Octavia Rudek (filling in for Elizabeth Neumann)

On request, via Email or in person.

My research interests are aesthetics theory and aesthetic sociology. Within these bounds I am particularly concerned with the influence of economically and technically abstracted environments on human action and with the cultural history of play.

I was born and raised in Frankfurt am Main and studied Film Studies and English Philology at the Freie Universität Berlin and the University of California, LA (UCLA). Amongst others, I worked as a student for the ZDF, on a Netflix series and in two research projects at the university (one on digital learning environments, one on historical poetics of audiovisual images).

Since the end of 2023 I have been pursuing a PhD at the Viadrina. My dissertation employs a socio-aesthetic perspective to analyse the influence of historical environments on the forms and experiences of action in social individuals from the early twentieth century to now. At stake here is the influence of a) increasingly economically and technically abstract environments and b) increasingly gamified environments, as well as the sociohistorical and sociopsychological connection between this increasing economic and technical abstraction and gamification.

As of September 2024 I am a research associate at the Chair for Popular Culture at the Viadrina.

Summer Semester 25

Sociocultural Introduction to Gambling and Sports Betting - Thursday 16-18 Uhr, AM 205

Winter Semester 24/25

Gamification und die Rolle des Spiels im täglichen Leben der Gegenwart