William Franke

William Franke is a philosopher of the humanities, a poet, and a professor of comparative literature at Vanderbilt University. The author of numerous books at the intersection of literature, philosophy, and theology, he lectures and gives seminars on his apophatic philosophy, with a focus on the revelatory power of poetic language, in English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish on five continents.

In 2025, with his former PhD students (now professors), he founded The William Franke Center for Apophatic Thought and Culture at the medieval Château de la Frogerie in the Valley of the Loire in France.

Franke has been Fulbright-University of Salzburg Distinguished Chair in Intercultural Theology (2006-7); Francesco de Dombrowski Visiting Professor at The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, Florence, Italy (2024); Professor of Philosophy at the University of Macao (2013–16); Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung research fellow at the University of Potsdam; Honorary Professor (Professor Honoris Causa), The International Institute for Hermeneutics (IIH).