Born in 1945, Prof. Dr. Rolf G. Renner is Professor for Modern German Literature and Director of the Frankreich-Zentrum at the University of Freiburg/Germany. He is also professeur invité at the IHEE Strasbourg/France and an Officier de l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques. His main teaching and research interests are: 20th century literature, literary and media theory.

He is the author of books on Georg Lukács (1976), Thomas Mann (1985, 1987), Peter Handke (1985), Postmodernism (1988), Edward Hopper (1990, translated into 15 languages), Proust (1992), and has published about 80 articles in academic books and journals. He is also editor of four volumes on the history of European thought (1991-92), an encyclopedia of works in literary theory (1994), an anthology of texts on contemporary literary theory (1995), and an anthology of German novels in the 20th century (2004).