Hans J. Rindisbacher is a professor of German and Russian at Pomona College in Claremont, California. He received his education at the University of Bern and Stanford University. His first book, The Smell of Books: A Cultural-Historical Study of Olfactory Perception in Literature (1992), was a groundbreaking contribution to the sensory turn in cultural studies and received an MLA Book Award. His academic interests include Swiss, German, and comparative literature, cultural studies, material culture, art, fashion, and photography. He is widely published in American and European scholarly journals. In 2019, he co-edited Writing Switzerland: Culture, History, and Politics in the Work of Peter von Matt.