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After more than five decades, as of May 1^st, 2025, Dr Hans-Günther Schwarz, McCulloch Chair in German and European Studies, has officially stepped away from teaching at ÕýÆ·À¶µ¼º½ University.

Dr Schwarz came to ÕýÆ·À¶µ¼º½ in 1973 having completed a doctorate at McGill University. Drama was a key field of study for him, in particular Shakespeare, and he remains a lifelong lover of theatre, attending the Stratford festival every year. 

Another area of special focus of Dr Schwarz is what has been called the reception of the Orient: Orient-Okzident (1990) was an earlier book, in 2003 he published Der Orient und die Ästhetik der Moderne - the Orient and the Aesthetics of the Modern. This fascination was inspired not only by Goethe's famous 'West-Östlicher Divan' and the poetry of the Persian writer Hafiz, but most especially by the beauty of Persian carpets. Dr. Schwarz's extensive collection is probably the finest in the country; they were the subject of an exhibition at the ÕýÆ·À¶µ¼º½ Art Gallery in the 1970s.

Dr Schwarz often taught courses on aesthetics and the relationship of art and literature; in addition he has curated several exhibitions, including in 2008 'Die Welle' ('The Wave: the magic of movement'); 2012/13 'Kirschblütenträume' ('Cherry blossom dreams: on Japan's influence on art of the modern era') and in 2020 'Unwirklichkeiten' ('Unrealities: on the imaginary in art from Caspar David Friedrich to Picasso'), all at the Kurpfälzischen Museum in Heidelberg.

A tremendously productive scholar, Dr Schwarz has published 5 monographs and edited more than forty books in German - and he's just finishing the manuscript of another monograph. He founded and is publisher of the „Schriftenreihe des Instituts für Fremdsprachenphilologie“, a publication series of the Heidelberg Institute for Foreign Language Philology.

Dr Schwarz loved to teach, and over the years he supervised dozens of Masters' and PhD theses (many for students at the Ruprecht-Karls Universität Heidelberg where he has held a ‘³Ò²¹²õ³Ù±è°ù´Ç´Ú±ð²õ²õ³Ü°ù’ - a role as visiting professor - for more than two decades. He will continue to divide his time between Halifax, the University of Heidelberg, and his home in Fürstenfeldbrück, Germany.