• Art, art theory and the art world of the 19th-21st century
• History and theory of art history/science and queer-feminist history of science
• Art, intermediality, structures
• Gender studies in art and cultural studies
• Art historical post/decolonial studies
• Queer studies: queer aesthetic practices and politics

• Studied art history, German studies and theatre studies in Munich, Vienna and Berlin
• 1990 Doctorate at the Free University of Berlin with a study on the history of science and art politics around 1900
• 1991-94 Research assistant at the Free University of Berlin on the "Wilhelm von Bode" research project
• 1994-2001 Research assistant at the Philipps University of Marburg
• 1998/99 Research stays in Paris and New York, among other places, as part of a DFG habilitation scholarship
• 2001 Habilitation at the Philipps University of Marburg with a study on the reception history of feminist art from the 1960s to the 1980s
• Between 2001 and 2003, substitute professor at the University of Marburg (2001, 2002) as well as visiting professor for Gender Studies at the University of Saarbrücken (2002) and visiting professor in the graduate programme "Identity and Difference. Gender Construction and Interculturality 18th-21st Century" at the University of Trier (2003)
• 2003-08 Professor of Art History and Art Theory/Gender Studies at the University of Art and Design Linz, Austria
• Since October 2008 Professor of Art History, specialising in Modernism and Gender, Institute of Art and Visual Culture, University of Oldenburg, Germany
• Spokesperson for the Helene Lange Centre for Queer Studies and Intermediality: Art - Music - Media Culture (2013-16)
• Spokesperson for the joint research project "Gender Knowledge in and between the Disciplines. Critique, transformation and 'dissident participation' in (academic) knowledge production" (2017-2020)

Monographs/editorials

• Consternation. Practices of (self-)politicisation in art and audiovisual cultureedited by Barbara Paul and Andrea Seier, Berlin: Neofelis 2024. more
• Gender knowledge in and between the disciplines. Perspectives on the critique of academic knowledge production, edited by Barbara Paul together with Corinna Bath and Silke Wenk, Bielefeld: transcript 2020. more
• Perverse Assemblages. Queering Heteronormativity Inter/Medially, Berlin: Revolver Publishing 2017, edited by Barbara Paul together with Josch Hoenes, Atlanta Ina Beyer, Natascha Frankenberg and Rena Onat / Oldenburger Helene-Lange-Kolleg "Queer Studies and Intermediality: Art - Music - Media Culture ". | more
• Queer as ...-Critical Heteronormativity Research from an Interdisciplinary Perspective, Bielefeld: transcript 2016 (Studien Interdisziplinäre Geschlechterforschung Bd. 9), ed. together with Lüder Tietz. | more
• un/verblümt. Queer Politics in Aesthetics and Theory, Berlin: Revolver 2014, ed. together with Josch Hoenes. | more
• Migrations. Migrations und Transformations aus geschlechterwissenschaftlichen Perspektiven, Bielefeld: transcript 2013 (Studien Interdisziplinäre Geschlechterforschung Bd. 8), ed. together with Annika McPherson, Sylvia Pritsch, Melanie Unseld and Silke Wenk. | More
• Mehr(wert) queer. Visuelle Kultur, Kunst und Gender-Politiken / Queer Added (Value). Visual Culture, Art, and Gender Politics, Bielefeld: transcript 2009 (Studien zu visuellen Kulturen Bd. 11), ed. together with Johanna Schaffer. | more
• FormatChange. Kunst, populäre Medien und Gender-Politiken / FormatChange. Art, Popular Media and Gender Politics, Vienna: Sonderzahl 2008 (Linzer Augen. Publication series of the Institute of Fine Arts and Cultural Studies at the University of Art and Design Linz, vol. 2). | more
• Wir machen Kunst, weil es die feministische/politische/gesellschaftliche/meine Situation erfordert, catalogue object for the exhibition, Linz: Kunstuniversität, 2007, together with Johanna Schaffer.

Essays

• Everything a question of class?! Class transitions, gender/er and shaming in the graphic novels Scheiblettenkind (2022) and Madgermanes (2016), in: Feminist Studies 43, 2025, H. 1: Articulations of Class and Gender, pp. 33-56 (together with Friederike Nastold).
• Basement, villa and stairs: Class Transitions, Affects and the Hemi-Parasitic in Bong Joon-ho's Parasite (2019), in: kritische berichte. Journal for Art and Cultural Studies 53, 2025, H. 2: Living with class, pp. 53-62 (together with Friederike Nastold).
• Queering Art and Visual Culture Studies. Barbara Paul in conversation with Fiona McGovern, in: Daniel Berndt, Susanne Huber and Christian Liclair (eds.), ambivalent work*s. queer perspectives and art history, Zurich: Diaphanes 2024, pp. 97-123.
• Defending consternation. (Self-)Politicisation in Art and Audiovisual Culture, in: Barbara Paul and Andrea Seier (eds.), Betroffenheit. Practices of (Self-)Politicisation in Art and Audiovisual CultureBerlin: Neofelis 2024, pp. 7-56 (together with Andrea Seier).
• Stubbornness and disobedience, art and science - and the audiovisual installation Lachanschlag (2018) by Giegold & Weiß, in: Andrea Seier, Christine Krischan Hanke, Henriette Gunkel, Nanna Heidenreich and Sybille Bauriedl (eds.), Protest pearls - juchzen ächzen andersmachen, online at https://protestperlen.net/barbara-paul/ (28.02.2024).
• Queering in Kunst_Geschichte_Wissenschaft: Perspektiven reparativer Praxen, in: kritische berichte. Journal for Art and Cultural Studies 51, 2023, H. 3, pp. 73-81 (together with Friederike Nastold)
• Impulses for que(e)rulating - not only In the Near Future (Sharon Hayes). In: Oliver Klaassen and Andrea Seier (eds.): QUEERULIEREN. Disruptive moments in art, media and scienceBerlin: Neofelis 2023, 56-65.
• What is queer today is not queer tomorrow. The installation Ahnen (2014) by Ins A Kromminga and queering art studies, in: Lisa Hecht and Hendrik Ziegler (eds.), Queerness in the Art of the Early Modern Period?, Vienna/Cologne: Böhlau 2023, pp. 37-58.
• Gertrud Kantorowicz (1876-1945): "Über den Märchenstil der Malerei und die Sienesische Kunst des Quattrocento", in: K. Lee Chichester, Brigitte Sölch (eds.), Women Art Historians 1910-1980: Theories, Methods, Critiques, Berlin: Reimer 2021, pp. 40-53.
• Living experiences as queer-feminist relationship work: The photo series A happy marriage by Daniela Comani, in: Katharina Eck, Johanna Hartmann, Kathrin Heinz, Christiane Keim (eds.), Living/Space/Thinking. Politics of the Domestic in Art, Architecture and Visual CultureBielefeld: transcript 2021, pp. 123-138.
• Gender knowledge, disciplines and "dissident participation", in: Barbara Paul, Corinna Bath and Silke Wenk (eds.), Gender knowledge in and between the disciplines. Perspectives on the Critique of Academic Knowledge Production, Bielefeld: transcript 2020, pp. 9-26 (together with Silke Wenk).
• Work between the disciplines. Beginnings of academic feminism and the first Berlin summer university for women in 1976, in: ibid., pp. 29-42.
• Inter-/transdisciplinarity and developments in gender knowledge, in: ibid., pp. 229-237 (together with Silke Wenk).
• Gender knowledge as/and critique, transformation and "dissident participation" - For a historical perspective, in: ibid., pp. 273-284.
• Perverse Assemblages. Queering Heteronormativity Inter/Medially, An Introduction, in: Barbara Paul et al. (eds.), Perverse Assemblages. Queering Heteronormativity Inter/Medially Berlin: Revolver Publishing 2017, pp. 6-22 (together with Josch Hoenes).
• Un/possibilities of queer politics in science and art - or: On dealing with visual archives and knowledge, in: Barbara Paul and Lüder Tietz (eds.), Queer as... - Critical Heteronormativity Research from an Interdisciplinary Perspective Bielefeld: transcript 2016, pp. 25-51.
• Queer as ...: Negotiations of Practices, Knowledge and Politics, in: Barbara Paul and Lüder Tietz (eds.), Queer as ... - Critical Heteronormativity Research from an Interdisciplinary Perspective, Bielefeld: transcript 2016, pp. 7-24 (together with Lüder Tietz).
• Between "Bodies without Bodies" and Body Landscapes: Queer Artistic Negotiations, in: Christiane Erharter et al. (eds.), Pink Labor on Golden Streets. Queer Art Practices, Berlin: Sternberg Press 2015, pp. 238-249.
• 'I get a queer feeling when I look at it' - Strategien des queering im Film, in: Claudia Reiche (ed.), quite queer, Bremen: thealit 2014, pp. 119-132 (together with Barbara Reumüller).
• un/verblümt - Gender, Sexuality and Desire. Queer Politics in Art and Science, in: Josch Hoenes and Barbara Paul (eds.), un/verblümt. Queer Politics in Aesthetics and Theory, Berlin: Revolver 2014, pp. 12-37 (together with Josch Hoenes).
• Who or What Is Actually the Object? (Non-heteronormative) Desire and Power in the Context of Art and Postcolonialism, in: The Challenge of the Object. 33rd congress of the International Committee of the History of Art, Nuremberg, 15th - 20th July 2012 = Die Herausforderung des Objekts. 33rd International Congress of Art Historians/ CIHA 2012, Nuremberg. Germanisches Nationalmuseum, ed. by Georg Ulrich Großmann and Petra Krutisch, 4 vols, Nuremberg: Verlag des Germanischen Nationalmuseums 2013, vol. 2, pp. 518-521.
• Migrations of people, things and concepts from a gender studies perspective, in: Wanderungen. Migrations und Transformations aus geschlechterwissenschaftlichen Perspektiven, ed. by Annika McPherson et al., Bielefeld: transcript 2013, pp. 7-16 (together with Annika McPherson, Sylvia Pritsch, Melanie Unseld and Silke Wenk).
• Queer as a concept, queer abstraction? "Rosa Arbeit auf goldener Straße" in the exhibition spaces XHIBIT of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, in: Texte zur Kunst, vol. 23, issue 89, March 2013, pp. 205-207.
• XXY or: The art of que(e)ring through theories, in: Sehen - Macht - Wissen. ReSaVoir. Bilder im Spannungsfeld von Kultur, Politik und Erinnerung, ed. by Angelika Bartl, Josch Hoenes, Patricia Mühr and Kea Wienand, Bielefeld: transcript 2011, pp. 187-204.
• FormatChange, Image Circulation and Visual Queer Politics. Iké Udé and the structural paradox of the cover girl, in: FKW // Zeitschrift für Geschlechterforschung und visuelle Kultur, June 2011, Issue 51, pp. 60-72.
• Territorialisation processes in the context of landscape, body and gender. Niki de Saint Phalle's Hon/Sie (1966), in: Landschaftlichkeit zwischen Kunst, Architektur und Theorie, ed. by Irene Nierhaus et al., Berlin: Reimer 2010, pp. 113-125.
• "Un/an/appropriate others". Temporality as 'ageing' in contemporary art, in: "Für Dein Alter siehst Du gut aus!" On the In/Visibility of the Ageing Body in the Horizon of Demographic Change. Multidisciplinary perspectives, edited by Sabine Mehlmann and Sigrid Ruby, Bielefeld: transcript 2010, pp. 197-213.
• Queer als visuelle politische Praxis / Queer as a Visual Political Practice, in: Barbara Paul and Johanna Schaffer (eds.): Mehr(wert) queer. Visuelle Kultur, Kunst und Gender-Politiken / Queer Added (Value). Visual Culture, Art, and Gender Politics. Bielefeld: transcript 2009, pp. 7-33 (together with Johanna Schaffer).
• After the canon is before the canon? Current queer-feminist debates in art and science, in: FKW // Zeitschrift für Geschlechterforschung und visuelle Kultur, Issue 48, December 2009, Focus: Kanones?, pp. 14-25.
• Art History, Feminism and Gender Studies, in: Kunstgeschichte. Eine Einführung, ed. by Hans Belting, Heinrich Dilly et al, 7th, revised and expanded ed., Berlin: Reimer 2008, pp. 297-336.
• Text-(Ver)localisations. On Renate Herter's transmedial spatial installations, in: Renate Herter. The Memory of Things, ed. by Renate Herter, Linz: Kunstuniversität 2008, pp. 5-13.
• Structures of violence - labour relations. Feminist art as feminist politics in the 1960s and today, in: Kunst und Politik. Yearbook of the Guernica Society, vol. 9/2007 Focus: Political Art Today, ed. by Ursula Frohne and Jutta Held, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2008, pp. 87-102.
• "Happy Few" and "Blue Hour" or: (im)possible perspectives in talking about art, in: Durch die Formate. How contemporary art appears in the media, conceived by Tom Holert and Maribel Königer, MUMOK Museum of Modern Art, Vienna 23-24 November 2007. PDF
  banffcentre.ca/ bnmi/programmes/archives/2005refresh/conference_docs.asp
• Kuratoren und andere(s). documenta und Männlichkeitskonstruktionen, in: k60 Kunstuniversität Linz, ed. by Forum - Freunde und AbsolventInnen der Kunstuniversität Linz, ed. Manfred Lechner et al., Linz: University of Art and Design 2007, pp. 132-147. PDF
• Povijest umjetnosti, feminizam i Gender Studies, in: Uvod u Povijet umjetnosti, ed. by Hans Belting and others, Zagreb: Fraktura 2007, pp. 271-298.
• About_Format. Monstrosity, whiteness and gender in art and media today, in: Frauen Kunst Wissenschaft, Heft 43, June 2007: Körperfarben - Hautdiskurse. Ethnicity and gender in the media techniques of contemporary art, pp. 70-82.
• Gender Studies and Feminism: Dynamics in the Environment of Institutionalisation and Power Relations, in: Catalogue object for the exhibition Wir machen Kunst, weil es die feministische/politische/gesellschaftliche/meine Situation erfordert, ed. by Johanna Schaffer and Barbara Paul, Linz: Kunstuniversität 2007, o. Sz.
• Feminist Interventions in Art and in the Art Industry, in: History of the Visual Arts in Germany, Vol. 8: From Expressionism to the Present, ed. by Barbara Lange, Munich: Prestel 2006, pp. 480-497.
• Media Art Sciences & Feminist Theories: New Alliances?, in: Refresh! First International Conference on the Histories of Media Art, Science and Technology, The Banff New Media Institute, Banff/Alberta, Canada [2006]. PDF
  www.mediaarthistory.org/mah-conf-series/refresh/212-2
• Review: Viktoria Schmidt-Linsenhoff / Karl Hölz / Herbert Uerlings (eds.), Weiße Blicke. Gender Myths of Colonialism, Marburg: Jonas Verlag 2005, in: sehepunkte, Vol. 6, 2006, No. 11 [15 November 2006]. | more
• Negotiating Border(s). Doing gender and doing mixed culture as translocal artistic practice, in: exhib. booklet Fliegender Teppich. Ein grenzüberschreitendes Frauenprojekt, coordinated by Beatrix Eitel, Munich Kunstarkaden 2006, pp. 5-7.
• Art history, gender politics and transculturality. Gabriele Spindler in conversation with Barbara Paul, in: Kunstgeschichte aktuell. Mitteilungen des Verbandes österreichischer Kunsthistorikerinnen und Kunsthistoriker, vol. XXII, 2005, no. 1, pp. 1-2.
• Constructions of masculinity at the Bauhaus. The artist as (co-)constructor of a new society: László Moholy-Nagy, in: Art, Gender, Politics. Männlichkeitskonstruktionen und Kunst im Kaiserreich und in der Weimarer Republik, ed. by Martina Kessel, Frankfurt am Main and New York: Campus 2005, pp. 103-122.
• The art of parody. Racism and Sexism in Faith Ringgold's Story Quilts and Kara Walker's Silhouettes, in: Die Freiheit der Anderen. Festschrift für Viktoria Schmidt-Linsenhoff zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. by Annegret Friedrich, Marburg: Jonas 2004, pp. 231-245.
• Niki de Saint Phalle and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Politik und der Handlungsraum von Künstlerinnen in den frühen 1960er Jahren, in: Mythen - Symbole - Metamorphosen in der Kunst seit 1800. Festschrift für Christa Lichtenstern zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. by J.A. Schmoll gen. Eisenwerth et al, Berlin: Deutscher Kunstverlag 2004, pp. 502-520.
• Beautiful perfect world (order). On how art history in the early Federal Republic of Germany dealt with non-European contemporary art, in: Kunst der Welt oder Weltkunst? Die Kunst in der Globalisierungsdebatte, ed. by Detlef Hoffmann, Rehberg-Loccum 2003 (Loccumer Protokolle 21/02), pp. 27-60 and in: kritische berichte, vol. 31, 2003, issue 2, pp. 5-27.