Dr. Elena Vogman

Dr. Elena Vogman is a scholar of comparative literature and media. Since 2021 she is Principal Investigator of the research project »Madness, Media, Milieus. Reconfiguring the Humanities in Postwar Europe« sponsored by the Freigeist Fellowship of the VolkswagenStiftung at Bauhaus-Universität Weimar. She studied in Berlin and Paris and wrote her dissertation at Freie Universität, Berlin on Sergei Eisenstein’s vast theory project »Method.« She has published two books: Sinnliches Denken. Eisensteins exzentrische Methode (diaphanes, 2018) and Dance of Values. Sergei Eisenstein’s Capital Project (diaphanes 2019). She was Visiting Professor at École normale supérieure, Paris and New York University Shanghai, and has held postdoctoral research positions at the International Research Institute for Cultural Technology and Media Philosophy (IKKM), Bauhaus Universität, Weimar, and in the DFG project »Rhythm and Projection« at the Institute of General and Comparative Literature at Freie Universität, Berlin.

  • Art and Media History and Theory
  • Film History and Theory, Visual Anthropology
  • Psychoanalysis, Institutional Psychotherapy, History of Soviet Psychology
  • History and Theory of the Soviet Avant-garde, including Literature and Poetry
  • Modes and Theories of Artistic Research, Affect in French Theory
  • Rhythm Theories, Milieu and Umwelt Theories

Academic Employment

Education

  • 19/06/2016 – PhD with summa cum laude in General and Comparative Literature at the Free University, Berlin. “Sinnliches Denken. Eisensteins exzentrische Methode” Supervised by Prof. Dr. Georg Witte and Prof. Dr. Dieter Mersch
  • 2011-2015 – PhD fellow in the frame of the Cluster of Excellence “Languages of Emotion” at the Free University in Berlin
  • Since 2011 – Associate Member of the Research Training Center “Sichtbarkeit und Sichtbarmachung. Hybride Formen des Bildwissens,” University of Potsdam
  • 2008-2010 – Master in Lettres, Arts, Pensée Contemporaine – Littératures, théories, modernités at the University Denis Diderot, Paris VII. “Montages affectés. D’Athenäum à Ernst Bloch, Walter Benjamin, Bertolt Brecht,” 18/20.
  • 2007-2008 – Bachelor in General and Comparative Literature and Media and Communication at University of Sorbonne, Paris IV
  • 2005-2008 – Bachelor in General and Comparative Literature and Media and Communication an der Free University, Berlin. “Katalepsie, im Tod wie media in vita. Figuren des Erstarrens in der Erzählung ,Die Alte‘ von Daniil Charms” 1,0.

 Stays abroad

  • 08/2020-05/2021 – China: Visiting Assistant Professor at New York University, Shanghai
  • 2018 – France: Invited Professorship at Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris
  • 2013 – Russia: Research Semester at Russian State University for the Humanities, RSUH, Moscow
  • 2008-2010 – France: Master in Lettres, Arts, Pensée Contemporaine – Littératures, théories, modernités at the University Denis Diderot, Paris VII
  • 2007-2008 – France: Erasmus year at University of Sorbonne, Paris IV – General and Comparative Literature and Media and Communication

Fellowships and Awards

  • Karsten-Witte Award 2019 for the best Essay in Cinema Studies
  • Postdoc-Fellowship at IKKM, Weimar; June–August 2019
  • Research Fellowship of the Alumini Program of the Free University, Berlin and Institut National de l’Histoire de l’Art, Paris
  • Tiburtius-Award for the PhD “Sinnliches Denken. Eisensteins exzentrische Methode,” November 2017, Berlin 
  • PhD Fellowship at the Cluster of Excellence “Languages of Emotion” at the Free University in Berlin

A comprehensive list of the project's publications, accompanied by download links, can be found here.

Monographs

Vogman, Elena. Dance of Values: Eisenstein’s Capital Project. Zürich-Berlin: Diaphanes, 2019.

Vogman, Elena. Sinnliches Denken: Eisensteins exzentrische Methode. Zürich-Berlin: Diaphanes, 2018.

Rebecchi, Marie, and Elena Vogman, in collaboration with Till Gathmann. Sergei Eisenstein and the Anthropology of Rhythm. Rom: Nero, 2017.

Editions

Vogman, Elena, and Marlon Miguel, eds. Psychotherapy and Materialism: Essays by François Tosquelles and Jean Oury. Berlin: ICI Berlin Press, 2024. https://doi.org/10.37050/ci-31. 

Vogman, Elena, ed. Sergei Eisenstein: Capital and Paris. October 188 (2024): 3–174.

Vogman, Elena, and Simon Ganahl, eds. Topologien der Erfahrung, special issue of Le foucaldien 3.1 (2017). https://doi.org/10.16995/gc.collection.800. 

Vogman, Elena, and Mira Fliescher, eds. Georges Didi-Huberman, Der Kubus und das Gesicht: Im Umkreis einer Skulptur Alberto Giacomettis. Translated by Esther von der Osten. Afterword by Elena Vogman and Mira Fliescher. Zürich-Berlin: Diaphanes, 2015.

Vogman, Elena, and Mira Fliescher, eds. Georges Didi-Huberman, The Cube and the Face: Around a Sculpture by Alberto Giacometti. Translated by Shane Lillis. Afterword by Elena Vogman and Mira Fliescher. Zürich-Berlin: Diaphanes, 2015.

Vogman, Elena, Mira Fliescher, and Lina-Maria Stahl, eds. Umreißen: Die Eigenwege des Zeichnens. Zürich-Berlin: Diaphanes, 2014.

Articles (selection)

Vogman, Elena, and Patrick Urs Riechert. "Crystal Worlding: A Minor Genealogy of Digital Life." In Intersubjectivity IV: Network Affect, edited by Mira Dayal, Kolja Glaeser, and Adina Glickstein. New York-Leipzig: Sternberg Press, in press.

Vogman, Elena, and You He. "Kartografien des Verschwindens: Spaziergänge durch Laoximen in Shanghai." In Permeationen: Durchdringungen von künstlerischer Forschung und ästhetischer Theorie, edited by Christoph Brunner, Kathrin Busch, and Knut Ebeling, 281–310. Leipzig: Spector Books, 2025.

Vogman, Elena. "‘Zählen’ Eintrag im Wörterbuch anderen Wissens." In Permeationen: Durchdringungen von künstlerischer Forschung und ästhetischer Theorie, edited by Christoph Brunner, Kathrin Busch, and Knut Ebeling, 304–320. Leipzig: Spector Books, 2025.

Vogman, Elena. "Séance: Technology of Disalienation." e-flux, September 2025. https://www.e-flux.com/journal/156/6776768/s-ance-technology-of-disalienation.

Vogman, Elena, and Matteo Pasquinelli. "Catastrophe and Schizophrenia: Curing the Institution in a War Shattered World." In Fragments of Repair, edited by Kader Attia, Maria Hlavajova, and Wietske Maas, 179–198. Prinsenbeek: Jap Sam Books, 2025.

Vogman, Elena. "Geo-psychiatry: Media and the Ecologies of Madness." Grey Room 97 (2024): 76–117.

Vogman, Elena. "Visceral Economies, Queer Dialectics: Eisenstein Meets Bataille." October 188 (2024): 117–148.

Vogman, Elena. "Introduction to Sergei Eisenstein’s Capital Diaries." October 188 (2024): 3–20.

Vogman, Elena, and Marie Rebecchi. "Introduction to Sergei Eisenstein’s Paris Diary." October 188 (2024): 105–110.

Vogman, Elena. "Hypocritical Method, or How to Think by the Feet?" Philosophy, Politics, Critique 1.1 (2024): 145–149.

Vogman, Elena. "L’image-milieu : Deleuze, Artaud, Tosquelles et les médias de la psychothérapie institutionnelle." In Cinéma du corps, cinéma du cerveau: Deleuze aux frontières de la spectatorialité, edited by Marie Rebecchi, Stanislas de Courville, and Jacopo Bodini, 175–198. Paris: Mimesis, 2024.

Vogman, Elena. "Tracing Minor Gestures: Relational Portrait with Fernand Deligny." In Reconfiguring the Portrait, edited by Abraham Geil and Tomas Jirza, 105–120. Edinburgh University Press, 2023.

Vogman, Elena. "Minor Gestures, Minor Media." Postface to Camering: Fernand Deligny on Cinema and the Image, edited by Marlon Miguel, 239–251. Leiden University Press, 2022.

Vogman, Elena, and Joshua Simon. "The World is Round and People Meet in the Corners." Arts of the Working Class 21 (2022): X–X.

Vogman, Elena. "Machinic Extimacy." In Intersubjectivity III: Intimacy and Control, edited by Lou Cantor, 227–238. Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2021.

Vogman, Elena. "Language Follows Labor: Nikolai Marr’s Materialist Palaeontology of Speech." In Materialism and Politics, edited by Bernardo Bianchi, Emilie Filion-Donato, Marlon Miguel, and Ayse Yuva, 113–134. Berlin: ICI Berlin Press, 2021.

Vogman, Elena. "Kartographien des Rhythmus: Zahl und Zeit in experimenteller Poetik der Moderne (Fallstudien)." In Denkfigur Rhythmus: Probleme und Potenziale des Rhythmusbegriffs in den Künsten, edited by Boris Roman Gibhardt, 209–224. Hannover: Wehrhahn, 2020.

Vogman, Elena, and Marie Rebecchi. "Valeurs expressifs: Économie visuelle de George Bataille." In Le Supermarché des images, edited by Peter Szendy, 181–194. Paris: Gallimard, 2020.

Vogman, Elena. "Dialektik des Blicks – Metamorphosen des Werts." In Marx konkret: Poetik und Ästhetik des Kapitals, edited by Michael Bies and Elisabetta Mengaldo, 271–305. Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 2020.

Vogman, Elena. "Le mouvement expressif des plantes." In La puissance du végetal: Cinéma animiste et anthropologie du vivant, edited by Teresa Castro, Perig Pitrou, and Marie Rebecchi, 225–246. Paris: Les presses du réel, 2020.

Vogman, Elena. "Critical Morphologies and Maritime Milieus: Jean Epstein, Hubert Fichte and Leonore Mau." Diaphanes Magazin 7 (2019): 94–101.

Vogman, Elena. "Le Capital d’Eisenstein ou le montage des visions qui dansent." In Films à lire: Des scénarios et des livres, edited by Mireille Brangé and Jean-Louis Jannelle, 119–137. Brussels: Les impressions nouvelles, 2019.

Vogman, Elena. "Dance of Values: Reading Eisenstein’s Capital." Grey Room 72 (2018): 94–124.

Vogman, Elena. "Metamorfosy zennostei [Metamorphoses of Value]." In Kino i kapital [Kino and Capital], 115–149. St.-Petersburg: Seans, 2018.

Vogman, Elena. "Dynamography, or: Andrei Bely’s Rhythmic Gesture." Diaphanes Magazin 3 (2018): 128–132.

Vogman, Elena. "Die Urgesten der ‚linearen Sprache‘: Nikolaj Marr." In The Flying Carpet: Studies on Eisenstein and Russian Cinema in Honor of Naum Kleiman, edited by Joan Neuberger and Antonio Somaini, 443–457. Paris: Mimesis, 2017.

Vogman, Elena. "Dynamographien: Andrej Belyjs rhythmische Figuren." Le foucaldien 3.1 (2017). https://doi.org/10.16995/lefou.18. 

Vogman, Elena. "Rhythmical Prophecies: Exploring Eisenstein’s Diaries." Critical Quarterly 59.1 (April 2017).

Vogman, Elena. "Politics of Rhythm: Effect and Affect in Ukrainian Avantgarde Cinema." La Furia Umana 27 (2016). https://www.lafuriaumana.it/index.php/60-archive/lfu-27. 

Vogman, Elena, and Mira Fliescher. "Im Angesicht des Ungesichts." In Georges Didi-Huberman, Der Kubus und das Gesicht: Im Umkreis einer Skulptur Alberto Giacomettis, edited by Elena Vogman and Mira Fliescher, 247–271. Zürich-Berlin: Diaphanes, 2015.

Vogman, Elena. "Striking Factory and Strike of Consciousness in the Work of Sergei Ejsenstein." View: Theories and Practices of Visual Culture 6 (2014).

Vogman, Elena, and Mira Fliescher. "Dekonstruktion: Bilder als Sinnverschiebung." In Bild: Ein interdisziplinäres Handbuch, 81–88. Weimar: Metzler, 2014.

Vogman, Elena. "Osiris-Methode oder die Dialektik sinnlicher Formen nach S. M. Ėjzenštejn." In Erscheinen: Zur Praxis des Präsentativen, 39–67. Zürich-Berlin: Diaphanes, 2013.

Vogman, Elena. "A Rebellion in a Dream: Eisenstein’s Reading of Disney." Kinovedčeskie Zapiski[Киноведческие Записки] 104/105 (2013): 202–213.

Texts in Exhibition Catalogues

Vogman, Elena. "Counter-Cosmogony and the Psychotherapy of Catastrophe." In Ceremony (Burial of an Undead World), edited by Anselm Franke, Elisa Giuliano, Denise Ryner, Claire Tancons, Zairong Xiang, and Haus der Kulturen der Welt, 305–315. Leipzig: Spector Books, 2022.

Vogman, Elena, and Patrick Riechert. "Crystal Words." Time Crystal by Lou Cantor. Sgomento. https://sgomento.com/zurigo/lou-cantor-artgeneve-2022/. 

Vogman, Elena, and Zairong Xiang. "Where are Shanghai’s Homeless? The Gentrification of the Visual." In Who’s Next? Homelessness, Architecture, and Cities, edited by Daniel Talesnik and Andres Lepik, 156–163. Berlin: ArchiTangle, 2021.

Vogman, Elena. "Flood Archaeology: L’Étoile de mer and Insolite by Maya Schweizer." In Voices: Maya Schweizer, 238–239. Berlin: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz König, 2020.

Vogman, Elena. "Osiris as Method: The Work of Esper Postma." In Esper Postma x Elena Vogman, 1–2. Berlin: Berlin Program for Artists, 2020.

Vogman, Elena, and Malte Fabian Rauch. "Exceeding Work: Performing Conceptual Art." In Mundo diffuso: Jean-Christophe Norman, 175–185. Nantes: Zéro2 éditions, 2019.

Vogman, Elena. "Geste – ‚ein Pfeil in slow motion durch die Jahrhunderte der Evolution‘: Sergej Eisensteins Methode." In Neolithische Kindheit: Kunst in einer falschen Gegenwart ca. 1930, edited by Tom Holert and Anselm Franke, 192–205. Zürich-Berlin: Diaphanes, 2018. [English translation of “Geste – ‚ein Pfeil in slow motion durch die Jahrhunderte der Evolution‘: Sergej Eisensteins Methode,” in Neolithic Childhood: Art in a False Present c. 1930, edited by Tom Holert and Anselm Franke, 199–207. Zürich-Berlin: Diaphanes, 2018.]

Vogman, Elena. "Plasmatic Attractions, Eisenstein’s Method." In Shapeshifting: Eisenstein as Method, exhibition catalogue, edited by Aleksandra Jach, 142–179. Łódź: Muzeum Sztuki, 2018.

Reviews

Vogman, Elena. "Exhibition Review of Bispo do Rosario’s "All Existing Materials On Earth"." e-flux, May 2023. https://www.e-flux.com/criticism/536959/bispo-do-rosario-s-all-existing-materials-on-earth. 

  • Winter 2022/2023: Das Unbewusste des Films, Lecture at the Department of Art History and Archaeology at the University of Fribourg, Fribourg
  • Spring 2022: Pathology of Freedom: Colonialism and Psychiatry after Frantz Fanon. Lecture Series at Parrhesia: School of Philosophy, Berlin (together with Dr. Marlon Miguel)
  • Fall 2020 & Spring 2021: Expressive Culture Film: Sculpting Space and Time in Film. Core Curriculum Course at New York University, Shanghai
  • Fall 2020/2021: Stimmen, Töne, Klänge in den visuellen Medien, Seminar in Media Theory at Weissensee School of Art and Design, Berlin (together with Maru Mushtrieva)
  • Summer 2020: Singular plural. Künstler_innen Kollektive, Seminar in Media Theory at Weissensee School of Art and Design, Berlin (together with Maru Mushtrieva)
  • Winter 2019/2020: Words, Don’t Come Easy. Texte in der Kunst, Seminar in Media Theory at Weissensee School of Art and Design, Berlin
  • Winter 2018: Metamorphose des valeurs. Eisenstein et le Capital, Lecture Series at École Normale Supérieure, Paris (Guest professor, Labex Transfers)
  • Summer 2018: Fabulationsmaschinen. Denkprozesse der Literatur nach Gilles Deleuze, Master Seminar, Free University, Berlin (together with Dr. Mathias Schönher)
  • Winter 2016/2017: Inhumane Gesichter. Anthropologische Praktiken in Literatur, Philosophie und Film, Bachelor Seminar, Free University, Berlin
  • Winter 2015/2016: Topographien des Romans. Andrej Belyjs Petersburg, Master Seminar, Free University, Berlin
  • Winter 2015/2016: Grundkurs Kulturtheorien, Master Seminar, Free University, Berlin
  • Summer 2015: Die rhythmische Trommel der Avantgarde, Master Seminar, Free University, Berlin (together with Prof. Dr. Georg Witte)
  • Winter 2012/2013: Geste, Bild, Gestalt, Bachelor Seminar, Free University, Berlin (together with Prof. Dr. Georg Witte)