Solely in Service to Science
Chemnitz literary scholar Prof. Dr. Christoph Fasbender elected Secretary General of the Academy of Public Sciences in Erfurt
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From left: Vicepresident Frank Hellwig, Secretary General and Professor at Chemnitz University of Technology Christoph Fasbender, President Klaus Manger, Vicepresident Meinolf Vielberg. Foto: Mathias Brösicke
Accolades for Prof. Dr. Christoph Fasbender, Chair of the Professorship for German Literature and Linguistics in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period at Chemnitz University of Technology. Fasbender was selected on 10 May by the Senate, and elected on 15 June 2019 to a five year post as Secretary General of the Academy of Public Sciences in Erfurt. As a member of the executive committee, he succeeds former Secretary General and Medical Historian Jürgen Kiefer, who passed away in late 2018. Kiefer had presided over the Erfurt Academy for the three decades post-reunification. After his election, Fasbender said the following: “Everything that I am going to do while in office, in coordination with the Senate, will be done solely in service to science.“ He further stated: “Externally, a large part of the responsibilities are public relations-based. This certainly involves not only the media, but our relationship with city and state politics as well.“ Fasbender then referred to the founding ideas of the Academy: “I come from a technical university. This fits very well with the principles of a public organisation that has, from its beginning, taken an active role in society via the sciences.“
Background: Academy of Public Sciences in Erfurt
The academic society, founded on 19 July 1754, is the third oldest German Academy of Sciences, in which natural sciences, medicine, mathematics, humanities and technical disciplines are equally represented. In its over 250 years of existence, the Erfurt Society, known previously as the Electorate of Mainz Academy of Public Sciences and later the Royal Prussian Academy of Public Sciences, has experienced ups and downs. Yet it has presented research findings to the tune of roughly 350 books, 3650 lectures, and well over 1000 scientific events. Its membership has included, among others, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Schiller and Jacob Grimm.
About Prof. Dr. Christoph Fasbender
Christoph Fasbender was born in 1966 in Kassel. From 1986 to 1994 he studied Germanistik, Protestant Theology and Pedagogy at the University of Göttingen. After that, Fasbender worked first as a research assistant, later as an assistant researcher, and after December 2006 as a senior research assistant at Friedrich Schiller University Jena, where he received his doctorate in 1999 and completed his habilitation in 2007. Starting in April 2009, he was acting Chair of the Professorship for German Literature and Linguistics in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period at Chemnitz University of Technology, and he was formally appointed to this role on 1 June 2009.
His work focuses on courtly romance literature, epic poetry and regional literary history. He is currently working on the Kulturweg der Vögte project, which is funded by the European Union.
From 2009 to 2012 he was Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, and from 2012 until 2016 he was Vice President for Teaching and Academic Qualification at Chemnitz University of Technology.
Contact: Prof. Dr. Christoph Fasbender, Phone 0371 531-37866, E-Mail christoph.fasbender@phil.tu-chemnitz.de
(Article: Matthias Fejes / Translation: Jeffrey Karnitz)
Matthias Fejes
16.07.2019
