Senior Fellow at the Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut (Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities) at Essen; Professor emeritus at the University of Witten/Herdecke
2010 Honorary doctorate, University of Lund (Sweden)
2009, 2010 Visiting Chair Research Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences National Taiwan University
2008 Order of Merit, State of Northrhine-Westfalia, Federal Republic of Germany
2006-2009 Head of the research project on “Humanism in the era of globalisation – an intercultural dialogue on humanity, culture, and values” at the Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut (Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities) at Essen
1997-2007 President/director of the Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut (Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities) at Essen
1997-2007 Professor for General History and Historical Culture at the University of Witten/Herdecke,
1989-1997 Professor for general history with special respect to theory of history, University of Bielefeld
1974-1989 Professor for modern history, University of Bochum
Fields of research: theory and methodology of history, history of historiography, didactics of history, historical culture, strategies of intercultural comparison, general issues of cultural orientation and intercultural communication in modern societies; humanism in a globalizing world.
Recent Books: Zerbrechende Zeit 2001; Geschichte im Kulturprozeß 2002; Kann Gestern besser werden? 2003; Berättande och Förnuft (Swedish) 2004; History: Narration – Interpretation- Orientation 2005; Lishi sikao de xin tujing [New Ways of Historical Thinking] (Chinese) Shanghai 2005: Kultur macht Sinn 2006; Istorika (Lithuanian) 2007; Historische Orientierung, 2nd ed. 2008; Historisches Lernen, 2nd ed. 2008 (Portugese translation 2012); Novi sljachi istoricnogo mislennja. L’viv: Litogis 2010 (Ukrainian); Zeit und Sinn, 2nd ed. 2012
Recently edited: (with Michael Fehr und Thomas W. Rieger) Thinking Utopia. Steps into Other Worlds, 2005; Meaning and Representation in History, 2006; Chinese and Western Historical Thinking, Forum in History & Theory, vol. 46, No. 2, May 2007, pp. 180-232; Time and History. The Variety of Cultures, 2007; History and Utopia, in: Historein 7 (2007), pp. 5-113; (with Henner Laass) Interkultureller Humanismus. Menschlichkeit in der Vielfalt der Kulturen, 2009; (with Henner Laass) Humanism in Intercultural Perspective – Experiences and Expectations, 2009; Perspektiven der Humanität – Menschlichkeit im Diskurs der Disziplinen, 2010; (with Jürgen Straub) Dark Traces of the Past. Psychoanalysis and Historical Thinking. 2010; (with Stefan Reichmuth und Aladdin Sarhan) Humanism and Muslim Culture: Historical Heritage and Contemporary Challenges. 2012; (with Oliver Kozlarek und Ernst Wolff) Shaping a Humane World. Civilizations – Axial Times – Modernities – Humanisms. 2012.