Botstiber Visiting Professorship

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The UC Berkeley Austrian Studies Program welcomes applications for the 2027 Botstiber Visiting Professorship

The Austrian Studies Program at the UC Berkeley Institute of European Studies is pleased to welcome faculty applications for the position of Visiting Professor, to teach the newly created Botstiber Compact Seminar in Austrian Studies, established with the generous support of The Botstiber Institute for Austrian-American Studies (BIAAS)(link is external). 

The next Botstiber Compact Seminar in Austrian Studies at UC Berkeley will be offered at the beginning of the Spring 2027 semester for a duration of 5 weeks, beginning January 18 and ending on February 20, 2027.

We invite seminar topics related to Austrian literature, history, politics, or culture, in the broadest sense. Interdisciplinary approaches and themes are encouraged.

Eligibility: Any associate or full professor with a permanent teaching position in the Humanities or Social Sciences and with expertise in Austrian Studies. The Visiting Professorship is also open to professors from universities outside of Austria.

Details: The compact seminar will take place over 5 weeks, with three hours of instruction per week, plus three hours of office hours per week for meetings with students. All classes are in person. Selected professors are expected to remain in Berkeley for the entire 5 weeks teaching period. We prefer the course to be taught in German, with reading materials in German, tailored to undergraduate (BA) students with upper-intermediate (B2)-level knowledge of the German language. We give preference to survey-type courses about a topic that is of interest to a broad range of students.

UC Berkeley is a premier university, located in the San Francisco Bay Area. The Visiting Professor will receive a salary of $12,000 to cover teaching, travel, and accommodation costs.  The salary will be subject to both California state and United States federal taxes, in accordance with the UC Berkeley employment and payroll practices. Upon arrival in Berkeley, visiting professors will need to apply for an American Social-security number. Visiting professors must organize their own travel, accommodation, and health insurance coverage during their stay at Berkeley. The visa application and hiring process will be coordinated by the UC Berkeley Department of German, where the visiting professor will be based.

During their stay, the selected Visiting Professor will also give a public lecture—the “Botstiber Lecture”—at the Institute of European Studies and will do so in English. In accordance with the mission of The Botstiber Institute for Austrian-American Studies (BIAAS), the public lecture should refer to the historic relationship between the United States and Austria, including lands of the former Habsburg Empire.

Application Instructions: Applicants must submit the following materials (in English):

  • a CV (max 2 pages)
  • a course description and syllabus with weekly course content and bibliography. Please write the syllabus in English, but add a short summary (one-paragraph) of the course in German, with the course title in German  (max 2 pages)
  • a brief description of up to three possible topics for the Botstiber Lecture (max 1 page)

Please submit application materials as a single PDF file to the Austrian Studies Program Director Jeroen Dewulf: jdewulf@berkeley.edu(link sends e-mail)

Deadline: May 31, 2026

Proposals will be evaluated by a board composed of UC Berkeley faculty that will announce the selected candidate by June 30, 2026. The board will include a representative of The Botstiber Institute for Austrian-American Studies (BIAAS) in the discussion on the topic to be chosen for the Botstiber lecture.

For further information, please contact Jeroen Dewulf at jdewulf@berkeley.edu

2022 Botstiber Visiting Professor Karin Liebhart (University of Vienna)
2023 Botstiber Visiting Professor Philipp Ther (University of Vienna)
2024 Botstiber Visiting Professor Benedikt Harzl (University of Graz)
2025 Botstiber Visiting Professor Florian Wenninger (University of Vienna/Institute for Historical Social Research)

2026 Botstiber Visiting Professor Thomas Ertl  (Freie Universität Berlin)

Thomas Ertl

Thomas Ertl is Professor of Medieval History at Freie Universität Berlin. He specializes in the economic and social history of the Middle Ages with a focus on global and transcultural dynamics in medieval Eurasia. His research draws on a wide range of written and material sources, combining diplomatic, archaeological, and economic analysis to explore how medieval societies functioned and connected. He is currently particularly interested in the interplay of economic, social, and cultural factors in the privileging and discrimination of social and ethnic groups. This includes examining how mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion were constructed and legitimized in medieval contexts. Before joining FU Berlin in 2018, he held academic positions at the University of Vienna, the German Historical Institute in Rome, and several German universities. He has published widely, including monographs on medieval globalization, the early Franciscan movement, and urban economic life in late medieval Vienna.

During his tenure as Botstiber Visiting Professor at UC Berkeley, Prof. Ertl will teach a course on the Jewish community in Vienna from the Middle Ages to the present. The course uses artifacts—gravestones, Torah fragments, synagogue models, and personal items—to anchor weekly discussions of Jewish life and its transformations over time. Students will engage directly with primary sources and material culture to trace the long and often fraught history of Jewish presence, persecution, and remembrance in Vienna. In doing so, they will gain insight into the shifting legal, social, and spatial conditions that shaped Jewish-Christian relations over the centuries. The course also places Vienna’s Jewish history in broader Central European and global contexts, allowing students to connect local developments with wider historical processes. He will also deliver a public lecture as part of the Botstiber program.