Former Members

Jonas Ahmad was an associate doctoral student until August 2024.

We were very saddened to be informed on April 9^th 2024 of the sudden death of our coordinator Dr. Jochen Venus. The thoughts of the members of the Kolleg are with Jochen’s wife and family.

Jochen Venus was an important contact person for all the members of our Kolleg. As a media scholar who researched and taught at the University of Siegen for many years, he was the academic coordinator of the RTG “Literature and the Public Sphere in Different Contemporary Cultures” at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg from October 2022. In this role, he supported the development of the research group. His death leaves an abrupt gap.

Jochen holds a doctorate in media studies. After pushing degrees in media studies, literary studies, sociology and philosophy at the University of Siegen, he continued to work there for many years as a lecturer and as a project staff member and scientific coordinator in two DFG collaborative research centers on popular media genres and helped shape interdisciplinary research on popularity. Beyond the research training group’s research topic and the exciting individual projects, he is thrilled that his interest in aesthetic theory is given so much material support in Erlangen’s vibrant cultural life.

Jochen was coordinator from November 2022 to April 2024.

Johanna Neumeier

johanna.neumeier@fau.de

Since her A-Levels in 2019, Johanna Neumeier has studied at FAU. In 2023, she graduated in Italian and German Studies (B.A.) and currently pursues a Master’s degree in Literature Studies – intermedial and intercultural. In the course of her studies, she worked several times as a tutor for Italian linguistics and literature. In addition to her work at the RTG, she was a student assistant for Italian at the FAU Language Center until August 2025.

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Studentische Hilfskraft

Nina Weiß supported the RTG public relations (mainly website and graphic design)