Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger

Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger studied German, history and art history at the University of Cologne, where she received her doctorate in 1985; she completed her habilitation in 1994. From 1997, she was Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Münster. Her research focuses include the political culture of the Holy Roman Empire, the society of the estates, and rituals and political ideas in the early modern period. Her work has received, among other honors, the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize, the Historisches Kolleg Prize and the Sigmund Freud Prize for Scholarly Prose. Her biography “Maria Theresa” was awarded the Prize of the Leipzig Book Fair. Another well-known work is “The Emperor’s Old Clothes” (“Des Kaisers alte Kleider”).