The Tübingen Poetics Lectureship is designed to be a forum for cultural exchange. The Lectureship provides students, lecturers, university members, and the wider public from Tübingen and the region an opportunity to meet and engage with prominent German and international authors. It thus initiates and enhances inner-university dialog across disciplinary boundaries and invites cultural exchange between the university and the city, and between the university and the wider region.

The lecture series is designed to focus specifically on the combination of literature and philosophy, science and public debate. The readings and workshops run by each individual lecturer deal with central questions regarding art, culture, politics and philosophy that are of interest to both professional audiences as well as interested individuals in the wider public. The success of the Tubingen Poetics Lectureship over the last few years shows that this format is no contradiction. Indeed, the Lectureship offers a specific form of intellectual discourse that connects literature, scholarship, and the public; a discourse that is often lacking in Germany.