Erika Swales (1937-2021) was a Fellow of King’s for more than forty years and College Lecturer in German. Born in Basel, Erika taught at the universities of Birmingham and Toronto before arriving at King’s, where she was a long-standing Director of Studies in Modern Languages. Her academic interests lay in German drama and prose of the 18th and 19th centuries, with her written works including critical studies of Gottfried Keller, Adalbert Stifter and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, co-authored with her husband Martin.
The Erika Swales Fund is to be used flexibly to support the teaching and learning of German within King’s, and to provide opportunities for students who would in the past have benefitted from the Erasmus programme.