Dr. Maria Teresa Costa

Portrait
21335 Lüneburg, Universitätsallee 1, C5.213
Fon +49.4131.677-2669, maria.costa@leuphana.de
Administrative Professor, Professorship of Philosophy of the Present

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Vita

Maria Teresa Costa joined the Institute for Philosophy and Art History (IPK) as Administrative Professor for the Chair “Philosophy of the Present” in April 2024. She studied Philosophy at Padua University and at Humboldt University in Berlin, and obtained her PhD in Philosophy with a fellowship from Padua University with a dissertation on Walter Benjamin. She was awarded a series of postdoctoral positions at the Leibniz-Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung in Berlin, the Deutsches Forum für Kunstgeschichte in Paris, the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz (Max-Planck-Institut), the Warburg Institute of the School for Advanced Study at the University of London, and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, among others. She held visiting positions in Rome (Bibliotheca Hertziana), Florence (KHI) and Tel Aviv (Tel Aviv University). A strong interdisciplinary character marks out her research, which is located at the crossroads between Philosophy, Art history, and the History of Science. In particular, her focus lies in the fields of aesthetics and artistic historiography, theoretical and political philosophy, historical epistemology and Translation Studies. She is a specialist of Walter Benjamin and Aby Warburg and is part of the directory board of the International Walter Benjamin Society.

Publications

Books and anthologies

  1. Il carattere distruttivo. Walter Benjamin e il pensiero della soglia
    Maria Teresa Costa (Author) , 2023 2. expanded edition ed. Macerata , 354 p.

    Research output: Books and anthologies › Monographs › Research › peer-review

  2. Il compito del traduttore
    Maria Teresa Costa (Editor) , Walter Benjamin (Author) , 2023 edizione critica e nuova traduzione ed. Milano-Udine

    Research output: Books and anthologies › Book › Research

  3. Migrating Histories of Art: Self-translation of a Discipline
    Maria Teresa Costa (Editor) , Hans Christian Hönes (Editor) , 2019 , 232 p.

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

  4. Walter Benjamin. La creatura, il sacro e le immagini
    Sigrid Weigel (Author) , Maria Teresa Costa (Translator) , 2014 Macerata , 304 p.

    Research output: Books and anthologies › Book › Research

  5. Antropologia dell'uomo globale.: Storia e concetti
    Christoph Wulf (Author) , Maria Teresa Costa (Translator) , Tommaso Menegazzi (Translator) , Marianna Garabone (Translator) , 2013 2. ed. , 423 p.

    Research output: Books and anthologies › Book › Research

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Journal contributions

  1. Il Rinascimento nella Kunstwissenschaft intorno al Novecento
    Maria Teresa Costa (Author) , 14.03.2023 , in: Dialogos, 26, 3 , p. 39-50 , 12 p.

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

  2. In the Workshop of the Translator. Walter Benjamin in/on Translation
    Maria Teresa Costa (Author) , 20.12.2022 , in: JOLMA: The Journal for the Philosophy of Language, Mind and the Arts, 3, 2 , p. 213-222 , 10 p.

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

  3. A Transcultural Approach to Art History through the Lens of its First International Conferences,
    Maria Teresa Costa (Author) , 01.09.2022 , in: History of Humanities, 7, 2 , p. 235-250 , 16 p.

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

  4. Aby Warburgs Übersetzungswissenschaft
    Maria Teresa Costa (Author) , 01.01.2020 , in: Links Rivista Di Letteratura E Cultura Tedesca, 20 , p. 67-78 , 12 p.

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

  5. Die Lesbarkeit der Bilder als erkenntniskritische Kategorie der Kulturwissenschaft um 1900: Das Beispiel Walter Benjamins und Aby Warburgs
    Maria Teresa Costa (Author) , 01.07.2018 , in: Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 81, 2 , p. 231-241 , 11 p.

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

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Contributions to collected editions/anthologies

  1. Orte der Wissenschaft – Bauen für die MPG
    Jürgen Renn (Author) , Jeffrey Johnson (Author) , Jasper Kunstreich (Author) , Maria Teresa Costa (Author) , Robert Schlögl (Author) , 01.01.2024 Göttingen , p. 667-683 , 17 p.

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

  2. Risalendo alla Fonte Castalia tra Arte, Storia e Scienza: Aby Warburg e John Wheeler
    Maria Teresa Costa (Author) , Stefano Furlan (Author) , 01.09.2023 , p. 136-146 , 11 p.

    Research output: Contributions to collected editions/anthologies › Article in conference proceedings › Research › peer-review

  3. The debate on technique in the Kunstwissenschaft around 1900
    Maria Teresa Costa (Author) , 01.01.2023 , p. 165-184 , 20 p.

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

  4. Aby Warburg and the Art of Translation
    Maria Teresa Costa (Author) , 01.01.2023 , p. 37-44 , 8 p.

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

  5. Metamorphosis of ruins: The epistemology of copy and replica by the example of Palmyra
    Maria Teresa Costa (Author) , 18.11.2019 , p. 227-244 , 18 p.

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

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Activities

Courses

A Phenomenology of Power: Exploring Thinking as Form of Resistance
Maria Teresa Costa
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The seminar explores a phenomenology of power, investigating how authority manifests through both visible structures and subtle, internalized mechanisms, and how critical thinking can serve as a form of resistance. Drawing on Foucault’s analysis of disciplinary societies, we will examine the panopticon as a paradigm of modern governance, alongside Orwell’s Big Brother as a symbol of overtly authoritarian power maintained through constant surveillance. Turning to contemporary digital societies, we will consider how power often operates below the threshold of perception—in algorithms, data flows, and normative frameworks—becoming less visible yet more pervasive.

Through engagement with key texts in political philosophy, media theory, and visual studies, as well as selected film and video excerpts, the seminar addresses questions of freedom, subjectivity, and conditions for ethical and political agency. Special attention will be given to the dimension of the gaze, exploring its ambivalent dynamics between the observing subject and the one exposed to observation, and its potential role in developing an “ethics of seeing.”
Next appointment:
Wednesday, 2026-05-06 at 16:15
Room: C 12.112 Seminarraum
Hannah Arendt: A Glossary for Living in Dark Times
Maria Teresa Costa
⌄
Hannah Arendt is widely regarded as an exemplary figure demonstrating how critical thought can be exercised against the current in “dark times.”
Persecuted, marginalized, and forced into exile, she developed a philosophy rooted in the concept of birth.
From this perspective, every act of action or speech can be understood as a form of new beginning. Whether engaging with political questions, the nature of philosophy, or literature, language, and poetry, Arendt consistently rejects modes of thought that prove simplistic or superficial. Her intellectual endeavour is guided by a profound “will to understand.”
This seminar will focus on texts in which Arendt explores thinking as a form of resistance.
Through close reading and discussion, participants will collaboratively construct a conceptual glossary aimed at cultivating intellectual resilience in dark times.

Next appointment:
Wednesday, 2026-05-06 at 10:15
Room: C 5.325 Seminarraum
Toward a History of the Gaze
Maria Teresa Costa
⌄
Das Seminar rekonstruiert aus einer kulturwissenschaftlich-orientierten Perspektive einige Etappen einer Geschichte des Blicks von der antiken Philosophie bis hin zum Voyerismus und zur Videoüberwachung.
Es wird untersucht, inwiefern das Beobachten sich vom reinen Sehen unterscheidet und eine andere Form des Blicks schafft.
Damit wird das Thema nicht nur als Teil einer historischen Rekonstruktion, sondern auch einer Begriffsgeschichte betrachtet, indem sich der Blick nie als neutral, sondern als immer aufgeladen von Polaritäten und Machtausübungen konstituiert.
Daraus werden Fragen der (Un-)Sichtbarkeit, der kulturellen oder sexuellen Differenz, des Ausschlusses oder der Diskriminierung ins Zentrum unserer Diskussion geraten.
Next appointment:
Tuesday, 2026-05-05 at 16:15
Room: C 12.015 Seminarraum
Walter Benjamin’s Illuminations
Maria Teresa Costa
⌄
Some weeks before his death escaping from Nazism, Walter Benjamin entrusts his last manuscript to his friend Hannah Arendt, telling her to save it as it is more important than his own life.
The text appears 1968 in the book Illuminations, the first anthology of Benjamin’s essays published in English and edited by Arendt. With this provocative title she wants to present Benjamin as one of the few intellectuals of the 20th century who was able to “enlighten” those “Dark Times”, which doesn’t seem yet to have come to an end.
With his prophetic gaze Benjamin was not only offering a deep analysis on his own times, but also anticipating a series of tendencies, which found their concretisation only in the 21st century. His disruptive reflection on the origin of modernity, the destruction of tradition, the arise of capitalism, the role of technology in our society, the uses of images as political instruments are only a few examples of the novelty and the freshness of Benjamin’s thinking.
His oeuvre is an immense source for finding new concepts to decipher our times.
During the seminar we will be reading some of Benjamin’s most important essays as well as looking for his legacy both in contemporary philosophy and artistic practices. Following this perspective, “Benjamin’s Illuminations” should be read also as a kind of compass for orienting ourselves in present times.
Next appointment:
Wednesday, 2026-05-06 at 12:15
Room: C 5.325 Seminarraum