| Cluster of Excellence “Imaginamics”, Friedrich Schiller University Jena |
Falk Rößler studied European Media Studies (B.A.) in Potsdam, Applied Theater Studies (M.A.) in Giessen, and Social Anthropology (M.Sc.) in Stockholm. He works as a researcher in the fields of social sciences, performance, and media studies, as well as a theater director and author.
Currently, he is a PhD student at the Cluster of Excellence “Imaginamics: Practices and Dynamics of Social Imagining” at Friedrich Schiller University Jena, where he writes his dissertation on “Comedy in the Face of Devastation”. His areas of research include democratic civil society engagement in times of democratic backsliding; aesthetic and media strategies of the 20th and 21st centuries; discourses of the “art of living” in late antiquity and today; and social participation in education and arts. His theater productions and radio plays are widely acclaimed in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, and received several awards and invitations (www.falkroessler.com).
Relevant publications
My interest in conspiracy theories and conspiracism is rooted in my wish to better understand growing disregard for democracy and increasing acceptance for group-focused enmity in times of polycrisis. At the same time, I am also interested in conspiracy theories as aesthetic phenomena and as a means of political critique and individual liberation.
Falk Rößler. 2026. “Liberation through Conspiracy: Conspiracy Thinking and the Disdain for Democracy in East Germany and in Ourselves”, Talk at the International Conference “Engaging with Conspiracy Theories, Fostering Democracy: Dynamics, Drivers, and Defences”, Charles University Prague, April 2026.
Falk Roessler. 2025. German Fall: Organized Democratic Civil Society in East Germany in the Autumn of 2024. Stockholm: diva. URN: urn:nbn:se:su:diva-247478