The Professorship and its team
As part of its interdisciplinary research and academic teaching, the professorship's working group focuses on three major areas:
- UNESCO conventions on cultural heritage and their implementation, world cultural heritage, intangible cultural heritage. Monument preservation and site management
- Museums, exhibitions, and provenance research
- Cultural governance and cultural policies
The team examines these areas using different approaches from the social and political sciences and cultural studies, including critical heritage studies.
Professor for Cultural Heritage and the Protection of Cultural Property
Prof. Dr. Thomas Schmitt
Marstallstraße 6
Raum 308, 3. OG
69117 Heidelberg
phone +49-6221-54-7869 or +49-6221-54-7850 (Anna Goßlar-Weiß, M.A.)
thomas.schmitt@hcch.uni-heidelberg.de
The team
Felix Brönner, M.A.
PhD Student
Marstallstraße 6, Raum 320
69117 Heidelberg
phone +49-6221-54-7867
felix.broenner@hcch.uni-heidelberg.de
Hagen Gersie, M.A.
PhD Student
Marstallstraße 6, Raum 313
69117 Heidelberg
phone +49-6221-54-7856
hagen.gersie@hcch.uni-heidelberg.de
Chiara Montebello M.A.
PhD Student
Marstallstraße 6, Zi. 312
69117 Heidelberg
phone +49-6221-547851
studiengangskoordination@hcch.uni-heidelberg.de
Guest Lecturers
Mechtild Rössler holds a PhD in Geography, having studied in Freiburg and completed her doctoral research in Hamburg. She worked for UNESCO for around thirty years, most recently (2015–2021) as Director of the UNESCO World Heritage Centre in Paris. She was one of the pioneers in introducing the ‘cultural landscape’ protection category into the implementation of the UNESCO World Heritage Convention and in addressing the consequences of climate change for World Heritage sites. Even after her retirement, she remains actively involved in the protection of World Heritage. Since 2022, Mechtild Rössler has been a regular guest lecturer on the MA programme in Cultural Heritage and Cultural Property Protection at the University of Heidelberg, delivering lectures on a variety of topics.
Visiting Scholars
International visiting scholars are regularly invited to the Chair of Cultural Heritage and Cultural Property Protection at the HCCH.
Currently, Elham Cheraghi (doctoral candidate in social sciences at the University of Lodz, Poland), Costanza Fusi (doctoral candidate at the Libera Università di Lingue e Comunicazione IULM Milan, Italy), and Xu Chang (doctoral candidate at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China) are conducting research in Heidelberg.
More about the Visiting Scholars