Thomas Rommel

Thomas Rommel is a Visiting Professor at the Centre for Literary and Intermedial Crossings (CLIC) at Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium.

He is the former Rector and Provost of Bard College Berlin, A Liberal Arts University, and served as Director of Programs at the American Academy in Berlin.

He received his doctorate and Habilitation in Literary Studies at the University of Tübingen and was Professor of Literature and coordinator of undergraduate and graduate programs in the Humanities at Jacobs University Bremen. He held visiting positions at Northern Arizona University, Columbia University in New York, Joensuu University, Finland, and Freie Universität Berlin. For ten years he was on the board of the Association for Literary and Linguistic Computing, ALLC.

His research interests include 18th-century thought, Romanticism, and Liberal Arts education. He has written books on Lord Byron, on 18th-century literature and the history of ideas, and an introduction to the philosopher and economist Adam Smith. His other books deal with plagiarism, canonical literature, and the complexity of textreader interaction. He is the author of numerous book chapters and articles and serves as co-editor of the series “Literatur – Kultur – Ökonomie / Literature – Culture – Economy” with Lang publishers.

In 2002 Rommel was the first-ever recipient of the Krupp College Teaching Award, and in 2003 he was awarded the "Bremer Kooperationspreis" with Bremen University. He was “Vertrauensdozent der Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes” and in this function mentored academically gifted students.

In 2022 he was invited to join ECOLAS, the European Colleges of Liberal Arts & Sciences advisory board.

Books

Adam Smith: The Wealth of Nations. An Introduction. With Helen Winter. Springer
Graduate Texts in Philosophy. Cham: Springer, 2025.

50 Klassiker der Weltliteratur. Bücher lesen und verstehen. Hamburg: merus verlag,
2006. Neuauflage: Berlin: Contumax Verlag, 2013.

Grundbegriffe der Literatur. Berlin: Lit-Verlag, 2012.

Plagiate - Gefahr für die Wissenschaft? Eine internationale Bestandsaufnahme.
Hrsg. Münster, Berlin: LIT-Verlag, 2011.

Literaturspalten. Bücher lesen und verstehen. Hamburg: merus verlag, 2006.

Das Selbstinteresse von Mandeville bis Smith. Ökonomisches Denken in
ausgewählten Texten des 18. Jahrhunderts. Heidelberg: Winter, 2006.

Mapping Uncertain Territories. Space and Place in Contemporary Theatre and
Drama. Hrsg. mit Mark Schreiber. Trier: WVT, 2006.

Studium Literaturwissenschaft. Arbeitstechniken und Neue Medien. Mit Hans-Werner
Ludwig. Tübingen: A. Francke Verlag (UTB), 2003.

Adam Smith für Anfänger. Der Wohlstand der Nationen. Eine Lese-Einführung. Mit
Helen Winter. München: DTV, 62016.

Anglistik im Internet. Proceedings of the 1996 Erfurt Conference on Computing in the
Humanities. Hrsg. mit Doris Feldmann und Fritz-Wilhelm Neumann. Heidelberg:
Winter, 1997.

And trace it in this poem every line. Methoden und Verfahren computerunterstützter
Textanalyse am Beispiel von Lord Byrons Don Juan. (Tübinger Beiträge zur Anglistik;
15). Tübingen: Narr, 1995.