Award of Excellence for Graduate Maya Kurth: Fourth Consecutive Award for European Medienkultur
Major success for the Faculty of Media and the European Medienkultur (EMK) degree programme: On Thursday, 29 January 2026, Maya Kurth was the fourth EMK graduate in a row to receive the Excellence Award for the top graduates of the Deutsch-Französischen Hochschule (DFH) at the German Embassy in Paris. The prize, funded by the German-French television broadcaster ARTE, is endowed with 1,500 euros.
Maya Kurth began studying at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar in the 2020/21 winter semester. She graduated with an outstanding Bachelor's thesis in the 2025 summer semester. Her thesis is titled: »Die Verortung der Gehörlosigkeit. Die Transdifferenzerfahrung als Voraussetzung für ein interkulturelles Verhältnis von Gehörlosen und Hörenden am Beispiel von CODA (2021)« (The localisation of deafness. The transdifferential experience as a requirement for an intercultural relationship between the hearing and the deaf based on the example of CODA (2021)). In her Bachelor's thesis, Maya Kurth creatively combined approaches taken in critical disability studies with cultural studies theory and sophisticated film analysis. Her work focusses on the US film CODA (2021), which she interprets as an intercultural coming-of-age film. The protagonist, the only hearing member in a deaf family, acts a mediator for the predominantly hearing audience.
Kurth’s work also critically reflects on potential ambivalences in the film as well as the author’s own situation as a hearing researcher. Maya Kurth has made a valuable contribution to the still-young field of disability studies in media and cultural studies; she impressively demonstrates the potential of fictional media for negotiating different experiences and perspectives.
About the DFH:
The Deutsch-Französische Hochschule (DFH) is a bi-national institution founded by the governments of Germany and France in 1997. Their main task is to initiate, evaluate, and financially support Franco-German dual degree programmes, bi-national doctoral programmes, and the mobility of young researchers between Germany and France.
Further information on the Deutsch-Französischen Hochschule can be found at: www.dfh-ufa.org
About the Europäische Medienkultur (EMK) Degree Programme:
The Faculty of Media at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar and the Université Lumière Lyon 2 have been offering the binational European Media Culture degree programme, in which students spend three semesters in Germany and three semesters in France, since the winter semester of 1998/99. Once students have successfully completed the programme, they graduate with a German Bachelor of Arts and a French Licence Information-Communication. The programme aims to generate awareness of a media-specific issues that have a European significance.
Further information on the European Medienkultur degree programme can be found at: www.uni-weimar.de/emk.
For questions and further information, please contact Tina Meinhardt, Press and Public Relations Officer for the Faculty of Media, at +49 (0)36 43/58 37 65 or via e-mail to tina.meinhardt[at]uni-weimar.de.