Univ.-Prof.ⁱⁿ Dr.ⁱⁿ phil Julia Grillmayr

julia.grillmayr@kunstuni-linz.at

Professor of Cultural Studies

Julia Grillmayr is a visiting professor of cultural studies at the Art University Linz, Austria (Kunstuniversität Linz). Her key research areas are science fiction cultures and environmental humanities. She holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Vienna.

From 2018-2022, she was principal investigator in the Postdoc project Science Fiction, Fact & Forecast“(FWF Hertha Firnberg). The findings of this research are to be published in a monograph by the title Science Fiction Futurologie (forthcoming 2025, transcript).

Together with the artist and freshwater ecologist Christina Gruber and the environmental historian Sophia Rut, she forms the artistic research collective Lobau Listening Comprehensions that undertakes an acoustic exploration of the wetlands east of Vienna. In this context, she has been awarded the Theodor Körner Preis 2023.

Until 2023, Julia Grillmayr has worked as a print and radio journalist and contributed, among others, to Augustin, Der Standard (ForschungSpezial) and Ö1 (Radiokolleg, Vom Leben der Natur). As a science communicator, she has created and supervised various podcast project, e.g. for the University of Vienna, the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the International Research Center for Cultural Studies IFK. 

In 2018, she has initiated the radio broadcast Superscience Me -Science and Fiction, on the Viennese community radio Orange 94.0. Since january 2025, she creates and moderates the monthly Live broadcast Science Fiction Book Club on Orange 94.0. The rest of the time, she spends in muddy danubian wetlands and in tap shoes.

juliagrillmayr.at

Recent publications

• „World without Humans, Humans without World: Apocalyptic Passions in the Anthropocene“, together with Christine Hentschel, In: Worlds Ending - Ending Worlds?, edited by the Käte Hamburger Centre for Apocalyptic and Post-Apocalyptic Studies (CAPAS), DeGruyter, 2024.
• Der Common Ground als Garten als Muddle, Essay für die 8. Kunstbiennale Weiertal, Juni 2023.
• Ausgegrabene, aquatische und galaktische Großmütter/ Excavated, aquatic, and galactic grandmothers (PDF), Essay für die Kunsthalle Wien zur Ausstellung Ohmmm age Oma je ohomma mama von Laure Prouvost, Mai 2023.
• „Wale und Nachsilben. Vermischmaschinen zwischen den Wellen und den Zeilen“ / „Cetaceans and suffixes. Mixing Machines between the Waves and the Lines“. In: Franz Thalmair, Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien (Hg.): mixed up with others before we even begin, Köln: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz König, 2022.
• Von Zeitachsen, die sich verzweigen. Spekulationen auf eine (niemals) vollendete Zukunft, In: Gudrun Ratzinger & Franz Thalmair (Hg.): Vollendete Zukunft | Future Perfect — Jahrespublikation 2021, Kunstraum Lakeside, Wien: Verlag für moderne Kunst, 2022.
• „Schlammwaten. Versuch über verbindende und verbindliche Unreinheiten“. In: Mersman, Jasmin/von der Heiden, Anne: Clean Cube. Zur Kritik der reinen Vernunft, 2021.
• The many-layered cake of science fiction, article and audio essay on the research project Science Fiction, Fact & Forecast. Jahrbuch der Hochschule der Künste Bern, April 2020.
• „Wilde Spekulationen. Feministisch-ökologische Wissenschaftskritik und spekulative Fiktion.“ In: Angerer, Marie-Luise / Gramlich, Naomie (Hg.): Feminisitische Spekulation, Kulturverlag Kadmos, 2020.
• „Posthumanism(s)“, In: McFarlane, Anna/Schmeink, Lars/Murphy, Graham: The Routledge Companion to Cyberpunk Culture, Routledge, 2019.

Teaching at Kunstuni Linz (selection)

• „Günther Anders - Denker des Atomzeitalters und des Anthropozäns“ (2025)
• „Fang Fans - Research on Fan Cultures with focus on Vampire Fiction“ (2025)
• “Interview with the Vampires - cultural history of the vampiric and audio production” (24/25)
• “Einführung in die Methoden der Kulturwissenschaften” (24/25)
• “Muddy Neighbours and watery archives - artistic and historical research on the danube in Linz” (24)
• “Climate Art & Activism - Digesting the Klima Biennale Wien (in form of a discourse analysis)” (24)
• “Zeichen, Text, Diskurs - Lesen und Schreiben in den Kulturwissenschaften” (24)
• “The Anthropocene Curriculum” - einführendes Proseminar für den Bachelor Kulturwissenschaften (23/24)
• “Solarpunk and other Science Fiction Futures” (23/24)
• “Extinction - Kulturwissenschaft, Kunst und Philosophie rund ums Aussterben” (2023)