Dr. Mathias Schönher

Mathias Schönher is a postdoctorate research associate at the Faculty of Media, Bauhaus-Universität Weimar. He is one of the investigators of the project 'Animism/Machinism: Configurations of Critique between Science, Art and Technology', which is based at the Chair of Media Theory and History of Science (Prof. Dr. Henning Schmidgen) and is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG). With well established expertise in philosophy, he is conducting the subproject 'Critique of Communication: Deleuze and Guattari's Philosophy of Nature in the Age of Computation'.


Mathias Schönher graduated in fine arts at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and in philosophy and art history at the University of Vienna. After several years of professional employment in a contemporary art gallery, he pursued doctoral studies in philosophy at the University of Vienna. For his dissertation on What Is Philosophy? by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, he also conducted research for two years at the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. Following his PhD, between 2018 and 2021 he successfully carried out the research project 'Categories for a Deleuzian Philosophy of Nature' at the Media Studies Department at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, at the Institute of Culture and Aesthetics of Digital Media (ICAM) at the Leuphana University of Lüneburg, as well as at the Department of Philosophy at the University of Vienna. His research has received several prestigious awards and grants, including the Erwin Schrödinger Fellowship of the Austrian Science Fund (FWF). His articles have appeared in high-ranking journals such as Theory, Culture & Society, the Journal of Speculative PhilosophyQui Parle and Cosmos and History.