Paul Michael Luetzeler - Biography#

Paul Michael Luetzeler was born in 1943 in Doveren (Northrhine-Westfalia). He passed the "Abitur" at the Oberhausen Kolleg (an institute of adult education). He studied German, English, and Comparative Literature as well as History at the Universities in Berlin (FU), Edinburgh, Vienna and Indiana University in Bloomington from 1965 to 1972. He received an M.A. degree in 1970 and the Ph.D. in 1972 from Indiana University. He was appointed by Washington University in St. Louis in 1973 and has been the Rosa May Distinguished University Professor in the Humanities there since 1993. In 1982 he founded an interdisciplinary European Studies Program (M.A. level) which he directed for twenty years.

In addition to the three books on Europe he also edited two major editions on the topic: Europa. Analysen und Visionen der Romantiker (1982), Hoffnung Europa. Essays von Novalis bis Enzensberger (1994), Europe after Maastricht: American and European Perspectives (1994) . In 1985 he founded the Max Kade Center for Contemporary German Literature at the same university which he has directed ever since. There are five major aspects of the Max Kade Center: inviting a leading writer and critic from the German speaking countries every year, building the largest special collection in the field of contemporary literature of the German speaking countries in the U.S., organizing on a regular basis weekend seminars and international symposia, editing the yearbook "Gegenwartsliteratur" (a refereed journal). He has been active in the profession and edited for three years "The German Quarterly" (1988-1990), the refereed journal of the American Association of Teachers of German.

With the help of foundations (Max Kade, DAAD, Volkswagen) he has founded student, post-doc, and faculty exchanges between his university and universities of excellence in Germany (like FU Berlin, Cologne, Tuebingen, and LMU Munich). He is the founder and president of the International Hermann Broch Society since 2001 (over 200 members worldwide). The major goal of this society is to organize at least one international symposium on the works of Hermann Broch per year. He is the President of the American Friends of the German Literary Archives in Marbach/Germany since 2012 (250 members - literary scholars and historians - from the United States). The goal of this organization is to do fund raising for grants that enable six young American scholars of German literature or cultural history to spend research time at the German Literary Archives in Marbach/Germany.