Anna [Anouk] Luhn. Comparative Literature, French Philology, Law and German Literature at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich and Université Paris IV – Sorbonne from 2006 to 2012, supported by a scholarship from the German National Academic Foundation. Traineeship at Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) Berlin (2013–2014), curatorial assistant within HKW's Anthropocene Project, and project coordinator of HKW's interdisciplinary research project Technosphere until 2016. Ph.D. at Freie Universität Berlin (2016–2020), receiving a doctoral scholarship from the Friedrich Schlegel Graduate School for Literary Studies. Postdoctoral researcher (Professional Track) with MOTDYNAMO, a project on experimental concepts of translation and digital literary practice at EXC 2020 "Temporal Communities" (2020–2023). Since 2023, conceptual lead and research coordinator [wissenschaftl. Leitung] of CONSTELLATIONS, the cluster's hub for collaborative, interconnected, and transdisciplinary formats in the arts and humanities.

In spring 2022, Anna was a Research Fellow at the International Research Center for Cultural Studies (IFK) of the University of the Art and Design Linz in Vienna. During the 2025/26 academic year, she pursued her research as an Early-Career Fellow at the Collegium Helveticum, the joint Institute for Advanced Study of ETH Zurich, University of Zurich and Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK).

Awards: International Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler Prize 2020 of the Austrian Society for German Studies (ÖGG), Scherer Prize 2022 of the Richard M. Meyer Foundation

Research Interests:

• International avant-garde and neo-avant-garde movements of the 20th and 21st centuries
• Literary communication and intermediality
• Critical AI Studies
• Literature and experiment
• Writing in/of digital media, literary intermediality in the 21st century
• Theory of the technosphere, media history
• Literary activism / political art, 'Tendenzkunst'
• Translation theory, critical translation studies
• Literature and psychoanalysis
• Aesthetic theory
  
  

EXC 2020 Postdoctoral Project (2020–23):

MOTDYNAMO – Concepts of Translation and Digital Literary Practice 

In complementary formats of literary research and collaborative practice, MOTDYNAMO seeks to investigate how the reflection, adaptation, and application of avant-garde concepts of translation inform current digital language art and how it may shape future literary practices. Moreover, the project focuses on the complex relationship between twentieth-century avant-garde practices and present-day activist approaches: While it is beyond question that digital language art 'embodies' the digitality that ubiquitously shapes and structures our present, it remains to be probed to what extent it is also a powerful means to challenge and alter these digital-age mechanisms of world-making. Aiming to establish a contact zone between modernism studies, digital language art, literary activism and translation studies, the MOTDYNAMO project will first trace back current digital poetic strategies to the experimental translation practices of the European avant-garde (Dada, Italian and Russian futurism, etc.) as well as the neo-avant-garde movements from the mid-century onwards (Collectif Change, OuLiPo, etc.). In a second step, the findings of the project's research will be put to the test and developed further in a transdisciplinary exchange with artists, scholars, and practitioners from the fields involved.

PhD Project (2016–2020):

Überdehnung des Möglichen. Dimensionen des Akrobatischen in der Literatur der europäischen Moderne

Anna Luhn's dissertation project (2016–2020) examined the literary formation of 'the Acrobatic' [das Akrobatische] in European modernist and avant-garde literature. Starting from the observation of a significant increase in acrobatic motifs and themes in European literature from the last third of the nineteenth century onwards, the project seeks to shed light on the various dimensions of the specifically modern figuration of the acrobat, that is, on the symbolic transformations, the conceptual charges, the formal and aesthetic implications, and the utopian potential that is associated with acrobatics in late modernism. Focusing mostly on German- and French-language literature and philosophy of the late nineteenth and first third of the twentieth century, Luhn's dissertation also takes into view literary works of the Fin de Siècle and the early avant-gardes on a European scale and within the Italian, Danish and Spanish, as well as the Czech context.

The dissertation was awarded the International Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler Prize 2020 of the Austrian Society for German Studies (ÖGG) and the Wilhelm Scherer Prize 2022 of the Richard M. Meyer Foundation.

(Co-)concept and organisation of academic / transdisciplinary formats (selection):

Huh? Literary Incomprehensability. International Workshop. 9–10 July 2026, Freie Universität Berlin

Verlegen: On Burning Decks. Interdisciplinary Workshop. 18–19 November 2025, EXC 2020 / DAAD Galerie Berlin

Echoes of Authority – A Multidisciplinary Festival. Workshops, conversations, exhibitions, performances, film screenings. 24–27 March 2026, Collegium Helveticum Zürich

Invoking Processional Publishing: A Modern Wayzgoose. Talks, workshops, artistic formats. 29–30 May 2025, EXC 2020 / Freie Universität Berlin. In cooperation with the Centre for Postdigital Cultures Coventry University and Critical Media Lab (FHNW Basel)

To Produce Understanding. A Rosmarie Waldrop Night. Talks, readings, performances, concert. 29 November 2024, DAAD Galerie Berlin

Literary Value: Artistic, Academic and Critical Practices. Annual Conference of the Cluster of Excellence Temporal Communities / Freie Universität Berlin, 3–5 July 2024, Literarisches Colloquium Berlin

Notationen in den Künsten: Theoretische Annäherungen. Conference, 1–2 February 2024, Temporal Communities / Freie Universität Berlin

TANGO TRANSLATION TYPOGRAPHY. A Multi-Modal Project on Avant-Garde Poetics, Popular Culture and Futurist Resonance. Event, Video-Talks, Online Exhibition, Publication [forthcoming] in cooperation with Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin. Launch: December 2023

Translation Games – Vom Kosmos eines Verses und der Gemeinschaft im Übersetzen. Readings, screening, talks + internal workshop, 12/13 January 2023, Haus für Poesie

Wer macht hier was / Was macht hier wen? Neue Kollektive in der Literatur. Discussion and performance, 25 June 2021, Literarisches Colloquium Berlin + online

Doing Things with Code – Electronic Literature and Critical Making. Workshop,  24–25 June 2021, EXC 2020. online

Reading and Writing Electronic Text. Coding Workshop with Allison Parrish. 07–08 June 2021, online

The Game(s) of Translation. Video-Essay in three parts and 8 contributions as part of JUNIVERS 2021 of the TOLEDO Programme Berlin. Online Launch: 7 June 2021

Translation Games – Übersetzung als Exploration. Readings, workshop discussions, multimedia presentations, a folding map and a digital journal on 9 explorative translations of Renga (1971). Online Launch: 30 November 2020

Drahtseilakte (High-wire acts). Conversations, Readings and a Screening with Jule Böwe, Ann Cotten, Jana Korb, and Benjamin Zuber, presented by Anna Luhn. Literarisches Colloquium Berlin, 9 May 2019

Maybe. Forms of Literary Eventuality. Annual conference of the Friedrich Schlegel Graduate School of Literary Studies, ICI Berlin, 9–10 November 2018

The ‘isms’ of the 20th century Avant-Gardes. Masterclass with Prof. Dr. Martin Puchner (Harvard University), Friedrich Schlegel Graduate School of Literary Studies, 2–4 July 2018

Invited talks and panels (selection)

"Mobilising For Some Worlds and Against Others: Grammar Issues and Soft Incomprehensibility in C. Einstein, H. Heißenbüttel, R. Ehrlich". Workshop "Huh? Literary Incomprehensibility", 9–10 July 2026, Freie Universität Berlin

"Of Authors and Archives. Literary Scholarship and (Non-)Evident Materialities". Guest lecture. Doctoral program "History of Knowledge" of the UZH and ETH Zurich, 27 May 2026, Universität Zürich (UZH)

"Formen und Horizonte experimentellen Übersetzens (Zukofsky, Perec, Pastior, Nolte)". Joint Colloquium, Comparative Literature dept. of the UZH and ETH Zurich, 20 May 2026, ETH Zürich

"Language Crises in the Electric Age: 1900 to the Present". 30 April 2026, Collegium Helveticum Zürich

"Einige Gedanken zum ‚Schreiben als Ressource‘ in Zeiten von KI". Event series Gefühlte Fakten. Dialoge zwischen Wissenschaft und Literatur, part #4: Zwischen Glitch und Glättung – Politiken des Schreibens im Zeitalter künstlicher Intelligenz, 23 April 2026, Universität für angewandte Kunst Wien

"Ruling Grammar: Language and Authority" (Panel). Festival „Echoes of Authority“, 26 March 2026, Collegium Helveticum Zürich

"'Unsere Syntax wird euch asphyxiieren'. Grammatikalische Kräfte als avantgardistische Obsession". Conference "Die Kraft der Avantgarden. Formen und Funktionen einer ästhetischen Bezugsgröße zwischen 1900 und 1940", DFG-Kolleg-Forschungsgruppe Imaginarien der Kraft, 4–6 February 2026, Universität Hamburg

"Verlegen als Infrastruktur von Öffentlichkeit oder Die Akte Waldrop" (with Barbara Bausch). Workshop "Verlegen. On Burning Decks", 18.–19 November 2025, DAAD Galerie Berlin

"A Matter of Disruption, a Case for Preservation: Literary Powerplay In/Against an AI Paradigm of Language". Conference "Chat – Token – Vector. Questioning Models of Language and Neo-Structuralism in AI", ERC-Project AI Models, 11–13 June 2025, Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia

"Surrealist Translation Work: Joyce Mansour" (Panel). Festival „Surreal Continuum“, 11 April 2025, Haus der Kulturen der Welt Berlin

"Reading a Code" (Artist talk mit Karolin Meunier). "Reading Reading Room", 18 March 2025, DAAD Galerie Berlin

"Ending CHANGE". Conference "Final Issues. Endings in Modern Intellectual History", 11–12 December 2024, Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung Berlin

"Weißraum-Varianten, Umbruch-Übersetzungen. Typografische Konditionen poetischer Vertextung". Literaturwissenschaftliches DFG-Symposion 2024: "Vers und Prosa. Differenz – Interaktion – Interferenz". 2–7 September 2024, Loveno di Menaggio

"Translation and Experiment". Guest Lecture, Summer School "Mistranslation Club". 13 September 2023, Universität der Künste Berlin

"Imaginationen des Waldes" (Panel). 08 September 2023, Kunsthalle Harry Graf Kessler Weimar

"Zwischen allen Stühlen spielen. Intralinguale Übersetzung als poetisches Experimentierfeld und philologisches Erkenntnisformat". Conference XIX of the German Association for General and Comparative Literature, 30 May – 02 June 2023, Universität Potsdam

"Tanz und Körper" (Panel). Salon Sophie Charlotte 2022. 21 May 2022, Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften Berlin

"Ansprüche an Übersetzung. Experimentelle Translationsverfahren als Praxen der Kritik". 18 March 2022, Internationales Forschungszentrum Kulturwissenschaften (IFK) Wien

"Die Figur des Akrobatischen in der europäischen Avantgarde: Einstein, Aragon, Nezval". Guest Lecture, 18 January 2022, Universität Augsburg

"United in Translation. Wiese-Versa Internationaler Tag des Übersetzens 2021" (Panel). 30 September 2021, Haus für Poesie, Mendelssohn-Remise Berlin

"Tendenz und Transzendenz. Dichtung als Verwandlungsprogramm mit und nach Carl Einstein". Conference "Carl Einstein im Kontext neuer Avantgardetheorien", 12–13 March 2020, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf

"Akrobat". Guest Lecture, Editorial Design Seminar (Marion Kliesch, Malin Gewinner), 16 May 2019, Universität der Künste Berlin. Gemeinsam mit Barbara Bausch

"Gottes Reich der Akrobaten – Zur Bildung einer utopischen Figur um 1918". Conference "1918: Die kurze Zeit des Neuen Menschen", 15–16 November 2018, Universidade Cátolica Portuguesa Lissabon

"Along an infinite invisible tightrope – Rhythmus und Routine in James Joyces Ulysses". Conference "Fabrics of Time", Annual conference of the Friedrich Schlegel Graduate School of Literary Studies. 29–30 September 2017, Freie Universität Berlin

"The daring young man on the flying trapeze – Die Ästhetik des Akrobatischen". Conference "Working the Body. Körper-Konfigurationen und Körper-Praxis zwischen Sport, Pop und Performance", 31 August – 02 September 2017, Universität Hildesheim

Monographs

Überdehnung des Möglichen. Dimensionen des Akrobatischen in der Literatur der europäischen Moderne. Göttingen: Wallstein 2023.

Reviews: Komparatistik. Yearbook of the German Society of Comparative Literature [DGAVL]
2024, pp. 373–75; Monatshefte 17/4 (Winter 2025), pp. 687–89.

Awards: International Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler Prize 2020 of the Austrian Society for German Studies (ÖGG), Scherer Prize 2022 of the Richard M. Meyer Foundation

Spiel mit Einsatz. Experimentelle Übersetzung als Praxis der Kritik. Wien/Berlin: Turia + Kant 2022. (Print / Open Access)

Edited / Curated Volumes

Alexandra Ksenofontova, Anna Luhn (Eds.): Notations in the Arts / Notationen in den Künsten. Berlin: De Gruyter [forthcoming]

Valentin Parnach: Prolog zu den Tänzen und ausgewählte Schriften. Edited by Alexandra Ksenofontova and Anna Luhn, translated by Alexandra Ksenofontova in collaboration with Anna Luhn. Berlin: Ciconia Ciconia 2026 [in print].

Anna Luhn, Nina Tolksdorf (Eds.): Sprache im digitalen Zeitalter: What Happened to the End of Books. Guest Issue of Sprache im technischen Zeitalter (N°251, Sept. 2024).

Michael Gamper, Anna Luhn, Nina Tolksdorf, Paul Wolff (Eds.): Kollektive Autor:innenschaft digital/analog. Heidelberg: J.B. Metzler, 2024.

Dagmara Kraus / Felix Schiller / Versatorium: Renga. Übersetzung als Modus. Edited by Anna Luhn and Lena Hintze. Schupfart: Urs Engeler 2022.

Anna Luhn, Lena Hintze (Eds.): The Game(s) of Translation – Dialoge, Reflexionen, künstlerische Positionen. Berlin: Literarisches Colloquium Berlin 2021 (online).

Vítězslav Nezval: Akrobat. Edited by Barbara Bausch and Anna Luhn, translated by Barbara Bausch and Eva Dymáková. Leipzig: Spector Books 2021.

Unbedingte Universitäten (Eds.), Was ist Universität? Texte und Positionen zu einer Idee. Berlin/Zürich: Diaphanes 2010. (Co-editor)

Unbedingte Universitäten (Eds.), Was passiert? Stellungnahmen zur Lage der Universität. Berlin/Zürich: Diaphanes 2010. (Co-editor)

Edited Series

con·stel·la·tions publication series. Edited by Andrew James Johnston, Anne Eusterschulte, Kristiane Hasselmann, Anna Luhn. Hamburg: Textem 2024ff.

con·stel·la·tions showcases the results of collaborative research at the intersection of artistic and academic practice in blended formats and explorations that go beyond canonical forms of academic publishing within the humanities.

Journal Articles and Book Chapters

“Unsere Syntax wird Euch asphyxiieren. Grammatikalische Kräfte als avantgardistische Obsession (Futurismus, Expressionismus, Surrealismus)”. In: Caroline Adler, Adrian Renner, Julia Soytek (Eds.): Die Kraft der Avantgarden. De Gruyter Brill 2027. [editorial / peer-reviewed, forthcoming]

“Ending CHANGE (Paris, 1968–1985)”. In: Yvonne Albers, Moritz Neuffer (Eds.): Final Issues. Endings in Modern Intellectual History, De Gruyter 2027. [peer-reviewed, forthcoming]

“Zwischen anima und mania – Oskar Kokoschkas Hiob”. In: Sima Ehrentraut, Anne Eusterschulte, Simon Godart (Eds.), Re-Thinking the Book of Job. Berlin: neofelis. [editorial / peer reviewed, forthcoming]

“Zwischen allen Stühlen spielen. Intralinguale Übersetzung als poetisches Experimentierfeld und Erkenntnisformat”. In: Johannes Ungelenk (Ed.): Zwischenspiele. Berlin: Kadmos [editorial / peer-reviewed, forthcoming]

“Zäsurenwerfer. Notizen zu Valentin Parnach” (with A. Ksenofontova). In: Valentin Parnach, Prolog zu den Tänzen und ausgewählte Schriften. Transl. Alexandra Ksenofontova with Anna Luhn (eds.). Berlin: Ciconia Ciconia 2026, S. 167–87. [in print]

“Weißraum-Varianten, Umbruch-Übersetzungen. Typografische Konditionen poetischer Vertextung”. In: Judith Kasper, Cornelia Zumbusch (Eds.): Vers und Prosa. Differenz – Interaktion – Interferenz (= Literaturwissenschaftliches DFG-Symposion 2024). Heidelberg: J.B. Metzler 2026, pp. 463–489 [editoral / peer-reviewed]

“Oulipian Networks in Search of an Author. Hervé le Tellier translates Jaime Montestrela”. In: Marília Jöhnk, Caroline Sauter (Eds.): Beyond the Original. Translation as Experiment. Bielefeld: Transcript 2025, pp. 127–150. [editoral / peer-reviewed] – OA

“Beschmieren, kopieren, Gewicht verlieren”. In: Bernadette Grubner, Julia Kitzmann, Marie Millutat, Lukas Nils Regeler, Caroline Welsh (Eds.): Einlässliche Lektüren. Über Offenheit, Bezogensein und Genauigkeit im Umgang mit Literatur [Festschrift für Jutta Müller-Tamm]. Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2024, pp. 83–89.

“Cruising in circles – Promiscuous temporalities in Ozan Zakariya Keskinkılıç: Display (2021)”. In: Articulations (March 2024). DOI: https://doi.org/10.60949/gb5t-gq75. [peer-reviewed] – OA

“‘Dieses Spiel ist keine Spielerei‘. Experimentelle Übersetzung, Übersetzung als Experiment“. In: Konterbande Magazin (June 2023).

“A Slightly Off Performance: Algorithmic Translation and/as Artistic Practice”. In: Digital Culture and Society 1/2023: Digital Art, pp. 123–140. [peer-reviewed]

"Literary/ Machine/ Translation: Übersetzungstechnologien und avancierte Übersetzungstheorie als Modelle literarischer Zirkulation, ca. 1960–1975". In: Michael Gamper, Jutta Müller-Tamm, David Wachter, Jasmin Wrobel (Eds.): Der Wert der literarischen Zirkulation / The Value of Literary Circulation. Heidelberg: J.B. Metzler, pp. 365–384. [editorial / peer-reviewed]

"Subversive Dichtung. Eine Spekulation zum literarischen Engagement nach Carl Einstein, Die Fabrikation der Fiktionen / BEB II und Roman Ehrlichs Malé". In: Juni. Magazin für Literatur und Kultur N° 59-60/2022: Einstein: Widerbesuch bei einem Avantgardisten, pp. 53–70. [editorial / peer-reviewed]

"Vollkommenheit oder Fall" [epilogue]. In: Vítězslav Nezval:Akrobat. Edited by Barbara Bausch and Anna Luhn, translated by Barbara Bausch u. Eva Dymáková. Leipzig: Spector Books 2021, pp. 43–63. With Barbara Bausch.

"Das Naturgesetz soll sich im Alkohol besaufen. Zum Formrausch in Carl Einsteins Bebuquin". In: Expressionismus 09/2019: Rausch. Berlin: neofelis 2019, pp. 67–76.

"Was passiert? – Einleitung", in: Was passiert? Stellungnahmen zur Lage der Universität. Edited by Unbedingte Universitäten, Diaphanes: Berlin/Zürich 2010, pp. 9–23. With Unbedingte Universitäten (= editorial collective).

Reviews, Essays, Miscellanea

"Nach dem Gedicht" (with Uljana Wolf). Episode 6 of the Podcast „After the Poem | Nach dem Gedicht“ (Haus für Poesie / AfterWords Einstein Research Project), 13 February 2025, www.kanalfuerpoesie.org und Spotify 

"What happened to the end of books. Eine Konstellation" (with N. Tolksdorf). In: Sprache im digitalen Zeitalter (focus issue). Sprache im technischen Zeitalter N°251, Sept. 2024, pp. 265–71.

"Temporal Communities – Literatur in globaler Perspektive" (with Torsten Jost). Episode 33 of the Podcast "Exzellent erklärt", 01.09.2023, https://exzellent-erklaert.podigee.io 

"RENGA ANGER, ein Nachwort". In: Hannes Bajohr: RENGA ANGER. Bern: edition taberna kritika 2022, pp. 69–74.

Patrick Hohlweck, Verwandlung in Blatt. Carl Einsteins formaler Realismus. In: Zeitschrift für Germanistik 3/21, pp. 604–606.

"More Dimensions. Ein Versuch über Fokussierung". In: Benjamin Zuber, ZUBER [Künstlerbuch]. Berlin/Hamburg: Textem Verlag 2015, pp. 113-117.

Translations

Jean-Claude Milner, L’œuvre claire. Lacan, la science et la philosophie (Paris 1995). As Das helle Werk, Wien/Berlin: Turia+Kant 2013. With Regina Karl.

Simone Weil, "Ne recommençons pas la guerre de Troie". As "Beginnen wir den trojanischen Krieg nicht von Neuem". In: Simone Weil, Krieg und Gewalt. Essays und Aufzeichnungen, Berlin/Zürich: Diaphanes 2011, pp. 37–57. With Johanna-Charlotte Horst.

Plínio Prado, Le Principe d’Université (Paris 2009). As Das Prinzip Universität, Berlin/Zürich: Diaphanes 2010. With Regina Karl, Johannes Kleinbeck, Hanna Sohns.  

Gérard Granel, "Appel à ceux qui ont affaire avec l’université", from De l’Université (Mauvezin 1982). As Was ist Universität? Texte und Positionen zu einer Idee, Berlin/Zürich: Diaphanes 2010, pp. 231-247. With Johanna-Charlotte Horst.