معرفی
Michael Hillgruber is Professor of Classical Philology (Greek Studies) at the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg, a position he has held since 1 October 1995. Born in 1961 in Darmstadt, he studied Greek Philology, Latin Philology and Ancient History at the University of Cologne (Magister 1985), earned his doctorate there in 1986 under Professor R. Kassel, and completed his Habilitation at the University of Bern in 1993.
His research centres on Attic rhetoric, ancient literary criticism, the reception of antiquity in modernity, and the history of classical scholarship. He has produced major commentaries on Lysias and pseudo-Plutarch’s De Homero, authored monographs on tyrannicide, pedagogical maxims, and the relationship between philologist Friedrich August Wolf and poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and edited several Festschriften and source collections.
Across more than thirty articles and numerous reviews he has treated authors as diverse as Homer, Sophocles, Lysias, Plutarch and Strabo, explored themes from mythic narrative to Nazi-era reception of classical texts, and contributed to the history of his own university during the Third Reich. His work combines meticulous philological analysis with broad cultural and historical perspectives, making him a leading figure in contemporary German classical studies.
Selected monographs & editions
- Die zehnte Rede des Lysias (1988) – dissertation
- Die pseudo-plutarchische Schrift De Homero, 2 vols. (1994, 1999) – Habilitation thesis
- „Nulla est enim societas nobis cum tyrannis“ (2004)
- „Nicht ein Gefäß füllen, sondern ein Feuer entfachen!“ (2021)
- Der Philologe und der Dichter (2025)
- Editions of Joachim Ebert’s Agonismata (1997), Otto Kern’s Meine Lehrer (2008), and the Festschrift HYPOTHESEIS (2011)
Although the source does not list doctoral or master’s students, nor provide contact details, Professor Hillgruber’s sustained scholarly output and institutional service underscore his central role in training and mentoring the next generation of classicists at Halle.
