Golnaz Sarkar Farshi earned her Bachelor's degree in Architecture from the University of Tehran. After several years of professional practice as an architect, she pursued a Master's degree in Dramatic Literature at the School of Cinema and Theater, Art University of Tehran. Awarded a DAAD doctoral scholarship, she began her PhD at Zeppelin University in Friedrichshafen and later continued her doctoral studies at Bauhaus University Weimar, where she completed her degree. Between 2017 and 2024, she taught the theory and philosophy of film, media, and art as a guest lecturer and assistant professor at the universities of Weimar, Jena, Mainz, and Vienna.

Following the completion of her PhD, she earned a qualification in Data Science through an intensive data science bootcamp. She then joined the Data Competence Center HERMES at the University of Marburg, where she worked as a researcher, developer of open educational resources, and designer of data challenges in the field of Digital Humanities. Concurrently, she was awarded the FlexFund by NFDI4Culture (the National Research Data Infrastructure for Culture in Germany) to develop MLNA, a Python package and app for multilingual network analysis. The project aims to support the decolonization of historical research by enabling multilingual network analysis within European research contexts.

Since 1 July 2026, she has been a Lecturer in Digital Methods for the Study of Visual Cultural Data in the Department of Art History at the University of Zurich. Her teaching spans the Department of Art History, the Chair of East Asian Art History, the Department of Film Studies, the Department of Communication and Media Research, the Department of Archaeology, Classical Philology and Ancient Studies, and the Institute of Education.

Her research interests include social systems theory, philosophy of media and art, philosophy of computing, critical algorithm studies, and decolonial approaches to Digital Humanities.

Monographs

Sarkar-Farshi, Golnaz. The New-Wave Cinema: Evolution of Society’s Art System. London and New York: Bloomsbury, 2026.

Translated Books

• Engell, Lorenz. Fernsehtheorie zur Einführung. Trans. Golnaz Sarkar Farshi. Tehran: Cheshmeh, 2024.
• Elkins, James. What Photography Is. Trans. Golnaz Sarkar Farshi. Tehran: Cheshmeh, 2016.
• Malpas, Simon & Paul Wake (eds). The Routledge Companion to Critical Theory. Trans. Golnaz Sarkar Farshi. Tehran: SAMT, 2016.

Chapters in Edited Volumes

• Sarkar-Farshi, Golnaz. “Can Humans and Chatbots Meaningfully Communicate?–An Approach with Niklas Luhmann’s Communication Theory and Semantics”. In Maximilian Zhang & Susanne Marschall (eds), The Answering Machine: Human-AI Entanglements in the Era of Conversational Agents. Bielefeld: Transcript (forthcoming).
• Sarkar Farshi, Golnaz. “Wim Wenders’ Roadmovie-Trilogie als Evolution der Filmsemantik. Eine Annäherung mit Niklas Luhmann”. In Jörn Glasenapp (ed), Kontinuität im Wandel. Begegnungen mit dem Filmemacher Wim Wenders. Munich: edition text + kritik, 2021. pp. 58-72.

Articles

• Sarkar Farshi, Golnaz. “MLNA–A Python package and app for MultiLingual Network Analysis”. In SoftwareX (30), 2025. LINK
• Sarkar Farshi, Golnaz. “Film ist Differenz! – Skizze einer Luhmann’schen Kommunikationstheorie des Films”. In Nach dem Film (20), 2022. LINK
• Sarkar Farshi, Golnaz. “Genre Shift and Identity Maintenance–An Analysis of Iranian War Film Genres (1980-2013) with Niklas Luhmann’s Social Systems Theory”. In Kimiyā-ye-Honar (7/29), 2019. pp. 56-71.

Open Educational Resources (OERs) for Digital Humanities

• Sarkar Farshi, Golnaz. Introduction to Data Analysis Basics with Python for the Humanities, 2026. LINK
• Sarkar Farshi, Golnaz. Data Visualization for Storytelling and Statistical Inference, 2025. LINK

• Sarkar Farshi, Golnaz. “Pitfalls of ‘Digital Humanities’. An Insider’s Critique”. Digital Humanities Today: Critical Inquiry with and about the Digital (23–26 June 2026), King’s College, London, UK.
• Sarkar Farshi, Golnaz. “Vom Menschen zum Datenpunkt: Datifizierung als Medium der Macht”. Jahrestagung der Gesellschaft für Medienwissenschaft (16–19 September 2025), University of Paderborn, Germany.
• Sarkar Farshi, Golnaz. “Decolonize Text Data!–Introduction of a new tool for multilingual network analysis”. Bodleian Bytes Online Talk (13 November 2024), University of Oxford Bodleian Library, UK.
• Sarkar Farshi, Golnaz. “Gesammelte Daten vernetzen!–Ein multilinguales Netzwerkanalyse-Tool für medienhistorische Forschung“. Jahrestagung der Gesellschaft für Medienwissenschaft (25–28 September 2024), Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany.
• Sarkar Farshi, Golnaz. “Multilingual Data Literacy in Contemporary Historical Research”. 11^th DH Benelux Conference (5–7 June 2024), Irish College, Leuven, Belgium.
• Sarkar Farshi, Golnaz. “Inclusion of Multilingual Historical Texts in Contemporary Research: A Tool for Multilingual Network Analysis”. The UK-Ireland Digital Humanities Association Annual Event (4–6 June 2024), University College Cork, Ireland.
• Sarkar Farshi, Golnaz. “New Wave Cinema as Crisis Management”. XXIX IAMHIST Conference ‘Conflict Resolution and the Media’ (12–14 July 2022), IU internationale Hochschule, Kiel, Germany.
• Sarkar Farshi, Golnaz. “Film als Differenz. Systemtheoretische Überlegungen zur Beobachtungsfunktion des Films”. 5. Workshop der AG Filmwissenschaft (11 June 2021), online via Zoom.