Wanda Strauven

Wanda Strauven is a film scholar whose research interests include early cinema, media archaeology, touch-based media, textile technologies, and children’s play with media. After a twelve-year appointment at the University of Amsterdam, she taught at Catholic University of the Sacred Heart of Milan, Goethe University Frankfurt, Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, University of Udine, and Yale University. From 2008 to 2010 she was Academic Director of the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA). She holds a PhD in Languages and Literatures from the University of Antwerp and a Habilitation degree in Media Studies from Goethe University Frankfurt, where she is one of the principal investigators of the DFG-funded graduate research group Configurations of Film (https://konfigurationen-des-films.de/en/). She edited several volumes, among which The Cinema of Attractions Reloaded (Amsterdam University Press, 2006). Her most recent books are Touchscreen Archaeology: Tracing Histories of Hands-On Media Practices (meson press, 2021), which won the 2022 Limina Award for Best International Cinema Studies Book, and Children Reinventing Cinema: Snapshots from the Early 21st Century (co-authored with Alexandra Schneider) (meson press, 2025).