How does one write? What drives him? What did he suffer? What does he believe in? What is he reading? What is literature, actually? How does literature touch us? And in what kind of world do we live?^*

Another poetics lectureship?

Poetics lectureships have long been established as a topic on the borderline between literary industry and university, so that some have started to warn against an inflation of poetics lectureships. Is there still anything new here? This series of events seeks to give the genre of poetics lectureships an unprecedented setting.

Contemporary art and literature open up insights into other worlds, indicate searches for meaning and point out uncertainties. Happiness and unhappiness, experiences of loss and the need for comfort are displayed in the context of today's lifeworld. The bond that connects literature and poetry with religion and its secularised forms may be tighter than widely acknowledged.

Literature and theologians

Contemporary literature is of great interest to theology and religious studies. Not only to influence the language, not only to broaden the horizon, not only to be confronted with a mirror - but also, and above all, to take up subjects that have been mediated through language and to continue working on these subjects. Still, so far poetry and religion, or their scientific disciplines literary studies and theology, have been scarcely talked about. Here, a counter-impulse will be set in order to challenge reciprocal preconceptions.

A bridge between the disciplines

The goal of the poetics lectureship is to point out the presence of religious motifs in contemporary literature and to bring theology and literary studies closer to each other. Renowned authors as well as newcomers to the literary scene should be offered a forum to give insights into their own literary work and its references to religion. At the same time, an interdisciplinary exchange on the relationship between literature and religion should be initiated.

^{* Inspired by: Thomas Hettche, Totenberg. Essays, Köln 2012}