Katharina Serles is a scholar of literature, comics, and image studies, with a particular emphasis on gender, performativity and visual culture studies. She teaches comics theory at the Kunstschule Wien and remains active as a moderator, journalist, cultural policy maker, performer, and winemaker. Her academic trajectory includes research and teaching at the Dresden University of Fine Arts and the University of Vienna, where she most recently (2019–2024) served as applicant and collaborator in the research project “Visualities of Gender in German-Language Comics”. From 2019 to 2023, Serles was editor-in-chief of the cultural-political journal KUPFzeitung and, in 2020, deputy managing director of KUPF OÖ in Linz. She has been engaged in cultural policy through her involvement with IG Kultur Wien and IG Kultur Österreich and – since 2018, as co-founder and board member of the Austrian Association for Comics.
Academic Presentations
– 16.10.2026: “‘Mach alles in deinem eigenen Tempo.’ Augenzwinkernde Comicforschung”, Sorbonne Nouvelle University, Paris
– 09.06.2026: Thesis Advisory Committee Meeting with Evelyn Annuß (Supervisor), Irmela Marei Krüger-Fürhoff (External Advisor), and Melanie Unseld (Supervisor), mdw
– 27.02.2026: “Semantic Modelling of Intermedial and Intertextual References in Comics. A Case Study on Max Baitinger’s Sibylla (2021)” (together with Bernhard Oberreither & Laura Untner), DHd26, University of Vienna
– 26.02.2026: “‘Do everything in your own time.’ Queer Temporalities and (No-)Futurity in Nino Bulling’s firebugs (2022)”, Queer Narratology Workshop, University of Vienna
Publications
Articles
– Better Animals. Companion Species and Ecological Guilt in Franz Suess’s Jakob Neyder. In: Closure. Kieler e-Journal für Comicforschung 13 (2026) [im Erscheinen].
– Körper, Kunst und Kanon. (Queer)feministische Bildermächtigungen in Comics. In: Marina Rauchenbacher/Katharina Serles/Naomi Lobnig (Hg.): Comics Studies x Gender Studies. Schnittmengen von Forschung, Lehre und Praxis – Intersections of Research, Teaching, and Practice. Unter Mitarbeit von Susanne Hochreiter. Berlin, Boston: de Gruyter 2025 (= Comicstudien 5), p. 123–139.
– Gender/Queer Studies/Intersektionalitätsforschung [with Marina Rauchenbacher]. In: Juliane Blank/Stephan Packard (Hg.): Handbuch Comicforschung. Berlin, Boston: de Gruyter 2025, p. 243–262.
Books
– Marina Rauchenbacher/Katharina Serles/Naomi Lobnig (Hg.): Comics Studies x Gender Studies. Schnittmengen von Forschung, Lehre und Praxis – Intersections of Research, Teaching, and Practice. Unter Mitarbeit v. Susanne Hochreiter. Berlin, Boston: de Gruyter 2025 (= Comicstudien 5).
Workshops
– 14.–17.10.2026: “Comics: Issues of Representation and Translation Around Body and Space – Part 2”, Sorbonne Nouvelle University, Paris
– 28.05.2026: “Entschuldigung, was haben Sie da grade gesagt?” Grafisches Erzählen. Kurzklasse mit Comic-Künstlerin Mia Oberländer, Schule für Dichtung, Wien
– 23.–26.03.2026: “Comics: Issues of Representation and Translation Around Body and Space – Part 1”, University of Vienna
– 29.10.–01.11.2025: “Losing the Plot. Eigene Literaturen. Gespräche, Workshops, Lesungen”, Comic Gewerkschaft, Am Flutgraben, Berlin
Talks/Moderations
– 04.10.2026: “Lee Lai: Cannon”, Comicfestival Hamburg, Fotofabrique
– 05.06.2026: “Prekäre Linien. Trotzdem Zeichnen. Gespräch mit Aisha Franz und Leonie Ott”, Internationaler Comic-Salon Erlangen
– 05.05.2026: “Lenz Mosbacher: Beuys. Die Erfindung der Wahrheit”, Literaturhaus Wien
– 15.12.2025: “Josef Zorn: Art Künstlich #1”, Kulturcafé Henriette
– 14.10.2025: “Franz Suess: Jakob Neyder”, Literaturhaus Wien
Exhibitions
– “Für was ist das gut? Österreichische Comics der 90er im Eigenverlag” (with Nicolas Dostal, Monika Ernst & Lenz Mosbacher); 12.09.2026 Literaturmeile Wien; 20.–28.03.2026 Nextcomicfestival Linz
Teaching
– Summer Semester 2026: “Über Hunde, Künstler*innen und Mallwalker – Character Design”, Comic Theory, Kunstschule Wien
– Winter Semester 2025/2026: “Weird Times – Zeitlichkeit im Comic”, Comic Theory, Kunstschule Wien
Research Trips
– 14.–17.10.2026: Sorbonne Nouvelle University
– 01.–05.10.2026: Comicfestival Hamburg
– 04.–07.06.2026: Internationaler Comic-Salon Erlangen
The dissertation investigates how German-language comics since the 2010s represent, question, and subvert dominant constructions of time. Building upon existing scholarship in comics studies, cultural and media studies, narratology, as well as image and queer theory, the research explores how comics produce non-linear, fragmented, ambiguous and “queer” temporalities that challenge and disrupt (hetero-)normative models of chronology and history. In doing so, it addresses a significant research gap by providing the first systematic study of temporal structures and conceptualizations in German-language comics. Through close readings and visual analyses, the project examines how formal devices – panel arrangement and transitions, framing, spatial composition, layering and repetition, and the use of the gutter – complicate the relationship between simultaneity and succession, continuity and rupture, presence and absence. It asks how visual-narrative strategies not only disrupt linear, progress-oriented temporalities but also open up affective, embodied, and relational experiences of time that resonate with queer modes of existence and perception. Integrating postcolonial and performance-theoretical perspectives, the project situates German-language comics within transnational debates on time, gender, and memory. Ultimately, it shows that comics are particularly apt for articulating queer temporalities, producing what Scott McCloud has called an “infinitely weirder” sense of time – one that might reflect the complexities and incommensurabilities of contemporary life and open up alternative imaginaries of belonging, history, and (non-)futurity.