Dr. Albrecht Classen was born near Bad Hersfeld in Eastern Hesse. He studied at the universities of Marburg, Erlangen (Germany), Millersville, PA (USA), Oxford (Great Britain), Salamanca (Spain), Urbino (Italy), and Charlottesville, VA (USA). He received his Ph.D. from the University of Virginia in 1986.
He has a broad range of research interests covering the history of German literature and culture from about 800 to 1650. His publications include a monograph on Oswald von Wolkenstein and his Italian sources (1987), a post-structuralist interpretation of Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Titurel (1990), a comparative analysis of 15th-century autobiographical European poetry (Autobiographische Lyrik, 1991), a monograph on the German Volksbuch (1995), a critical investigation of late-medieval songbooks (2001), and an extensive investigation of the communicative community as portrayed in Middle High German literature (Verzweiflung und Hoffnung, 2002). He also published translations of Moriz von Craûn (1992), Tristan als Mönch (1994), Diu Klage (1997), and Mai und Beaflor (2006). In 1999 appeared a book on late-medieval secular German women songs, followed by a monograph on religious women songs from the same time period (2002). In 1999, he edited a volume with critical articles, entitled The Book and the Magic of Reading in the Middle Ages. Other volumes that he edited are: Meeting the Foreign in the Middle Ages (2002), Violence in Medieval Courtly Literature (2004), Discourses on Love, Marriage, and Transgression in Medieval and Early Modern Literature (2004), and Childhood in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (2005). He also edited several volumes with conference proceedings (1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 2000). Most recently, Prof. Classen published an English translation of Late-Medieval German Women’s Poetry (2004), a monograph on late-medieval marriage tracts, sermons, and poetry (Der Liebes- und Ehediskurs vom hohen Mittelalter bis zum frühen 17. Jahrhundert, 2005), a new book on the Myth of the Medieval Chastity Belt (2007), and The Power of a Woman's Voice in Medieval and Early Modern Literature (2007). Currently, he is serving as editor of the international and interdisciplinary journal Tristania and co-editor of Mediaevistik. He is also the editor of a new Handbook of Medieval Studies (3 vols.), to appear with de Gruyter.
In 1996, he held a visiting professorship at the University of Triest, Italy, and Freiburg, Germany. In the summer of 1999, Prof. Classen served as Rotarian University Teaching Fellow at the Eötvös-Lorand-University, Budapest, in November 2001, he was visiting professor at the University of Valencia, and in March 2004 at the University of Sevilla (both Spain). Although a philologist and medievalist, he is also fascinated by modern and medieval literary theory, and applies comparative interpretations. As a result of his passion for teaching, he has won a number of prestigious teaching awards. He has also published two volumes of his own poetry (2002 and 2004).
In 2004, the German government honored him with the Bundesverdienstkreuz am Band, the highest civilian award of merit. In 2006, he received the AATG Teacher of the Year Award for the College Level. In 2007, the German community of Borsum made him to its honorary citizen. And most recently, the South Eastern Medieval Association awarded him with a prize in recognition of his research as a medievalist.
He is a dedicated volleyball player and loves bicycling.
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Last updated: 10/14/07