Hendrik Birus New Dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences

On August 1, 2006 Dean Birus will take office as IUB Vice President and Academic Dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences. The longstanding expert in the field of literature has more than 30 years experience of national and international research and teaching activity. He succeeds founding dean Max Kaase, who has been heading the school since 2000.

[ Jul 31, 2006]  Before coming to IUB, Hendrik Birus was Professor of General and Comparative Study of Literature at the Munich-based Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU). At LMU, Birus founded the "Institute for General and Comparative Study of Literature” in 1988. After two years as vice dean he headed the Philosophical Department of Linguistics and Study of Literature II from 1991 to 1993 as dean. A member of LMU’s academic senate for four years until 2002 he established the Bachelor and Master’s program “Comparative Study of Literature” in 2001/02 and since then has been its spokesperson.

In the last 20 years he has been a visiting professor at the Universities of Vienna and Rome, the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris, the Universities of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign), Indiana (Bloomington), Pennsylvania (Philadelphia), and Washington (Seattle), Washington University (St. Louis), and Yale University (New Haven). He was a Fellow of the Berlin Institute of Advanced Science in 1995 and 1996. Since 2001 he is a Fellow Bavarian Academy of Science and chairs its commission for recent German literature. Professor Birus is the author and editor of eight books and published more than 70 science papers and numerous reviews.