– 2019–2020 Project Leader at the cluster of excellence “Matters of Activity” at Humboldt University of Berlin

– 2017: Senior Fellow at MECS, Leuphana University of Lüneburg

– 2015–2016: Senior Fellow at the IKKM, Bauhaus University Weimar

– Visiting professorships at the University of Siegen (2010), the Bauhaus University Weimar (2011–2015) and Humboldt University of Berlin (2015, 2016–2019)

– 2012 Habilitation at the University of Vienna with a thesis on the cultural and media history of distraction and award of the venia legendi in Film and Media Studies

– 2008–2011: University assistant at the Institute for Theatre, Film and Media Studies at the University of Vienna

– 2005–2008 Research assistant at the Institute for Media, Information and Cultural Studies at the University of Regensburg

– 2002–2004 Research assistant at the Research Centre ‘Media and Cultural Communication’ (SFB/FK-427) at the Universities of Cologne, Bonn and Aachen

– 2003: Awarded a PhD from the University of Cologne with a thesis on the history of media and knowledge relating to images of emotion

– Studied German Language and Literature, Art History and Slavonic Studies at the University of Cologne

From Debris to Sediment: Unearthing Imperial Geology, Lüneburg: meson 2026 (with Felix Hasebrink)

Sub(e)merging: Experiences, Practices and Politics from Belowedited by Marie Sophie Beckmann and Petra Löffler, Zurich: Diaphanes, 2025.

Records of Disaster. Media Infrastructures and Climate Change, Lüneburg: meson press 2022. ( with: Jakob Claus)

Earth and Beyond in Tumultuous Times. A Critical Atlas of the Anthropocene, Lüneburg: meson 2021. (with: Réka Patrícia Gál)

Materials, Practics and Politics of Shine in Modern Art and Popular Culture (with Antje Krause-Wahl and Änne Söll), New York/London: Bloomsbury 2021.

Ecologies of the Earth - History and Topicality of the Gaia Hypothesis, Lüneburg: Meson-Press 2018 (with Alexander Friedrich, Niklas Schrape and Florian Sprenger).

Cinema labour love. Homage to Elisabeth Büttner, Berlin: Vorwerk 8 2018 (with Christian Dewald and Marc Ries).

Distributing images. Fotografische Praktiken in der digitalen Kultur, Bielefeld: transcript 2018 (with Winfried Gerling and Susanne Holschbach).

Distributed attention. Eine Mediengeschichte der Zerstreuung, Zurich/Berlin: diaphanes 2014.

Faces of Film, Bielefeld: transcript 2005 (with Joanna Barck).

Affect Images. A media history of facial expressions, Bielefeld: transcript 2004.

The face is a strong organisation, Cologne: DuMont 2004 (with Leander Scholz).

Medientheorien 1888-1933. Texte und Kommentare, Frankfurt/M: Suhrkamp 2002 (with Albert Kümmel).

Colonising the Ocean: Coral Reef Histories in the Anthropocene, in: Réka Patrícia Gál, Petra Löffler (eds.): Earth and Beyond in Tumultuous Times. A Critical Atlas of the Anthropocene, Lüneburg: meson 2021, pp. 185–213.

Flickering Lights. Shine and Diversion in Weimar Cinema, in: Antje Krause Wahl, Petra Löffler, Änne Söll (eds.): Materials, Practices and Politics of Shine in Modern Art and Popular Culture, New York/London: Bloomsbury 2021, pp. 37–52.

Images-Images: Colonial Visual Practices and Their Postcolonial Reincarnations, in: ZfM 25 (2021), pp. 116–127.

Doing Things Differently: Feminist Critique of the Anthropocene, Decolonisation of Geology and ‘Sensing’ in Media Environments. Jennifer Gabrys and Kathryn Yusoff in conversation with Petra Löffler, Léa Perraudin and Birgit Schneider, in: ZfM 23 (2020), pp. 138–151.

Hands-on Film: Media Archaeology as Gestural Practice, in: *Cinéma & Cie. International Film Studies Journal*, vol. 21, no. 35 (2020), pp. 73–83.

Counter Media Environments. Aesthetics and Geopolitics after McLuhan, in: Angelika Seppi, Rebekka Ladewig (eds.): Milieu Fragments. Technological and Aesthetic Perspectives, Leipzig: Spector Books 2020, pp. 368–379.

Questions, in: Peter Bexte, Martina Leeker (eds.): A Medium Called McLuhan. 37 Interviews, Lüneburg: meson Press 2020, pp. 49–51.

Epiphanies. Two Sketches, in: Linda Simonis (ed.): Media and Religion. Approaches to an Interdisciplinary Research Programme, Bielefeld: Aisthesis Verlag 2019, pp. 33–42.

Ecologies of Media Practices, in: Sebastian Gießmann, Tobias Röhl, Ronja Trischler (eds.): The Materiality of Co-operation, Berlin: De Gruyter 2019, pp. 373–398.

Producing Journals: A Round Table on Graphic Design, E-Publishing and ZfM Production, in: ZfM 20 (2019), pp. 53–65.

Archives of the Future? A Conversation on Collection Policies, Colonial Archives and the Decolonisation of Knowledge, in: ZfM 20 (2019), pp. 96–111.

Genealogies of Becoming a Minority: Cinema as a ‘minor art’, in: Elisabeth Büttner, Viktoria Metschl (eds.): Figurations of Solidarity. Algeria, Cinema and the Rhythms of Anti-Colonial Internationalism, Berlin: Vorwerk 8 2019, pp. 149–165.

Molecular Montage and Distributed Attention. On *Leviathan* by Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel, in: Martin Doll (ed.): *Cutting Edge! Positions on Film Montage*, Berlin: Bertz + Fischer 2018, pp. 25–38.

Gaia’s Fortune. Cosmopolitics and the Ecology of Practices in Latour and Stengers, in: Alexander Friedrich et al.: Ecologies of the Earth – History and Relevance of the Gaia Hypothesis, Lüneburg: Meson-Press 2018, pp. 95–121.

Narcissism as Anaesthesia? McLuhan and the Age of Electricity, in: Till A. Heilmann, Jens Schröter (eds.): Understanding Media. 50 Years of McLuhan’s *Understanding Media*, Lüneburg: Meson Press 2017, pp. 87–113.

Zig-Zag. Bruno Latour’s Detours, in: ilinx. Berlin Contributions to Cultural Studies, No. 4: Workarounds – Practices of the Detour, 2017, pp. 134–139.

Gesturing the Image. The Chain-linking of Images in Jean-Luc Godard’s *Passion*, in: *Gestures of Seeing in Film, Video and Drawing*, ed. by Asbjørn Grønstad, Henrik Gustafsson and Øyvind Vågnes, London: Routledge 2017, pp. 33–46

Kluge’s Parallel Worlds. Gods and Quantum Physics, in: Jürgen Fohrmann (ed.): Chronicle/Feelings. Seven Essays on Alexander Kluge. With three stories by Alexander Kluge and a response by Wilhelm Voßkamp, Bielefeld: Aisthesis Verlag 2017, pp. 119–141.

Theory Scenes, in: Lorenz Aggermann, Georg Döcker, Gerald Siegmund (eds.): Theatre as a Dispositif. Dysfunction, Fiction and Knowledge in the Order of Performance, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang 2017, pp. 105–121.

Media Archaeology and Film, in: Bernhard Groß, Thomas Morsch (eds.): Handbook of Film Theory, Wiesbaden: Springer VS (online: DOI 10.1007/978-3-658-09514-7_35-1).

An Ecology of Materials. An email interview on correspondence, resonance and obsession, and on the benefits of combining scholarship and craftsmanship (in collaboration with Tim Ingold and Florian Sprenger), in: Journal of Media Studies, Vol. 14: Media Ecologies, pp. 87–94.

Aesthetic Resistance. Michelangelo Antonioni’s Revolutionary Escapism, in: escape. Strategies of Escape, ed. by Nicole Kandioler, Ulrich Meurer, Vrääth Öhner and Andrea Seier (online publication: escape.univie.ac.at/aesthetische-widerstaendigkeit/)

Dispersion. Techniques of Distribution, in: Figurationen, vol. 16 (2015), no. 2, pp. 10–26.

Ghosts of the City: A Spectrology of Cinematic Spaces, in: Communication+1, vol. 4, article 9 (http://scholarworks.umass.edu/cpo/vol4/iss1/9/).

Ghosts of the City. Spectrology of Urban Spaces, in: ‘Learning to Live with Ghosts’. The Spectral as Figure, Metaphor and Dispositif of Perception, ed. by Ralph Fischer and Gerald Siegmund, Berlin: Neofelis Verlag 2015, pp. 167–186.

Being in Space: Scattering, Extending, Dispersing. Towards a Media Ecology of Relational Space, in: Journal of Media Philosophy and Cultural Technology Research, 5/2 (2014), pp. 209–223.

‘Scattering’, in: Heiko Christians, Matthias Bickenbach and Nikolaus Wegmann (eds.): *Historical Dictionary of Media Use*, Vienna/Cologne/Weimar: Böhlau 2014, pp. 687–702.

The Strange Case of Bas Jan Ader. Los Angeles and 1970s West Coast Conceptualism, in: *Augen-Blick. Konstanzer Hefte zur Medienwissenschaft*, No. 59 (2014), pp. 10–22.

At the Zero Point of the Image. Roland Barthes’s Ergography, in: Claudia Benthin, Brigitte Weingart (eds.): Handbook of Literature and Visual Culture, Berlin: de Gruyter 2014, pp. 121–138.

Kleptomania. On the Pathologisation of Distraction, in: Gabriele Dietze, Dorothea Dornhof (eds.): Metropolenzauber – Sexual Modernity and Urban Delusion, Weimar/Vienna: Böhlau 2014, pp. 367–388.

The Aesthetics of Dispersed Attention. An Interview with German Media Theorist Petra Löffler (Interview by Geert Lovink), in: Necsus 4 (Autumn 2013), www.necsus-ejms.org/the-aesthetics-of-dispersed-attention-an-interview-with-german-media-theorist-petra-loffler/

Effacement. On the Erasure of the Face in Gilles Deleuze, in: Interjekte 4 (2013): Erasures of the Face, ed. by Mona Körte and Judith Elisabeth Weiss, pp. 87–96.

‘Applying the Researcher’s Acumen to the Everyday’. Daniel Eschkötter and Petra Löffler in conversation with Gustav Deutsch and Hanna Schimek, in: Zeitschrift für Medienwissenschaft, Issue 9 (2013), pp. 106–112.

Phase(s). On the Concept of the Moving Image, in: Nina Lindemeyer, Pirkko Rathgeber (eds.): BildBewegungen, Munich: Fink 2013, pp. 133–156.

Sensory Deprivation and the Terror of Film, in: Julia Bee, Reinhold Görling, Johannes Kruse, Elke Mühlleitner (eds.): Images and Narratives of Torture: Relationships between Fiction and Reality, Göttingen: V&R Unipress 2013, pp. 219–234.

*Bodies of Distraction*, in: Bianca Maria Pirani, Thomas S. Smith (eds.): *Body and Time. Bodily Rhythms and the Social Synchronism in the Information Age*, Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2013, pp. 8–20.

Horsemanning. Mimesis of Photography, in: Archive for Media History 12 (2012), pp. 147–160.

Affect, in: Tina Bartz, Ludwig Jäger, Marcus Krause, Erika Linz (eds.): Handbook of Mediology. Signatures of the Medial, Munich: Fink 2012, pp. 22–27.

Figures of Expression in Theatre Theory and Medicine around 1800, in: Tobias Robert Klein, Erik Porath (eds.): Figures of Expression. The Formation of a Category of Knowledge between 1700 and 1850, Munich: Fink 2012, pp. 147–167.

Ghost Sounds and the Cinematographic Imagination. Christian Petzold’s *Gespenster* and *Yella*, in: Thomas Schick, Tobias Ebbrecht (eds.): *Cinema in Motion. Perspectives on Contemporary German Film*, Wiesbaden: VS-Verlag 2011, pp. 63–78.

Ecstasies of the Gaze. Moments in Cinema, in: Gerald Schröder, Änne Söll (eds.): Kritische Berichte, vol. 38 (2010), no. 4, pp. 39–48.

Picturing the Metropolis: Paris in the Eye of the Camera, in: Elke Mettinger-Schartmann, Margarete Rubik, Jörg Türschmann (eds.), Rive Gauche. Paris as a Site of Avant-Garde Art and Cultural Exchange in the 1920s, Amsterdam: Rodopi 2010, pp. 121–144.

What Hands Can Tell Us: From the ‘Speaking’ to the ‘Expressive’ Hand, in: Ludwig Jäger, Erika Linz, Irmela Schneider (eds.): Media, Culture, and Mediality. New Insights into the Current State of Research, Bielefeld: transcript 2010, pp. 367–389.

Light, Trace, Measurement. A Critique of the Photographic Image, in: Bernhard Dotzler (ed.): Image/Critique, Berlin: Kulturverlag Kadmos 2010, pp. 83–114.

Coolness as a Cinematic Effect: Cassavetes and McLuhan, in: Annette Geiger/Gerald Schröder/Änne Söll (eds.): Coolness. On the Aesthetics of a Cultural Strategy and Attitude, Bielefeld: transcript 2010, pp. 67–83.

Risky Gestures: John Cassavetes’ *Opening Night* (1976/77), in: *Maske & Kothurn* 4 (2009), pp. 61–77.

Phantoms. Encounters with the Uncertain, in: ilinx. Berlin Contributions to Cultural Studies, No. 1 (2009), pp. 99–123.

Vertigo, Hysteria, Distraction. On the Archaeology of Mass Media Effects, in: Marcus Hahn, Erhard Schüttpelz (eds.): Trance Media and New Media around 1900, Bielefeld: transcript 2009, pp. 373–399.

The Ordinary Life of Ordinary People. Edgar G. Ulmer’s *Menschen am Sonntag* (Germany 1929), in: Bernd Herzogenrath (ed.): *Edgar G. Ulmer. Essays on the King of the B’s, Jefferson, NC: McFarland 2009, pp. 49–62.

Fluid(um). On the Mediality of Tears, in: Beate Söntgen, Geraldine Spiekermann (eds.): Tears, Munich: Fink 2008, pp. 263–281.

The Spectacle of Photography. Posing for the Camera – the Textbooks by Carl Michel and Albert Borée, in: Fotogeschichte. Contributions to the History and Aesthetics of Photography, Vol. 26 (2006), No. 101, pp. 17–30.

The Fabrication of Emotions. Photographs of Passion between Science and Aesthetics, in: Ludger Derenthal, Katharina Sykora, Esther Ruelfs (eds.): Photographic Passions, Marburg: Jonas 2006, pp. 40–56.

The Film Face. Discourse on the Face in Early Film, in: Wolfgang Beilenhoff, Marijana Erstic, Walburga Hülk, Klaus Kreimeier (eds.): Face Detection in the Media of the Twentieth Century, Siegen: Universitätsverlag 2006, pp. 25–51.

A Visible Language. Speaking Mouths in Silent Film, in: Joanna Barck and Wolfgang Beilenhoff (eds.): The Face in Film. Secondary Stagings/2, Montage/av 13/2 (2005), pp. 54–74.

The Image Industry. Photography as a Mass Medium, in: Albert Kümmel, Leander Scholz and Eckhard Schumacher (eds.): An Introduction to the History of the Media, Munich: utb 2004, pp. 95–123.

Analogue/Digital Images of Emotion: Facial Expressions between Mimesis and Simulation, in: Gisela Fehrmann, Erika Linz, Eckhard Schuhmacher and Brigitte Weingart (eds.): Original/Copy. Practices of the Secondary, Cologne: DuMont 2004, pp. 156–172.

Fugitive Lines of the ‘Face’. Symptoms of Crisis in Facial Semantics, in: Petra Löffler/Leander Scholz (eds.): The Face is a Strong Organisation, Cologne: DuMont 2004, pp. 323–344.

The Reversed War: The Iconography of Idyll and Anti-Idyll in Photography, in: Thomas Kater/Albert Kümmel (eds.): The Denied Peace. On the Loss of the Imagery of Peace in Modernity, Bremen: Donat 2003, pp. 245–261.

What Hands Say: From the ‘Speaking’ to the ‘Expressive’ Hand, in: Matthias Bickenbach/Annina Klappert/Hedwig Pompe (eds.): Manus Loquens. Medium of Gesture – Gestures of the Media, Cologne: DuMont 2003, pp. 210–242.

‘Facial Disorders’. On the Image of the Grimace, in: Albert Kümmel/Erhard Schüttpelz (eds.): Signals of Disorder, Munich: Fink 2003, pp. 173–197.

‘A Poet Looks Like a Chemist’. The Face in Photography, in: Stefan Andriopoulos/Bernhard Dotzler (eds.): 1929. Contributions to the Archaeology of the Media, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 2002, pp. 132–157.

Fragile Gestures – Eccentric Expressions. Eleonora Duse and the Spectacle of Hysteria, in: Isolde Schiffermüller (ed.): Gesture and Gesture. Essays on the Text and Culture of Classical Modernism, Innsbruck/Vienna/Munich: Studienverlag, Bolzano: Edition Sturzflüge 2001, pp. 40–65.