Matthias Schwartz

Dr. Matthias Schwartz serves as Deputy Director of the Center for Modern Literature (ZfL) in Berlin and Co-Director of the World Literature Program. He holds academic appointments at the Free University of Berlin where he has served as Acting Professor at the Institute for East European Studies and the Peter Szondi Institute for Comparative Literature. His research focuses on Eastern European literatures and cultures in global context, with particular emphasis on Soviet science fiction, documentary aesthetics, and post-socialist cultural transformations.

His scholarly trajectory includes significant work on representations of space in Soviet culture, youth cultures in Eastern Europe, and the intersection of science and literature. As Scientific Director of the interdisciplinary project 'The Short Life of Soviet-Yiddish Literature' (2020-2025), he continues to advance research on minority literatures within the Soviet sphere.

Scholarly publications reveal consistent focus on Eastern European cultural production across historical periods, with recent work examining contemporary Russian television, documentary aesthetics, and post-socialist cultural memory. His research demonstrates how popular genres serve as vehicles for processing historical trauma and political transformation in the region.

As Deputy Director of ZfL, Schwartz leads institutional efforts to advance literary and cultural research while maintaining active scholarly output through publications, editorial work, and academic leadership in multiple collaborative projects examining Eastern European cultural production from multiple disciplinary perspectives.