the Center for the Humanities Research of the University of the Western Cape, South Africa. Previously, he was Professor of Media Technology and Media Philosophy at the Ruhr University in Bochum and has directed the Bochum Colloquium on Media Studies (bkm) there since 2007.

He is currently working on the theory and history of disruption, which grasps disruptivity as a key problem for understanding the contemporary world; on a general ecology and critique of environmentality. He publishes internationally on the history, problems and challenges of the contemporary technological condition.

  • since 11/2024: Extraordinary Professor at the Center of Humanities Research (CHR), University of the Western Cape, South Africa
  • since 04/2022: Academic Director of the Leuphana Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture and Society
  • since 04/2022: Vice President for Research
  • 10/2020 - 03/2022: Vice President College and Quality Development
  • since 2014: W3 professorship for Media Culture and Medie Philosophy at Leuphana University Lüneburg
  • 2016: Senior Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study at the University of Konstanz
  • 2013/14: Senior Fellow of the DFG Collaborative Research Group Media Cultures of Computer Simulation (mecs) at Leuphana University Lüneburg
  • 2012 - 2014: W2 professorship for Media Technology and Media Philosophy at the Ruhr University Bochum
  • 2010/11: Senior Fellow at the International Research Institute for Cultural Techniques and Media Philosophy (IKKM) at the Bauhaus-University Weimar
  • 2006 - 2012: Junior Professor for Media Technology and Media Philosophy at the Ruhr-University Bochum
  • 2004 - 2006: Research associate in Philosophy of Technology at the Chair for Philosophy at the ETH Zürich
  • 2003 - 2005: Research associate at the DFG-Research Unit “Bild, Schrift, Zahl” at the Hermann von Helmholtz-Zentrum für Kulturtechnik (HZK) at the Humboldt University of Berlin
  • 2003: PhD in 'Kulturwissenschaft' at the Humboldt University of Berlin. Doctoral thesis: "Die heiligen Kanäle. Über die archaische Illusion der Kommunikation" (Zürich-Berlin 2005: diaphanes) 
  • Studies in Vienna and Paris: Philosophy and Communication Theory

Other activities

  • Editorial Board of the series Meaning Systems (Fordham University Press)
  • Scientific Advisory Board of Jahrbuch Technikphilosophie (Nomos Verlag)

Doctorate candidates (only first supervisor)

  • Milan Stürmer: „Schulden erben“.
  • Till Hahn: „Marx‘ Begriff der Form“
  • Amelie Buchinger: „(De)Carbonizing Digital Futures. Towards a Speculative Critique of Cryptocarbon and Its Political Media Ecologies“
  • Donovan Stewart: „The Ecotechnical Community: Hospitality and the Organization of Locality“
  • Benedikt Kuhn: „Ästhetik der Disruption. Temporale Subjektivität nach Kant, Marx und Stiegler“
  • Baptiste Loraux: „La cybernétique comme remise en jeu de la métaphysique. Les enjeux philosophiques de la première cybernétique (1943-1953)“ (Co-tutelle mit Paris 8, Prof. Dr. Pierre Cassou-Noguès)
  • Konstantin Mitrokhov: „Games Agents Play: On Game-like Simulations and the Possibility of Generalist Artificial Intelligence“
  • Freya Häberlein: „Technics and Tragedy. Axiologies of Excess and Disruption in General Organology“.

Concluded doctoral candidacies

  • Christina Vagt: „Geschickte Sprünge: Physik und Medium bei Martin Heidegger“ (concluded 2010, second opinion).
  • Florian Sprenger: „Medien des Immediaten: Elektrizität – Telegraphie – McLuhan“ (concluded 2011) .
  • German Andres Duarte Peñaranda: „Fractal Narrative: Fractalis Narratio Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata“ (concluded 2013, second opinion).
  • Timo Kaerlein: „Bringing Your Own Device. Smartphones als digitale Nahkörpertechnologien“ (concluded 2017, second opinion).
  • Christian Voller: „Rückkehren zu Marx. Studien zur Vor- und Frühgeschichte der Kritischen Theorie“ (concluded 2020).
  • Heiko Stubenrauch: „Die zweite kopernikanische Wende: Kritik und Affekt nach Kant, Adorno und Deleuze“ (concluded 2020).
  • Liza Mattutat: „Emanzipation und Gewalt: Feministische Rechtskritik mit Marx, Derrida und Deleuze“ (concluded 2021).
  • Mathias Denecke: „Informationsströme als Metapher und Konzept in Gegenwartsdiagnosen. Sprachkritik, Geschichte, Reformulierungen“ (concluded 2021).
  • Christoph Görlich: „Im ‚Hohlraum der Negativität‘: Gotthard Günther und die Krise des Subjekts.“ (concluded 2021).
  • Laura Hille: „Gefährliche Materie: Biohacking als Selbsttechnologie einer kybernetischen Biopolitik.“ (concluded 2023).
  • Malte Fabian Rauch: „Zerfallen: Ästhetiken des Negativen bei Agamben, Adorno und Bataille.“ (concluded 2023).
  • Bélen Prado: „Automated Patterns of Culture Philosophy and Machine Learning.“ (concluded 2023).

Research Interests

Since 2014 Erich Hörl is full professor of Media Culture and Media Philosophy at the Leuphana University Lüneburg. He is also a senior researcher at Leuphana’s Digital Cultures Research Lab (DCRL). Prior to this, he was professor of Media Technology and Media Philosophy at the Ruhr-University Bochum, where he was the head of the ‘Bochumer Kolloquium Medienwissenschaft’ (bkm).

Currently, he is working on a general ecology of media and technology as well as on a critique of the processes of cybernetisation of every form of life and every mode of existence, focussing on a historical-systematic outlining of a technoecology of participation. He publishes internationally on the history as well as the problems and challenges of the contemporary technological condition.

Projects

  1. ExzellenzStärken
    Erich Heinrich Hörl (Project manager, academic)
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    Project: Research

  2. Teilprojekt „Skills for a Digital Future“ im Projekt "Leuphana: Digital Transformation Lab for Teaching and Learning" (DigiTaL)
    Gitte Köllner (Project staff) , Erich Heinrich Hörl (Project manager, academic) , Julia Webersik (Project manager, academic)
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    Project: Teaching

  3. Souver@nes digitales Lehren und Lernen
    Erich Heinrich Hörl (Project manager, academic) , Julia Webersik (Project manager, academic)
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    Project: Teaching

  4. DigiTaL - Digital Transformation Lab for Teaching and Learning
    Erich Heinrich Hörl (Project manager, academic) , Julia Webersik (Project manager, academic)
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    Project: Teaching

  5. DFG Reserach Training Group 2114: Cultures of Critique - Forms, Media, Effects
    Beate Elisabeth Söntgen (Project manager, academic) , Erich Heinrich Hörl (Project manager, academic) , Timon Beyes (Project manager, academic) , Roberto Nigro (Project manager, academic)
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    Project: Research

View all projects

Publications

Books and anthologies

  1. Critique and the Digital
    Erich Heinrich Hörl (Editor) , Nelly Yaa Pinkrah (Editor) , Clara Lotte Warnsholdt (Editor) , 2021 Zürich/Berlin , 296 p.

    Research output: Books and anthologies › Collected editions and anthologies › Transfer

  2. Die totale Produktion: Technik, Kapital und die Logik der Unendlichkeit
    Erich Heinrich Hörl (Editor) , Gérard Granel (Author) , Laura Strack (Translator) , 2020 Wien , 279 p.

    Research output: Books and anthologies › Collected editions and anthologies › Research

  3. Sacred Channels: The Archaic Illusion of Communication
    Erich Heinrich Hörl (Author) , Nils F. Schott (Translator) , 2018 Amsterdam , 344 p.

    Research output: Books and anthologies › Monographs › Research

  4. General Ecology: The New Ecological Paradigm
    Erich Heinrich Hörl (Editor) , 2017 1 ed. London/New York , 384 p.

    Research output: Books and anthologies › Collected editions and anthologies › Research

  5. Réfléxivité et Système. Le débat sur l'ordre et L'auto-organisation dans les années 1970
    Erich Heinrich Hörl (Editor) , Elena Esposito (Editor) , 2015 Paris

    Research output: Books and anthologies › Special Journal issue › Research

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Journal contributions

  1. Unseating Mastery: The University and the Promise of the New
    Erich Heinrich Hörl (Author) , Premesh Lalu (Author) , 01.12.2024 , in: Theory, Culture & Society, 41, 7-8 , p. 219-238 , 20 p.

    Research output: Journal contributions › Journal articles › Research › peer-review

  2. A inteligência artificial do sentido: História do sentido e da tecnologia na esteira de Jean-Luc Nancy
    Erich Heinrich Hörl (Author) , Soraya Guimarães Hoepfner (Translator) , 14.08.2024 , in: esferas, 30 , 28 p.

    Research output: Journal contributions › Journal articles › Research › peer-review

  3. Je vous salue!
    Erich Heinrich Hörl (Author) , 01.07.2024 , in: Berliner Debatte Initial, 35, 1 , p. 6-8 , 3 p.

    Research output: Journal contributions › Journal articles › Research

  4. Im Epochenlosen: Bernard Stieglers Denken des Entropozäns
    Erich Heinrich Hörl (Author) , 22.11.2023 , in: Kulturwissenschaftliche Zeitschrift, 2022, 3 , p. 20-44 , 25 p.

    Research output: Journal contributions › Journal articles › Research › peer-review

  5. The Environmentalitarian Situation: Reflections on the Becoming-Environmental of Thinking, Power, and Capital
    Erich Heinrich Hörl (Author) , 01.07.2018 , in: Cultural Politics, 14, 2 , p. 153-173 , 21 p.

    Research output: Journal contributions › Journal articles › Research › peer-review

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Contributions to collected editions/anthologies

  1. A Thinking of Suspension: Melancholy and Politics Where There Is No Epoch
    Erich Heinrich Hörl (Author) , Nils F. Schott (Translator) , 08.02.2024 1 ed. London , p. 63-80 , 18 p.

    Research output: Contributions to collected editions/anthologies › Chapter › Research

  2. Where there is no World and no Epoch: Bernard Stieglerüs Thinking of the Entropocene
    Erich Heinrich Hörl (Author) , 25.01.2024 , p. 107-123 , 17 p.

    Research output: Contributions to collected editions/anthologies › Chapter › Research › peer-review

  3. Ökologie
    Erich Heinrich Hörl (Author) , 01.01.2024 Berlin , p. 257-268 , 12 p.

    Research output: Contributions to collected editions/anthologies › Articles for encyclopedia › Transfer

  4. Die Disruptivität der Spätmoderne: Figurationen des Un/Verfügbaren: Interview mit Erich Hörl, geführt von Katharina Block
    Erich Heinrich Hörl (Author) , Katharina Block (Author) , 01.01.2024 1 ed. Baden-Baden , p. 169-198 , 30 p.

    Research output: Contributions to collected editions/anthologies › Contributions to collected editions/anthologies › Research › peer-review

  5. The Break In and With History: Nancy‘s Thinking of History in the Light of the Disruptive Condition
    Erich Heinrich Hörl (Author) , 01.06.2023 Zürich , p. 185-200 , 16 p.

    Research output: Contributions to collected editions/anthologies › Contributions to collected editions/anthologies › Research

View all publications

Activities

  1. Donatella di Cesare: Demokratie und Anarchie. An der Quelle ihrer verdrängten Verknüpfung
    Donatella di Cesare (Oral presentation) , Erich Heinrich Hörl (Speaker)

    Activity: Conference Presentations › Research

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Press / Media

Teaching