Hannes Siegrist studied history, sociology, German literature, and journalism at the University of Zurich, receiving his doctorate in 1976. In 1992 he completed his postdoctoral studies in modern history, with particular reference to economic and social history, in the Department of History, Free University Berlin. In 1997 he took up the Chair of Comparative European Cultural and Social History at the Institute of Cultural Science, Faculty of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of Leipzig. From 1976 to 1996 he held teaching and research positions at the University and Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Bielefeld; the University of Zurich; the Free University Berlin; the European University Institute, Florence; the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study in the Social Sciences, Uppsala; and the Central European University, Budapest. Since 1997 he has been Director of the Institute of Cultural Sciences, and Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of Leipzig, as well as leader of group projects and doctoral programmes. Professor Siegrist advises on various scientific and cultural bodies, and edits academic journals, series, and Internet portals on recent European history. In 2001 he was Visiting Professor at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, and Research Professor at the Social Science Research Center in Berlin in 2004/05. Since 2007 he has been a member of the Saxonian Academy of Sciences in Leipzig.