Popular Cultures - Prof. Dr Daniel Illger

Video games and TV series, YouTube and TikTok, blockbusters and bestsellers—our present is profoundly influenced by popular media and the ways in which they are consumed. With our research and teaching we want to develop media aesthetics perspectives on the functions and effects of the popular. Foundational to our work is the premise that analysis of pop-cultural phenomena can help us to understand the desires and fears, the hopes, dreams and tribulations of the communities that consume them, communities that can number in the millions and bridge myriad cultures and contexts. As such, pop-cultural research operates not only as a key instrument of cultural analysis and a way into the zeitgeist, but additionally sharpens our understanding of a contemporary increasingly marked by global crises and conflicts, inspiring apocalyptic doomsday scenarios, transhumanist futurities and ecotopias all at once.

Daniel Illger studied film studies, literary studies, comparative literature and philosophy in Berlin and Münster. He is Professor for Popular Culture at the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder), and graduated with a PhD in the aesthetic construction of cities in post-war Italian film and a habilitation on the fantasy mode in video games. He has also published the Skargat trilogy with Klett-Cotta. His work concerns popular culture across media, both aesthetically and theoretically.