© Nicholas Nichols
© Nicholas Nichols

Meet the current Picador Professor Phillip B. Williams

The summer semester 2025 is held by Phillip B. Williams. Get to know him better and check out the courses and events.  

Next up: On «Resilience, Protection & Soul»

Don’t miss this summer evening at Wannsee with the current Picador Guest Professor: acclaimed U.S. author Phillip B. Williams. Under the open sky, engage in a thought-provoking conversation about »OURS«, Phillip’s debut novel. Natasha A. Kelly will host the evening, guiding the discussion through time, history, and the art of building a new world. This event is part of ›Paradigmenwechsel‹, her series that delves into tipping points in both the past and present, exploring the opportunities that emerge from adopting new ways of thinking.

The conversation will explore the delicate balance between protection and reinvention—how one can honor the history of their ancestors while reshaping their narratives to reveal their true resilience.

When: July 8 – 7:30 PM

Where: LCB

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My time in Leipzig was so enriching and fascinating. The city is warm and welcoming and bursting with life. I loved working with the students at the university, and meeting the many remarkable scholars in the American Studies department.

Daniel Gumbiner, looking back at his semester in Leipzig

Guest Professor of Winter 2024/25

The vibrant arts community in Leipzig, and my wondrous students, and brilliant colleagues, were an endless source of energy and inspiration to me while I served as the Picador Guest Professor. It was deeply meaningful to get to work alongside some of Germany’s foremost American literature scholars in a place with such immense publishing, music, and design history.

Rita Bullwinkel about the Picador Guestprofessorship

Guest Professor of Summer 2024

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© Rachel Eliza Griffiths

I was a Picador Guest Professor in Literature in Leipzig (2010/2011). The position was very fulfilling and my creative writing students were dynamic, imaginative, and full of heart. Leipzig is wondrous.

Nathalie Handal in an interview with thebartleby.com

In the winter semester 2010/11, Handal held the Picador Professorship at the University of Leipzig.

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PICADOR is creating Space

… for great authors, joint learning, avantgarde literature, creative writing, inspiring diversity, public reading.

OPENNESS AS A PROGRAM

In 2006, Leipzig University, in co-operation with the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and Holtzbrinck Berlin, initiated the Picador Guest Professorship for Literature at the University of Leipzig aiming at conveying and critically reflecting on Anglo-American Literature. Public events are also offered in addition to the authors’ teaching activities as Picador Guest Professors. This takes place in collaboration with the creative arts and culture community of Leipzig.

Many of the questions we discussed were ones we had never thought about before for example the question of what our own “fundamental truth” is.

Thea, Student

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The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) is the largest funding organisation in the world...
Picador is one of the leading British publishers for fiction and non-fiction books...
... it grew to encompass a wide selection of disciplines comprising almost all areas of knowledge...
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