Sophia Gräfe

Sophia Gräfe is a Research Associate at Material Form Function.

Before taking up this position, she was a Research Associate in the DFG-Heisenberg Project »Transdisciplinary Networks of Media Knowledge« at the Philipps-University of Marburg (2018-2023). In spring 2021, she did a remote semester as a Visiting Student Research Collaborator at the History of Science Department of Princeton University (USA).

From 2015 to 2018, she held research positions at the Department of Cultural History and Theory of the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and in the research area »Knowledge of Life« at the Leibniz-Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung (ZfL) in Berlin (2018-2019). She was an Associate Member of the Kolleg »Configurations of Film« at Goethe University, Frankfurt, in 2019 and has been a visiting scholar at the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin since March 2018.

Gräfe earned her MA in Cultural History and Theory from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and her BA in Media Culture from Bauhaus-University Weimar. During her time in Weimar she was a student assistant at the chair of Media History of the Sciences (M. Krajewski) and at the chair of History and Theory of Cultural Techniques (C. Vismann), among others.

Gräfe is the co-spokesperson of the AG Medienwissenschaft und Wissenschaftsforschung (working group Media Science and Science Studies) at the Gesellschaft für Medienwissenschaft (GfM). As Graduate Student Representative of the Nontheatrical Film and Media SIG of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS) she advocates the interests of early-career researchers.

Her research interests include Media History and History of Science, Useful Film, Surveillance Film, Natural History Image Archives, and Film & Animal Studies.

As an assistant curator and freelance writer she has worked with various media and experimental film festivals such as the transmediale festival, Werkleitz festival and Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen as well as galleries and artist studios. She is chairwoman of the Richard Schoene Society for Museum History.