Kaya de Wolff

Kaya de Wolff is a scholar in media and communication studies and a research associate (post-doc) at the Institute of English and American Studies, Goethe University Frankfurt. Her interdisciplinary research critically engages with the intersections of cultural memory, media and communication, (post)colonialism, decolonization, and social justice.

Kaya de Wolff gained her PhD from the Department of Media Studies at Eberhard Karls University Tübingen, Germany, as a member of the research group “Transcultural public spheres and solidarity in media cultures” (chair: Prof. Dr. Tanja Thomas). Her dissertation focuses on the contested memories of German colonial history and the struggle for recognition of the genocide against the Ovaherero and Nama in the German press coverage. Her dissertation was short-listed for the German Dissertation Award 2023 in the section of cultural studies and humanities, funded by the Koerber Foundation.

Since October 2022, she has been working jointly with Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Astrid Erll in the project “Transformations of Political Violence Centre” (https://www.trace-center.de/). In this context, her current research engages with the transformations of mediated memories of political violence related to the multiple histories of enslavement, colonialization, dictatorship, and populism in Brazil.

She conducted field research in São Paulo between 2022 and 2025 and presented her initial findings at various international conferences.

Project:

“Transformations of Political Violence” 

Research Area 3: Interpretations, Memories of Political Violence work

Monograph

Post-/koloniale Erinnerungsdiskurse in der Medienkultur. Der Genozid von Ovaherero und Nama in der deutschsprachigen Presse von 2001 bis 2016. Bielefeld: transcript, 2021.

Edited volumes

Thomas, Tanja, Lina Brink, Elke Grittmann and Kaya de Wolff (eds): Anerkennung und Sichtbarkeit. Perspektiven für eine kritische Medienkulturforschung. Bielefeld: transcript, 2018.

Journal articles

de Wolff, Kaya, and Jephta U. Nguherimo: “Our problem is that we don’t write papers”. Co-authoring as a decolonial strategy. A Conversation, in: Memory Studies, special issue: Decolonising the Study of Memory, under review, forthcoming, October 2026 (accepted).

de Wolff, Kaya Alice and Jephta U. Nguherimo. (2025): The Ovaherero and Nama People’s Struggle for Restorative Justice: An Activist-Scholar Lens. Journal of Genocide Research, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/14623528.2025.2559463

de Wolff, Kaya, and Rebeca Lopes Cabral (2025): Democratizing memories of the Brazilian dictatorship: Permanent and temporary exhibitions in the Memorial da Resistência de São Paulo. Cultural Dynamics, 37 (1-2), 14-32. https://doi.org/10.1177/09213740251323353

de Wolff, Kaya, and Robbert-Jan Adriaansen (2024): Digitale und globale Erinnerungskulturen als Ausgangspunkt einer selbstreflexiven Pädagogik des Zuhörens. Forum Erwachsenenbildung (Themenheft: Kollektives Erinnern und Vergessen), 57 (1), 20-24.

Pamplona, Pablo, Beatriz Besen, Kaya de Wolff, Soraia Ansara, and Luis Galeão-Silva (2024): Racial (In)justice in Brazil: Reconstructing the Subaltern Memories of Poor and Black Women in the Brazilian Dictatorship, International Journal of Transitional Justice 18 (1), 49–65.

Book chapters

de Wolff, Kaya: DisRemembering Colonial Violence in Journalism. An emergent field of research, in: Routledge Companion to Media and Memory, eds. Joanne Garde-Hansen and Red Chidgey, London: Routledge, under review, forthcoming 2026.

de Wolff, Kaya, and Astrid Erll: Transformations of Media, Memory and Political Violence. In: The Routledge Handbook on Transformations of Political Violence, eds. Bonacker, Thorsten, Christopher Daase, Jonas Driedger, Lam-Phuong Nguyen Pham, and Jannik Pfister. New York: Routledge, under review, forthcoming, 2026.

de Wolff, Kaya: Post-/koloniale Presse: Der Ovaherero-Genozid in der Berichterstattung des Deutschen Kaiserreichs bis zur Gegenwart. In: Nicole Garretón, Johannes Jansen, Alina Marktanner (eds): Zum Umgang mit der deutschen Kolonialvergangenheit. Gegenwärtige und historische Perspektiven. Wallstein Verlag, Reihe Historische Bildung und Public History, under review, forthcoming 2026.

de Wolff, Kaya and Jephta U. Nguerimo: Memory and Activism after Colonial Genocide: the transnational Ovaherero and Nama people’s reparation movement, in Handbook of Memory Studies in Africa, co-edited with Sakiru Adebayo, Fabian Krautwald, Nancy Rushohora, and Hanna Teichler. DeGruyter Brill, under review, forthcoming in 2026.

Lopes Cabral, Rebeca, and Kaya de Wolff: Re-Constructing Black-Indigenous Spaces of Memory in São Paulo. In: Empire and the City: Migrations and Memories in the Lusophone World, eds. Elsa Peralta, Christoph Kalter, Jonas Prinzleve, Routledge, under review, forthcoming, 2026.

Lohner, Judith, and Kaya de Wolff (2022): Transnational Memory Cultures and Journalism. In: Handbuch kommunikationswissenschaftliche Erinnerungsforschung,eds. Christian Pentzold and Christine Lohmeier. De Gruyter.

de Wolff, Kaya (2021): Namibia in den Medien. In: Bechhaus-Gerst, Marianne/Zeller, Joachim (eds): Deutschland postkolonial? Die Gegenwart der imperialen Vergangenheit. 2. Rev. edition, Berlin: Metropol-Verlag, pp. 410-433.

de Wolff, Kaya, and Lina Brink (2018): Kosmopolitismus, Anerkennung und Sichtbarkeit – postkoloniale und feministische Ansätze zur Konturierung einer kritischen Medienkulturforschung. In: Thomas, Tanja/Brink, Lina/Grittmann, Elke/de Wolff, Kaya (eds) Anerkennung und Sichtbarkeit. Perspektiven für eine kritische Medienkulturforschung. Bielefeld: transcript, pp. 47-66.

Thomas, Tanja, Elke Grittmann, Kaya de Wolff, and Lina Brink (2018): Anerkennung und Sichtbarkeit in gegenwärtigen Medienkulturen: Ausgangspunkte. In: Thomas, Tanja/Brink, Lina/Grittmann, Elke/de Wolff, Kaya (eds): Anerkennung und Sichtbarkeit. Perspektiven für eine kritische Medienkulturforschung. Bielefeld: transcript, pp. 11-21.

de Wolff, Kaya (2017): The Politics of Cosmopolitan Memory from a Postcolonial Perspective: A Case Study on the Interplay of Holocaust Memory and the Herero’s Ongoing Struggle for Recognition and Restorative Justice. In: Henderson, Marius /Lange, Julia (eds.): Entangled Memories: Remembering the Holocaust in a Global Age. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, pp. 387-427.

de Wolff, Kaya (2017): They say we have to forgive each other: Memory, Transitional Justice and (Post)colonialism in the context of the Angolan Civil War in the documentary My Heart of Darkness. In: Jäger, Benedikt/Hobuß, Steffi (eds) (Post)Colonial Histories – Trauma, Memory and Reconciliation in the Context of the Angolan Civil War. Bielefeld: transcript, pp. 37-79.

Working papers and Media Outreach

Buckley-Zistel, Susanne/de Wolff, Kaya/Erll, Astrid/Frank, Sybille/Hannig, Nicolai/Mannitz, Sabine/Reiss, Mariel/Schwerer, Jona/Spittler, Sara-Luise/Wingender, Monika (2024): Memory Before Violence. Frankfurt/Main, TraCe Working Paper No. 5, DOI: 10.48809/PRIFTraCeWP2405.

de Wolff, Kaya: Gastbeitrag (2024): Ein missglückter Film und die umkämpfte Erinnerung an den Völkermord in Namibia. Übermedien 3.1.2024. URL: Ein missglückter Film und die umkämpfte Erinnerung an den Völkermord in Namibia | Übermedien (uebermedien.de)

de Wolff, Kaya, and Verena Lasso Mena (2024): Podcast #008 // Auf den Spuren politischer Gewalt – PRIF Talk (Podcast des Leibniz Peace Research Institute, 29.2.2024) https://blog.prif.org/2024/02/29/podcast-008-auf-den-spuren-politischer-gewalt/