Erich Auerbach Visiting Chair for World Literature
The establishment of a Visiting Chair for World Literature was established in the winter semester 2023/24. Each semester, the visiting chair will be filled by a renowned scholar. The DAAD is planning to provide financial support for the visiting professorship. More information will be provided in summer 2023.The Romance scholar Erich Auerbach has made a significant contribution to understanding the diachronic and cross-border interconnectedness of literature with his research. Expelled by the National Socialists, Auerbach was given the opportunity by host universities abroad - Istanbul and later the US universities Penn State, Princeton and Yale - to write his groundbreaking work, most notably his monograph "Mimesis", which examines the changing modes of reality representation from Homer to the Song of Roland, Dante's Commedia, Stendhal's novels and Virginia Woolf. Erich Auerbach is an incentive and model for the internationalisation of literary studies teaching in Germany.
The CEREMONIAL OPENING OF THE GUEST LECTURE took place on 23 October 2023. We were able to win Prof GALIN TIHANOV from QMU London for the OPENING LECTURE.
The guest professorship is held by:
- in winter semester 2023/24 Mladen Vlashki, Professor of Comparative Literature and Literary History at the University of Plovdiv, Bulgaria. Teaching language: German
- in summer semester 2024 Gulshen Sakhatova, Professor of Turkology and Central Asian Studies at the National University of Cyprus. Language of instruction: German
- in winter semester 2024/25 Dúnlaith Bird, Professeur Agrégé of Irish and French Literature, Université Paris 13. Language of instruction: English
- in summer semester 2025 Francesca Orsini, Professor of the Cultures and Literatures of South Asia, University of London. Language of instruction: English
