Karla Pollmann

Karla Pollmann is Rector of the University of Tübingen. Prior to this, she served as Executive Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Professor of Classical Philology and Theology at the University of Bristol (UK) from 2018 to 2022. She remains an Honorary Professor at the University of Bristol and also holds honorary professorships at Aarhus University (Denmark) and Stellenbosch University (South Africa), as well as a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Green College, University of British Columbia (Canada).

Her research focuses on imperial and early Christian literature and culture, as well as reception history, with a particular emphasis on Augustine of Hippo. She has published extensively, including major monographs on Statius’ Thebaid, Augustine’s hermeneutics, and early Christian poetry (The Baptized Muse, Oxford University Press 2017). She is an internationally recognized scholar, has supervised and examined more than 30 doctoral candidates, and has held visiting academic appointments across Europe, North America, and beyond. She is a member of the Academia Europaea and a Humboldt Research Award recipient (2020), and has received an honorary doctorate from Dōshisha University in Kyoto (2023).