Picador-Guest Professorship for Literature

The University of Leipzig in cooperation with the German Academic Exchange Service and the Veranstaltungsforum of the Publishing Group Georg von Holtzbrinck initiated the Picador Guest Professorship for Literature at the University of Leipzig aiming at conveying and critically reflecting on Anglo-American Literature.

The ‘democracy’ of language and literature is a key note of the Picador Guest Professorship. This vivid mediation of literature will contribute to distinguish the subject according to international standards and place it among the leading programs for the promotion of Anglo-American Studies in Germany. Authors, screenwriters and critics will be invited; next to recognized and well-known personalities, newcomers and avant-garde writers will be addressed. The Picador Guest Professorship is not only intended to supplement the scientific syllabus of the University of Leipzig but also to interconnect university and city life. First Picador-Guest Professor during winter term 2006/07 was Tristan Hughes.

The first Picador Guest Professor, whose tenure extended over the winter semester 2006/07 was the young avant-garde author Tristan Hughes. After British writer James Hopkin (2007), New York-based author John Haskell (2007/2008), the American music journalist and cultural critic Chuck Klosterman  have taught in Leipzig. In winter semester 2008/ 2009 the Picador Chair for Literatur was held by the American authoress Nancy Kress. In summer 2009 Catherine Chung took over the Guest Professorship followed by Olen Steinhauer in winter semester 2009/2010.

Christian Hawkey was the Guest Professor for the summer term 2010. He was born 1969 and grew up in Florida. He finished his studies in creative writing at the University of Massachusetts and cofounded in 2000 the poetry journal Jubilat which is still edited by him. Since 2004 he is an associate professor at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. Christian Hawkey lives and works with his wife Uljana Wolf in New York and Berlin.

He is the author of  3 books of poetry The Book of Funnels (2004), HourHour (2005) and Citizen of (2007) and was praised enthusiastically by the critics for his works. Amongst others he was awarded with the Kate Tufts Discovery Award and the Creative Capital Innovative Literature Award of the Academy of American Poets. His lyrics lie in the tradition of American surrealism, especially in the tradition of his academic Mentor James Tate at Amherst. With his highly associative mental images he succeeds to link very different themes and emotions in his works. Christian Hawkeys first volume in German was published in 2008, titled Reisen in Ziegengeschwindigkeit. 

More information: Institute for American Studies, Universität Leipzig

Audio sample reading of Olen Steinhauer (7 MB)
and of the discussion between Olen Steinhauer and Julia Kastein, mdr (6 MB)
27 January 2010 in Leipzig, Café Paris Syndrom

Audio sample reading of Nancy Kress
8 January 2009 in Leipzig, Café Neubau

Audio sample reading of Chuck Klosterman
17 July 2008 in Leipzig, Galerie Pierogi

Audio sample reading of John Haskell
22 November 2007 in Leipzig, Galerie Pierogi