William Waters

William Waters is Associate Professor of German and Comparative Literature in the College of Arts and Sciences. In addition to his courses on literature, he also teaches in the humanities sequence of BU’s Core Curriculum and offers courses in translation practice and in the linguistics of German.

Waters’ research has centered on poetry and poetics, with special attention to German poetry and especially to the work of Rainer Maria Rilke. He is the author of Poetry’s Touch: On Lyric Address (Cornell University Press) and scholarly articles, and is a founding board member of the International Network for the Study of Lyric (INSL). He’s held yearlong or multi-year fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Mellon Foundation, and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and secured nearly $4 million in grants for critical-language education at BU. At BU he has been honored with the National Endowment for the Humanities Distinguished Teaching Professorship, the Templeton Prize for Excellence in Student Advising, and the Outstanding Teaching Award from the quondam Honors Program of the College of Arts and Sciences. From 2007 to 2013 he served as the founding Chair of his department (now World Languages and Literatures). He’s also Associate Director of Boston University’s Center for the Study of Europe and in 2019 completed a nine-year term as Founder and Executive Director of Project GO-BU.