Paul Michael Lützeler, Ph.D., the Rosa May Distinguished Uni-versity Professor in the Humani-ties in Arts & Sciences, will receive the Austrian Great Medal of Merit in a ceremony at the University Feb. 8. Christoph Thun-Hohen-stein, director of the Austrian Cultural Forum in New York, will present the award.
The award is being bestowed on Lützeler for his work on Jewish-Austrian novelist Hermann Broch (1886-1951) and his research in the fields of European identity and contemporary Austrian literature.
An international leading authority on Broch, Lützeler edited Broch’s collected works in 17 volumes. He also has written a biography of Brock, two scholarly books on Broch and edited numerous volumes of Broch’s correspondences. He is president of the International Hermann Broch Society.
In his three books and four editions on European identity and unity, Austrian authors played a large role. Lützeler has been invited to lecture on the contribution of Austrian authors to European identity at numerous Austrian universities. He founded WUSTL’s European Studies program 1983 and directed it for 20 years.
Lützeler founded WUSTL’s Max Kade Center for Contemporary German Literature in Arts & Sciences. With the Olin Library, he built a special collection of contemporary German literature at the University. He has invited many writers and critics from German speaking countries, including Austria. He is the founder and editor of the yearbook “Gegenwartsliteratur.”
Lützeler joined the faculty of Arts & Sciences in 1973 and was named to the May distinguished professorship in 1993. Since joining the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures in Arts & Sciences, 42 students have written their doctoral dissertations with him. He chaired the department from 1983-88.
Early on he revived and established exchange programs on the undergraduate, graduate and faculty levels with the University of Tübingen in Germany, and he established a number of endowed fellowships for doctoral students in German.
He has served on many committees at the University. He twice was elected chair of the Faculty Senate Council, and he twice served on the Personnel Advisory Committee in Arts & Sciences.
Lützeler has written 10 books and edited numerous volumes on 19th- and 20th-century German and European literature.
He is vice president of the International Germanistik Association and a member of the German Academy of Science and Literature.
He has received many awards, prizes and fellowships; including Guggenheim, Humboldt and Fulbright grants, the German Cross of Merit, First Class and the Distinguished Faculty Mentor Award.