President

Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. (Dōshisha) Karla Pollmann is currently President of the University of Tübingen (Germany). Before then, she served from 2018 to 2022 as Executive Dean of the Faculty of Arts and as Professor of Classics and of Theology at the University of Bristol (GB), where she is now an Honorary Professor. She is also Honorary Professor at the University of Aarhus (Denmark) and at the University of Stellenbosch (South Africa), as well as a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Green College, University of British Columbia (Canada).

Her interdisciplinary research interests focus on the literature and culture of the Early Roman Empire and Early Christianity, as well as the history of their reception. Her important monographs include a commentary on Statius’ epic Thebaid Book 12, Augustine’s hermeneutics, and the beginnings of early Christian poetry (The Baptized Muse, OUP 2017). She held teaching positions in different European countries, the US and Canada and has supervised and examined over 30 PhD students. She is Co-Editor of the Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum, of the journal and monograph series Millennium as well as of the monograph series Texte und Kommentare and Hypomnemata, and is a member of various academic Advisory Boards nationally and internationally. 

She is an internationally renowned speaker, and delivered, among others, the Eleventh Augustine Lectures in Malta under the Patronage of the President of the Republic of Malta, the Fourth Fliedner Lectures on Science and Faith in Madrid, the Fourth Dutch Annual Lecture in Patristics at the Dutch Academy of Sciences, and the Winckelmann Lecture at the University of Salzburg. She is a member of the Academia Europaea and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She is a leading expert on Augustine of Hippo and world-leading in the study of his reception (Editor-in-Chief of the three-volume Oxford Guide to the Historical Reception of Augustine, OUP 2013). She has held numerous research scholarships and awards, and is recipient of a Humboldt Research Prize (2020) in recognition of her lifetime achievement of internationally leading research. In autumn 2023 she received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Dōshisha, Kyoto, Japan.