Since April 1, Dr. Kaya de Wolff has been serving as a visiting professor for Gender and Diversity at the Institute of Media and Communication Studies.

Her research focuses on the intersection of media and communication studies, memory studies, postcolonial and decolonial theory and critique, as well as peace and conflict research.

Kaya de Wolff studied Applied Cultural Studies (Magister degree), with a focus on media and communication, art and visual culture, and architecture and urbanism at Leuphana University Lüneburg, Université Rennes 2 (France), and the University of São Paulo (USP) in São Carlos (Brazil).

After completing her studies, she worked as a research associate at the Institute for Communication and Media (IfKM) at Leuphana University Lüneburg. At the same time, she curated exhibitions and film programs as a freelance curator, including projects at Halle für Kunst Lüneburg and the Goethe-Institut in Lisbon.

Funded by a scholarship from the Hans Böckler Foundation, she completed her PhD between 2014 and 2017 under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Tanja Thomas as part of the junior research group “Transcultural Public Spheres and Solidarity” at the Department of Media Studies at the University of Tübingen. From 2018 to 2022, she was a postdoctoral researcher in the DFG network “Memory and Media / Communication Studies of Memory,” led by Christine Lohmeier and Christian Pentzold.

Her study on the recognition of the Ovaherero and Nama genocide in German-language press coverage was published in 2021 as an open-access monograph by transcript (Critical Studies in Media and Communication series). Her dissertation was shortlisted for the German Study Prize awarded by the Körber Foundation.

From 2020 to 2022, Kaya de Wolff worked as a program manager and deputy regional director at the Hamburg Adult Education Center, where she contributed to strategies for diversification and digitalization.

Most recently, from 2022 to 2026, she worked as a postdoctoral researcher together with Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Astrid Erll in the collaborative research project “Transformations of Political Violence – TraCe” at Goethe University Frankfurt. In this interdisciplinary context, she examined transformations of media cultures and collective memories of histories of violence (military dictatorship, enslavement, violence against Indigenous groups), as well as contemporary struggles for recognition in Brazil. She remains affiliated with the TraCe network and is a member of the Frankfurt Memory Studies Platform (FMSP).

Her research has been published in international journals such as Cultural Dynamics, Memory Studies, the Journal of Genocide Research, and the International Journal of Transitional Justice, as well as in several edited volumes and handbooks.

Summersemester 2026

• BA “Postcolonial und Decolonial Studies - Theorie und Kritik für die Kommunikations- und Medienwissenschaft”
• BA “Erinnerung, Macht und Gender in Medienkulturen”
• BA “Colonial History and Diversity in Journalism” (with Dr. Christina Haritos)
• MA “Indigenous Women Rise Up: Memory and Activism in the Digital Era”
• MA “Re-Mediating Memories of Dictatorship: Intersectional Perspectives”

• Media and communication studies approaches to memory and remembrance
• Postcolonial and decolonial theory and critique
• German colonial history, especially the Ovaherero and Nama genocide
• Discourse theory and discourse analysis
• Recognition and visibility in media cultures
• Social movements in Brazil

Monographs

de Wolff, Kaya: Post-/koloniale Erinnerungsdiskurse in der Medienkultur. Der Genozid von Ovaherero und Nama in der deutschsprachigen Presse von 2001 bis 2016. Bielefeld: transcript, 2021.

Edited Volumes

Thomas, Tanja, Lina Brink, Elke Grittmann and Kaya de Wolff (eds): Anerkennung und Sichtbarkeit. Perspektiven für eine kritische Medienkulturforschung. Bielefeld: transcript, 2018.

Peer-reviewed Journal Articles

de Wolff, Kaya Alice and Jephta U. Nguherimo. (2025): The Ovaherero and Nama People’s Struggle for Restorative Justice: An Activist-Scholar Lens. Journal of Genocide Research, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/14623528.2025.2559463

de Wolff, Kaya, and Rebeca Lopes Cabral (2025): Democratizing memories of the Brazilian dictatorship: Permanent and temporary exhibitions in the Memorial da Resistência de São Paulo. Cultural Dynamics, 37 (1-2), 14-32. https://doi.org/10.1177/09213740251323353

de Wolff, Kaya, and Robbert-Jan Adriaansen (2024): Digitale und globale Erinnerungskulturen als Ausgangspunkt einer selbstreflexiven Pädagogik des Zuhörens. Forum Erwachsenenbildung (Themenheft: Kollektives Erinnern und Vergessen), 57 (1), 20-24.

Pamplona, Pablo, Beatriz Besen, Kaya de Wolff, Soraia Ansara, and Luis Galeão-Silva (2024): Racial (In)justice in Brazil: Reconstructing the Subaltern Memories of Poor and Black Women in the Brazilian Dictatorship, International Journal of Transitional Justice 18 (1), 49–65.

Book Chapters and Handbook Contributions

de Wolff, Kaya (2026): Post-/koloniale Presse: Der Ovaherero-Genozid in der Berichterstattung des Deutschen Kaiserreichs bis zur Gegenwart. In: Nicole Garretón, Johannes Jansen, Alina Marktanner (eds): Zum Umgang mit der deutschen Kolonialvergangenheit. Gegenwärtige und historische Perspektiven. Wallstein Verlag, S. 83-102.

Lohner, Judith, and Kaya de Wolff (2022): Transnational Memory Cultures and Journalism. In: Handbuch kommunikationswissenschaftliche Erinnerungsforschung,eds. Christian Pentzold and Christine Lohmeier. De Gruyter.

de Wolff, Kaya (2021): Namibia in den Medien. In: Bechhaus-Gerst, Marianne/Zeller, Joachim (eds): Deutschland postkolonial? Die Gegenwart der imperialen Vergangenheit. 2. überarb. Auflage, Berlin: Metropol-Verlag, pp. 410-433.

de Wolff, Kaya, and Lina Brink (2018): Kosmopolitismus, Anerkennung und Sichtbarkeit – postkoloniale und feministische Ansätze zur Konturierung einer kritischen Medienkulturforschung. In: Thomas, Tanja/Brink, Lina/Grittmann, Elke/de Wolff, Kaya (eds) Anerkennung und Sichtbarkeit. Perspektiven für eine kritische Medienkulturforschung. Bielefeld: transcript, pp. 47-66.

Thomas, Tanja, Elke Grittmann, Kaya de Wolff, and Lina Brink (2018): Anerkennung und Sichtbarkeit in gegenwärtigen Medienkulturen: Ausgangspunkte. In: Thomas, Tanja/Brink, Lina/Grittmann, Elke/de Wolff, Kaya (eds): Anerkennung und Sichtbarkeit. Perspektiven für eine kritische Medienkulturforschung. Bielefeld: transcript, pp. 11-21.

de Wolff, Kaya (2017): The Politics of Cosmopolitan Memory from a Postcolonial Perspective: A Case Study on the Interplay of Holocaust Memory and the Herero’s Ongoing Struggle for Recognition and Restorative Justice. In: Henderson, Marius /Lange, Julia (eds.): Entangled Memories: Remembering the Holocaust in a Global Age. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, pp. 387-427.

de Wolff, Kaya (2017): They say we have to forgive each other: Memory, Transitional Justice and (Post)colonialism in the context of the Angolan Civil War in the documentary My Heart of Darkness. In: Jäger, Benedikt/Hobuß, Steffi (eds) (Post)Colonial Histories – Trauma, Memory and Reconciliation in the Context of the Angolan Civil War. Bielefeld: transcript, pp. 37-79.

Working Papers, Essays, and Podcasts

Buckley-Zistel, Susanne/de Wolff, Kaya/Erll, Astrid/Frank, Sybille/Hannig, Nicolai/Mannitz, Sabine/Reiss, Mariel/Schwerer, Jona/Spittler, Sara-Luise/Wingender, Monika (2024): Memory Before Violence. Frankfurt/Main, TraCe Working Paper No. 5, DOI: 10.48809/PRIFTraCeWP2405.

de Wolff, Kaya: Gastbeitrag (2024): Ein missglückter Film und die umkämpfte Erinnerung an den Völkermord in Namibia. Übermedien 3.1.2024. URL: Ein missglückter Film und die umkämpfte Erinnerung an den Völkermord in Namibia | Übermedien (uebermedien.de)

de Wolff, Kaya, and Verena Lasso Mena (2024): Podcast #008 // Auf den Spuren politischer Gewalt – PRIF Talk (Podcast des Leibniz Peace Research Institute, 29.2.2024) https://blog.prif.org/2024/02/29/podcast-008-auf-den-spuren-politischer-gewalt

Forthcoming (all accepted, in print):

de Wolff, Kaya, and Jephta U. Nguherimo: “Our problem is that we don’t write papers”. Co-authoring as a decolonial strategy. A Conversation, in: Memory Studies, special issue: Decolonising the Study of Memory, under review, forthcoming, October 2026.

de Wolff, Kaya: DisRemembering Colonial Violence in Journalism. An emergent field of research, in: Routledge Companion to Media and Memory, eds. Joanne Garde-Hansen and Red Chidgey, London: Routledge, forthcoming 2026.

de Wolff, Kaya, and Astrid Erll: Transformations of Media, Memory and Political Violence. In: The Routledge Handbook on Transformations of Political Violence, eds. Bonacker, Thorsten, Christopher Daase, Jonas Driedger, Lam-Phuong Nguyen Pham, and Jannik Pfister. New York: Routledge, forthcoming, 2026.

de Wolff, Kaya and Jephta U. Nguerimo: Memory and Activism after Colonial Genocide: the transnational Ovaherero and Nama people’s reparation movement, in Handbook of Memory Studies in Africa, co-edited with Sakiru Adebayo, Fabian Krautwald, Nancy Rushohora, and Hanna Teichler. DeGruyter Brill, forthcoming in 2027.

Lopes Cabral, Rebeca, and Kaya de Wolff: Re-Constructing Black-Indigenous Spaces of Memory in São Paulo. In: Empire and the City: Migrations and Memories in the Lusophone World, eds. Elsa Peralta, Christoph Kalter, Jonas Prinzleve, Routledge, forthcoming, 2027.