Axel Fliethmann is an internationally recognised scholar in the fields of literary theory, media philology and theory of the image. He studied Literature, History and Philosophy at the University of Cologne (Germany) where he also received his PhD (DPhil). Before joining Monash University, he was a post-doctoral Fellow at the research centre “Medien und Kulturelle Kommunikation” (Centre for media and cultural communication) at the University of Cologne.

His monograph Stellenlektüre Stifter - Foucault, published by Niemeyer in 2001, engages with epistemological paradoxes in the fields of philology and literary theory. His monograph Texte über Bilder. Zur Gegenwart der Renaissance (Texts about Images. On Renaissance Today), published by Rombach in 2014, conceptualises media philology as a new field of inquiry between traditional philology and media theory. His current monograph investigates connections between material images and concepts of imagination in Early Modern Times, in particular intersections between image technologies, the formation of the modern concept of imagination in aesthetic theory, and pathologies of imagination in medical discourse.

He is widely published in the fields of literary theory, visual cultures, and media philology and one of the co-founders and co-editors of Limbus. Australian Yearbook of German Literary and Cultural Studies.

Axel Fliethmann is a fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities:https://humanities.org.au/fellows/fellow-profile/?fellow_id=995