studied French and English literature, musicology, and economics at the University of Munich, in France and in Latin America. From 1996 to 2004, he was an assistant professor at the University of Munich, and from 2004 to 2013 a full professor of French and Spanish at the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt as well as the director of the Institute of Latin American Studies. Since 2013, he has been a professor of Spanish and French at the University of Würzburg.