2011/12 Appointment offered, University of Cologne (declined)
2009 - 2016 Visiting Professor/ Directeur de recherche invité. Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Paris
2008 - 2010 Dean of the Humanities, Freie Universität Berlin
2003 Appointment offered, University of Bonn (declined)
2003 - 2010 Visiting Professor, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD
2001 - 2015 Editor in chief of Poetica
Since 2000 Full professorship with tenure, Romance Literatures and Comparative Literature, Freie Universität Berlin
1999 Appointment offered, University of Tübingen (declined)
1997 - 2015 Co-editor of Romanistisches Jahrbuch
1994 Appointment offered, University of Duisburg (declined)
1993 Appointment offered, University of Potsdam (declined)
1990 - 1999 Full professorship with tenure, Romance Philology (French, Spanish and Italian literature), University of Wuppertal
1989 Admission to the Bavarian Fiebiger-Program (Full professorship at the University of Regensburg); Appointment offered, University of Wuppertal
1987 - 1989 Professorship without tenure, Romance Philology, University of Munich
1987Habilitation: “Diskurs-Renovatio bei Lope de Vega und Calderón“
1980 Ph. D.; Dissertation: “Balzac und der Effet de réel“
1977 - 1987 Assistant Professor, Department of Romance Philology, University of Munich
1976Staatsexamen: French Studies (major); History, ancient and modern (minor)
1970 - 1977 Studies of Romance Literatures and History (Universities of Bochum, Toulouse and Paris)
1958 - 1970 Elementary School, High School (Abitur)
Honors and Awarded Memberships
Since 2018 Member (corr.), North-Rhine Westphalian Academy of Sciences
Since 2016 Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Since 2010 Member, German National Academy of Sciences / Leopoldina
2009 Advanced Grant, European Research Council
Since 2008 Member (corr.), Göttingen Academy of Sciences
2001 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Award, DFG/ German Research Foundation
1987 Heinz Maier Leibnitz Award, DFG/ German Research Foundation
1980 Dissertation Award, University of Bochum; Strasbourg Award, Foundation FVS
Functions in Scientific and Scholarly Committees
2012 - 2015 Member, standing committee for European Research policy, HRK/ German rectors‘ conference
2010 Chair, committee for ‘Research Ratings in the Humanities’ (Wissenschaftsrat)
2007 - 2015 Member, committee on research (Academies’ program), Union of the German Academies of Sciences and Humanities
2006 - 2012 Member, standing committee for research and the promotion of younger researchers, HRK/ German rectors’ conference
2006 - 2012 Member, committee for the Heinz Maier Leibnitz Award, DFG
2003 – 2011 Member, committee for the promotion of female scientists and scholars, FUB
Project coordination, Membership in collaborative research projects
2012 – 2018 Director, International Network “Principles of Cultural Dynamics” (funded by DAAD)
2010 - 2016 Principle Investigator, ERC Advanced Grant Project: “Early Modern European Drama and the Cultural Net”
2007 - 2015 Member of the board, Friedrich Schlegel Graduate School for Literary Studies (Excellence initiative, funded by DFG)
2007 - 2016 Director of the Dahlem Humanities Center (Excellence Initiative, third funding line (institutional strategy), funded by DFG; co-funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research)
2007 - 2012 Member, TOPOI (Cluster of Excellence, funded by DFG)
2003 - 2007 Member, Collaborative Research Center (SFB) 626 (funded by DFG): “Aesthetic Experience and the Dissolution of Artistic Limits”