Jürgen Hillesheim

Jürgen Hillesheim during the visiting professorship at the National Taras Shevchenko University of Kiev in 2017

Jürgen Hillesheim (born October 30, 1961 in Koblenz ) is a German literary scholar and professor at the University of Augsburg, honorary professor at the State Iwan Franko University of Zhytomyr (UA) and head of the Bertolt Brecht Research Center in Augsburg .

Life

Hillesheim studied German, Catholic theology and philosophy in Mainz from 1981 to 1986. In 1986 he passed the first state examination in German and Catholic theology, and two years later in philosophy. In 1989 he did his doctorate with Hermann Kurzke with a thesis on Thomas Mann. He then completed his legal clerkship for higher academic librarianship at the Württemberg State Library in Stuttgart. He passed the second state examination in 1991.

In 1991 Hillesheim became head of the Brecht Research Center in Augsburg.

Since 2002 Hillesheim has been co-editor of the yearbook of the International Brecht Society and since 2012 co-editor of the Brecht book of the Iwan Franko State University in Zhytomyr (Ukraine); since 2020 he has been its deputy main editor. From 2013 to 2019 he was co-editor of the bulletin of the Ivan Franko State University in Zhytomyr, and in 2020 he became the main editor of the philology section of this journal. Since 2015 Hillesheim has been co-editor of Ars et Scientia , the journal of the Dramaturgy Institute of the Iwan Franko State University in Zhytomyr. From 2006 to 2015 he was co-editor of the book series Der neue Brecht . Hillesheim has been the publisher of Brecht - Work and Context since 2016 . A series of publications by the Brecht Research Center in Augsburg . Since 2017 he has been co-editor of Brecht und das moderne Theater , magazine of the Korean Brecht Society. In 2018 he was co-author of the web project The Popular and the Elite in the Arts of the Goethe-Institut Washington and the Bertelsmann Foundation. He has been co-editor of Synopsis since 2019 . Text - Context - Media , Borys-Grinchenko State University of Kiev.

From 2008 to 2010 Hillesheim was a lecturer at the University of Augsburg. In 2010 he completed his habilitation with a thesis on Bertolt Brecht's Epic Theater and was appointed private lecturer at the University of Augsburg in 2011. In autumn 2014 he was visiting professor at the State Iwan Franko University in Zhytomyr, in 2015 he was the first and so far only German to be appointed professor hc at this university. In 2017 he was appointed professor at the University of Augsburg. Also in 2017 and 2018 he was visiting professor at the National Shevchenko University in Kiev. Hillesheim u. a. at the University of Karlsruhe, the Otto Friedrich University Bamberg, the National Linguistic University Kiev and the National Shevchenko University Kiev. Hillesheim is the author and publisher of over 30 books and well over 100 articles on topics of modern German literary history, especially Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Georg Büchner, Wilhelm Müller, Thomas Mann, Nazi literature, music reception in literature and Bertolt Brecht . In addition to publications in Germany, Hillesheim published in England, Italy, Korea, Austria, the Czech Republic, the Ukraine and the USA.

Honors

• “Bavarian of the day” from tz Munich on October 1st, 2008.
• Appointed Professor hc at the Ivan Franko State University in Zhytomyr, Ukraine, in April 2015.

Publications (selection)

• The world as an artifact. On the significance of Nietzsche's “The Wagner Case” in Thomas Mann's work. Frankfurt am Main 1989.
• Hitler's sister Paula Wolf and the Third Reich. With an annotated edition of the correspondence between Paula Wolf and the publisher Heinz G. Schwieger from the years 1946–1950. Berlin 1992.
• Brecht, Bertolt: Dearest Bi. Letters to Paula Banholzer. Edited by Helmut Gier and Jürgen Hillesheim. Frankfurt am Main (Suhrkamp) 1992.
• (with Michael, Elisabeth): Lexicon of National Socialist Poets. Biographies - Analyzes - Bibliographies. Wuerzburg 1993.
• “Heil you Führer! Lead us! ... “The Augsburg poet Richard Euringer. Wuerzburg 1995.
• The young Brecht. Aspects of his thinking and creating. Edited by Helmut Gier and Jürgen Hillesheim. Wuerzburg 1996.
• Bertolt Brecht's “The Harvest”. The Augsburg school magazine and its most important author. Complete edition. Edited by Jürgen Hillesheim and Uta Wolf. Augsburg 1997.
• "Thinking means changing ..." Memories of Brecht. Edited by Joachim Lang and Jürgen Hillesheim. Augsburg 1998.
• Augsburger Brechtlexikon. People - institutions - scenes. Wuerzburg 2000.
• Bertolt Brecht's Augsburg stories. Biographical sketches and pictures. Augsburg 2004 (2nd edition 2005).
• “I always have to write poetry”. On the aesthetics of the young Brecht. Würzburg 2005.
• Young Mr. Brecht Becomes a Writer / The young Mr. Brecht becomes a writer. Edited by Jürgen Hillesheim. Wisconsin 2006.
• Brecht, Bertolt: “As I remembered from a novel ...” Earliest poetry. Edited by Jürgen Hillesheim. Frankfurt (Suhrkamp) 2006.
• Brecht and Death / Brecht and Death. Edited by Jürgen Hillesheim, Mathias Mayer and Stephen Brockmann. Wisconsin 2007.
• (with Witzler, Ralf): Brecht and the accident: About the poet's father and how he dealt with his death. Augsburg 2007.
• Bertolt Brecht - First love and war. With unknown text and previously unpublished photos. Augsburg 2008.
• End, limit, end? Brecht and death. Edited by Stephen Brockmann, Mathias Mayer and Jürgen Hillesheim. Wuerzburg 2008.
• (with Scheinhammer-Schmid, Ulrich): In the fight for a “much vilified”. The Augsburger Postzeitung and Karl May - A Documentation. Husum 2010.
• "I instinctively leave the distance here ..." Bertolt Brecht's pre-Marxist epic theater. Wuerzburg 2011.
• Bertolt Brecht's house mail. Introduction and analysis of all poems. Wuerzburg 2013.
• Alienations. A Bertolt Brecht phenomenon in music. Edited by Jürgen Hillesheim. Freiburg 2013.
• “I have music under my skin…” Bach, Mozart and Wagner with early Brecht. Freiburg 2014.
• “You have to try to get settled in Germany!” Brecht in the twenties. Edited by Jürgen Hillesheim. Wuerzburg 2015.
• "That's how they did it with something made of flesh and bone ..." A spectacular murder case and a poem by Bertolt Brecht. Würzburg 2016.
• Life and Poetry at the Beginning of the 20th Century. Bertolt Brecht's time in Augsburg. Zhytomyr 2016 (in Ukrainian).
• The hike to “ nunc stans ”. Wilhelm Müller and Franz Schubert's The Winter Journey. Freiburg 2017.
• From Baal to Baal. Edited by Helmut Koopmann, Würzburg 2017.

Literature (selection)

• Jürgen Hillesheim - on the trail of Brecht. In: tz Munich, October 1, 2008.
• A difficult lover. Unpublished letters from Ruth Berlau to Bertolt Brecht. Brecht expert Jürgen Hillesheim evaluated the spectacular find. In: Welt am Sonntag, January 17, 2010.
• Brecht researcher from Augsburg receives honorary professorship from the Ukrainian University of Zhytomyr. In: Press Release-Bayern.de, February 4, 2015.
• Honorary professorship in Ukraine for a native of Koblenz. In: Rheinzeitung, February 12, 2015.
• How Wagner inspired the young Brecht. The researcher Jürgen Hillesheim on influences on the young BB. In: Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung, April 21, 2015.
• An audible delight. Professor Jürgen Hillesheim investigates the question of Brecht's passion for opera. In: Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung, March 3, 2016.
• “Upwards from year to year.” The Brecht Research Center under Jürgen Hillesheim turns 25th on a successful model. In: Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung, September 30, 2016.
• Extraordinary. The Augsburg Brecht researcher Jürgen Hillesheim receives another professor title. In: Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung, June 11, 2017.
• Messy professors. Appointment. Augsburg University promotes Brecht researcher Jürgen Hillesheim. In: Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung, 29./30. July 2017.
• Wasn't he rather anti-revolutionary? In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, November 17, 2018.

Web links

• Literature by and about Jürgen Hillesheim in the catalog of the German National Library
• Homepage of Jürgen Hillesheim