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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

Translation as Form
Maria Teresa Costa
In his The Task of the Translator, one of the most insightful and revolutionary reflections on translation produced in the Western tradition, Walter Benjamin defines translation as a form—or rather, as a process of metamorphosis—in which a text is transformed and takes on a different form. Following this line of thought, we might understand every text, and more generally every artefact, as the result of an interrupted creative process. Translation can thus be understood as a process of transformation that allows a text to live on by assuming different forms.
Starting from this idea, the seminar will explore the centrality of potentiality as a key to understanding form not as a static entity, but as something fundamentally open to change. Our aim will be to move beyond the textual dimension to which traditional theories of translation have typically confined themselves, and to explore different processes of translation as they unfold across media: from language to image, performance, and sound; from painting to photography; and from exhibition display to the artist’s book.
Part of the seminar will also be devoted to the rise of AI and its implications for the broader field of translation. We will examine how questions traditionally associated with aesthetics—concerning form, transformation, authorship, and materiality— often have epistemic, anthropological, ethical-political, media-philosophical, and social consequences. In this sense, translation will serve as a lens through which to reconsider not only how forms change, but also how knowledge is produced, how subjects are constituted, how technologies shape our ways of perceiving and thinking, and how political and social relations are transformed.
Next appointment:
Wednesday, 2026-10-14 at 12:15
Room: C 25.019 Seminarraum