Short Biography
Daniel Schäfer was born in 1964 in Stuttgart. He attended there the humanities-oriented highschool (classic languages: Latin and Greek) until 1983, when he took his final examination (Abitur). From 1983 until 1994 he was a student of medicine and German philology at the University of Freiburg/Br.; during this period he was a scholar of the German National Academic Foundation, and of the postgraduate funding of the state of Baden-Württemberg. In 1989 he passed his master’s degree (Magister artium) in the combined disciplines of Germanic Philology, Modern German History of Literature and History of Medicine. Founded on a widespread interest on the medieval history of civilization from 1990 onwards he wrote his inaugural dissertation (PhD) in the field of Germanic Philology on the theme “Texts addressing death. On the representation and understanding of death in the late Middle Ages” (Supervisor: Prof. Dr. phil. Konrad Kunze). After having passed his Final Examination for Doctors in 1994 he did research work in the field of the history of obstetrics under the direction of Professor Dr. med. Eduard Seidler. In 1996 he submitted a second doctoral thesis (MD) as scholar of the postgraduate funding of the state of Baden-Württemberg. It dealt with the “Sectio in mortua. Studies on the Caesarean section on dead pregnant women”. Since 1995 Schäfer is assistant professor at the Institute for the History of Medicine and Medical Ethics at the University of Cologne; in 2002 he wrote his habilitation thesis entitled “Medical Concepts on Old Age in Early Modern Times (1500-1800)”. In 2007 he was appointed “Außerplanmäßiger Professor”, in 2008 “Akademischer Oberrat”. In the last 20 years his favorite scientific subjects focused on the History of the dying and death, on the History of ageing and geriatrics, gynecology and obstetrics and on the History of health concepts. Daniel Schäfer is a father of four children.