Professor Jürgen Barkhoff
Professor Jürgen Barkhoff is a native of Essen in Germany. He studied German Literature, History and Pedagogics at the Universities of Tübingen and Hamburg and at Trinity College Dublin. He is a graduate of the University of Hamburg and received his doctorate from there in 1994.
He came to work in Trinity College, the University of Dublin first as a DAAD-Lektor, seconded from 1988 to 1991 by the German Academic Exchange Service. After a postdoctoral position at the Kulturwissenschaftliche Institut of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia in Essen he returned to Trinity College, the University of Dublin in 1995 to take up a position as Lecturer in German and European Studies.
Professor Barkhoff was elected to Fellowship in 2002 and appointed to the Chair of German (1776) in 2016. During his time in College he held the positions of Director of European Studies from 2002 to 2005, Registrar of the College and the University from 2007 to 2011, Director of the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute from 2012 to 2015, Head of School of the School of Languages, Literatures and Cultural Studies from 2015 to 2018, Vice-Provost, Chief Academic Officer and Deputy President from 2019 to 2021, Senior Proctor from 2021 to 2024 and Head of Discipline from 2022 to 2024.
For many years Professor Barkhoff represented College in the Coimbra Group, a network of European Universities of which Trinity College Dublin is a member. He was Chair of its Culture, Arts and Humanities Task Force from 2006 to 2011 and Vice-Chair of its Executive Board from 2012 to 2021. He has been a Board member inter alia of St. Killians German School Dublin, Dublin Institute of Technology, Marino Institute of Education, the Irish Humanities Alliance and the School of Advanced Studies at the University of London.
His research interests are German literature and culture since 1750, literary anthropology, literature and medicine, science and psychology around 1800, cultural identities in Germany and Europe and Swiss literature.
Professor Barkhoff was elected the 66th Pro-Chancellor of the University in 2024.