Wilkinson-Willoughby Lecture:

annual lecture by a distinguished speaker


Each year, the EGS invites a scholar of international distinction to give the Wilkinson-Willoughby Lecture. Previous speakers are listed below.


2023


ANNE BOHNENKAMP-RENKEN (FRANKFURT/MAIN)

Genesis. Beobachtungen zur Interdisziplinarität bei Goethe


2022


WOLF LEPENIES (BERLIN)

“Incredible, that’s Literature!” Attempts at Re-moralizing Politics, Academic Disciplines, and the Profession with the Help of ‘Belles-Lettres


2021


ALFRED BRENDEL (London)
Naivety and Irony: Goethe's Musical Needs



Elizabeth Mary Wilkinson (1909-2001) and Leonard Ashley Willoughby (1885-1977) were both Professors of German at University College, London. Although both made distinguished individual contributions to the field, it is for their joint scholarship that they are best known. Their study Goethe, Poet and Thinker (1962) is still widely consulted, as is their 1967 edition of Schiller’s Briefe über die ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen. The refinement of their insights and the clarity of their prose have ensured that they continue to be an essential point of reference for researchers and students alike.