Professor and chair of School of Literature, Media, and Communication in the Georgia Tech Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts, Utz is president of the International Society for the Study of Medievalism. He was invited to Bamberg as a guest professor at the invitation of the Chair of German Philology of the Middle Ages and the Chair of English Literature in cooperation with the Bamberger Center for Medieval Studies (ZeMas), and the Graduate School of the ZeMas for the summer semester 2017. 

Utz held mini-seminars at Bamberg on “Medievalism in Film.” His perspectives on the worldwide television phenomenon Game of Thrones and its impact in higher education were published in July in Inside Higher Ed and Time.

Bamberg President Godehard Ruppert and the English Literature department feted Utz for his achievements in the international research. He is regarded as one of the leading specialists in ​medievalism. In his book Medievalism: A Manifesto (Arc Humanities Press), he builds a bridge between scientific medieval studies and the public. 

The Johann von Spix Professorship was awarded for the first time in 2015. It is named after Johann Baptist von Spix, who from 1799 studied philosophy at the Universitas Ottoniano-Fridericiana, a forerunner institution of today’s University of Bamberg, and also promoted there.