Picture of Leipzig ©2002 by James Martin

Though I first learned this last year, I’ve kept mum until the official papers arrived verifying that I’d been granted a Guest Professorship at Leipzig University. That’s the Leipzig in Germany, with a university founded in 1409 no less, and it’s the Picador Guest Professorship for Literature in the university’s American Studies department. The papers arrived on Friday.

It’s a wonderful program which will give us four months (we’ll be there for the winter October-February semester) in a city known for its history, music, and art. If that sounds like a dry description of any of a hundred European cities, it is–but from what I can tell “dry” doesn’t apply to Leipzig at all. Check out this piece from Conde Nast Traveler.

And while today neo-Nazi rowdies plague much of the former German Democratic Republic, Leipzig seems a bulwark of the values of a democratic society. Three times a year, neo-Nazis arrive by train to march through town. “They never get farther than the railroad station,” Mark Hamilton, a Scottish artist and adopted Leipziger, assured me. Families come out and block the street, and what is peculiarly called “the radical Left”—a prominent faction among the city’s nearly forty thousand students—has been known to stand among them bearing American and Israeli flags.

Now, while the flags are a bit confusing, that sounds like a pretty cool scene to me. The flags just go to show that the definition of “radical Left” is a truly flexible thing.

But Leipzig is known for its art in a major way. It has a thriving art school, a plethora of galleries, an impressive underground music scene, and a cooperative city government that nurtures it:

Nowadays, Leipzig spends about $135 million a year on cultural affairs, the equivalent of what Frankfurt, a city with three times its 500,000 population, budgets. The person in charge of culture in this city is Georg Girardet, a Bavarian of Huguenot descent. Girardet is the deputy mayor for cultural affairs. No other German city has a deputy mayor specifically for culture, and the importance of the post is underlined by the fact that you have to run for office to get it. Girardet has been elected three times since he arrived in 1991.

The more I read about it, the more excited I get. Admittedly, a few people have said to me, “Oh, I’ve been to Leipzig. It’s a dump.” But as I learn more, it becomes clear that those people never made it much further than the train station.

The receipt of this position, besides being an honor, came as a complete surprise. I hadn’t applied for it, hadn’t even heard of it. (I suspect my German publisher might have whispered in an ear or two.)

And what do I have to do to enjoy this city of culture? Not much. Just teach two classes. A literature class and a creative writing workshop. Not bad work if you can get it.

At this point I’m just establishing my plans, but I think the literature course will be a survey of English language spy novels. I’ll probably post a tentative reading list here at some point to request suggestions. I’ll also be stealing an idea from David Liss–the writing course may very well be a collaborative novel. The class would jointly come up with story ideas, a loose outline, then write individual chapters. I’m currently running that idea by the administration to get their opinion.

Anyway, it’s both exciting and daunting (I’ve, er, never actually taught a course before), but should be a terrific experience for the whole family (which makes it sound like Disney World). Maybe I’ll even get back some of my high school German. Hell, the place sounds so good that maybe we’ll decide to just stay there.

Posted Sunday, June 21st, 2009 at 9:47 am under Art, Culture, Life, Ourselves, Places. Follow responses via the RSS 2.0 feed. Trackback. Both comments and pings are currently closed.