Dr. Albrecht Classen is University Distinguished Professor of German Studies at the University of Arizona, Tucson.
He has published currently 124 scholarly books on German and European medieval and early modern literature, most recently Wisdom from the European Middle Ages (2022), The Secret in Medieval Literature (2022), and Globalism in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Ages (2023). He is the editor of the journals Mediaevistik and Humanities Open Access and serves on many different boards of international journals dedicated to the Humanities, literature, history, social studies, and art history. In 2004, he received the Bundesverdienstkreuz am Band (Order of Merit) from the German government, and he received the rank of University Distinguished Professor. In 2009, he received the Five Star Faculty Award. In 2012, he was awarded the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching Arizona Professor of the Year Award. In 2017, he was given the rank of Grand Knight Commander of the Most Noble Order of the Three Lions (GKCL), and in 2022 he received the award of Honorary Member of the American Association of Teachers of German. In 2022, he also received a Fulbright to do research and teach at Cairo University, Egypt. He is an affiliate faculty member of Honors College, of Judaic Studies, Religious Studies, the Institute for LGBT Studies, and of ALTA, , all University of Arizona. He has taught both in his home department and in the General Education program, and he has regularly taught Honors colloquia and Humanities Seminars. Until recently, he served on the board of the Arizona Humanities, and is currently member of the DAC in COH. He is also an accomplished poet (10 vols. currently) and author of essays and satires (4 vols. currently). In that capacity, he serves as the president of the Society for Contemporary American Literature in German (SCALG) and is a honorary member of the PEN organization for writers abroad. Since 2004, he has taken students on Summer Study Abroad programs in medieval Europe, and he has reached out to hundreds of high school students taking German in the entire state of Arizona. He is also the president of the AZ chapter of the American Association of Teachers of German, and has served on many different boards of state and national organizations.