Bamberg celebrates the poetry professorship: Alina Bronsky is coming!

Bamberg celebrates the poetry professorship: Alina Bronsky is coming!

The University of Bamberg will be hosting important cultural events in the coming weeks. The Smart City Research Lab (SCRL) project fair will take place on July 23, 2025. From 5:30 p.m. everyone interested is invited to the Stadt:Raum at Promenadestraße 6a. The SCRL, active since 2021, has made it its mission to support Bamberg on the way to becoming a Smart City. It develops feasibility studies and recommendations and implements sub-projects. Admission to this event is free of charge.

Two days later, on July 24, 2025, another highlight follows: a conversation with the prominent politician Theo Waigel, which begins at 6:00 p.m. in the auditorium of the University of Bamberg, Dominikanerstraße 2a. The discussion, which took place in collaboration with Prof. Dr. Vittorio Hösle from the University of Notre Dame addresses the crisis situation of Western democracies in the context of the geopolitical world order. Admission here is also free.

Alina Bronsky as Bamberg poetics professor

Also on July 24, 2025, Alina Bronsky will give her third poetry lecture, which will take place at 6:00 p.m. in the university's lecture hall U2/00.25. Bronsky will take over the Bamberg poetry professorship in 2025, which will be offered for the first time this year in cooperation between the university and the city of Bamberg. The poetry professorship, established at the Otto Friedrich University since 1986, is one of the most renowned in the German-speaking world. Well-known former poetry professors such as Yoko Tawada and Jenny Erpenbeck have already used the podium.

Bronsky, born in Sverdlovsk in 1978, has lived in Germany since the 1990s and has made a name for herself with her works on migration, cultural identity and modern family structures. She follows a clear, pointed style and often uses culinary motifs, especially food as a cultural code, in her stories.

Diverse series of events

The start of the poetry professorship will take place on May 7, 2025 with a reading in the ETA Hoffmann Theater, which begins at 7 p.m. This event, which can be attended free of charge and without registration, offers a first insight into Bronsky's work. Three poetry lectures and seminars are planned during the rest of the program in the summer semester of 2025. An extensive research colloquium on Bronsky's work will take place from July 23rd to 25th, 2025 in collaboration with the International Artists' House Villa Concordia.

The events will be accompanied by a pop choir concert on the same day at 7:00 p.m. in the Irmler Music Hall of the ERBA, where the new pop choir of the University of Bamberg will perform under the direction of Marie Rabenstein. Around 70 singers present popular music and entry is also free.

This series of events not only underlines the literary diversity that Bamberg has to offer, but also the close cooperation between the university and the city to promote cultural education and strengthen the visibility of contemporary literature. The scientist Prof. Dr. Andrea Bartl, who organizes the programs, aims to build bridges between science, urban society and the cultural sector with this initiative.

Further information about the respective events is available on the University of Bamberg website.