The Merz Akademie will establish the Leibinger Professorship for Comics and Comics Research in the summer semester 2026

The Merz Akademie will establish the Leibinger Professorship for Comics and Comics Research in the summer semester 2026

With this professorship, the Stuttgart design academy aims to promote and institutionalize the artistic and scientific examination of comics (analogue, digital, hybrid) in a close interlocking of practice and theory.

This is the first position of its kind to be explicitly advertised as a comics professorship in the German-speaking region.

Among other things, the position is linked to the conception and implementation of an International Summer School Comics and a part-time Master’s degree course in Comics and Comics Research.

The professorship is funded by the Berthold Leibinger Stiftung, which has been awarding the Comic Book Prize since 2014. The contract was signed on June 30 by Markus Wener, Managing Director of the Berthold Leibinger Stiftung, and Dr. Barbara M. Eggert, Rector of the Merz Akademie and comics researcher.

The position is expected to be advertised in July 2025.

Dr. Barbara M. Eggert for the Leibinger Professorship for Comics and Comics Research:

I could not have wished for a better partner than the Berthold Leibinger Stiftung to realize my vision of creating a professorship that combines comics creation and comics research, and I am delighted that my funding application has been accepted by the foundation. Both as Rector of the Merz Akademie and as a comics scholar, it is important to me to make a contribution to promoting the medium of comics by creating the professorship and I am looking forward to starting the development of the Master’s program.

What I wrote two years ago in Politik & Kultur, the newspaper of the German Cultural Council, is now taking shape: “This not only complements the media spectrum of the house, but also enriches the range of courses offered by the up-and-coming science location of Stuttgart, whose affinity for comics is already guaranteed by the proximity of various comic-affine institutions from publishing houses to the Comic Days, with a unique selling point.

The Berthold Leibinger Stiftung GmbH supports non-profit, charitable and church organizations as well as its own funding projects as it pursues its mission of preserving and further developing innovative science, a rich cultural landscape and a strong social commitment within society. It does this through sponsorship in culture and the sciences as well as by promoting church projects and fostering social commitment.