Thomas Koebner

Thomas Koebner (born 1941) is a German scholar of literature and film. He studied German, art history and philosophy and received his doctorate with a study of Hermann Broch. He first worked as a music critic in Munich for ten years, then held professorships in German studies and general literary studies in Wuppertal and in modern German literature in Marburg. From 1989 to 1992, he directed the German Film and Television Academy Berlin. In 1993, he founded an institute for film studies at the University of Mainz, where he was a professor until 2007. His fields of research include German literature, exile studies, music theatre, film history and television film. He has published studies on figures including Ingmar Bergman, Federico Fellini, Roman Polanski, Edgar Reitz and Steven Spielberg. Koebner is a member of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts.