Lutzeler studied German and English Literature, Philosophy and History in Berlin, Edinburgh, Vienna and Munich. In 1968 he emigrated to the United States and in 1972 he defended his dissertation at Indiana University Bloomington. In 1973 he moved to St. Louis, where he became a professor at Washington University in St. Louis. He was Chair of the Washington
University Faculty Senate Council from 1993 to 1995. In 1983 he founded the European Studies Program at Washington University, of which he was in charge for 20 years. In 1985 he founded the Max Kade Center for Contemporary German Literature, which he chaired until 2022. He chaired the German department from 1983 to 1988. Frtom 1985 until 2022 he was inviting an author and a critic from one of the German-speaking countries every year to St. Louis for teaching and researching. In 2002 he founded the yearbook Gegenwartsliteratur. A German Studies Yearbook of which he was the Editor in Chief until 2020. Lutzeler was also engaged in exchange programs between Washington University and different European, American and Asian universities. From 2010 to 2019 he worked on the committee of the transatlantic postdoc exchange funded by the Volkswagen Foundation. He was guest professor in Princeton University, Tübingen, Graz, Mainz, Greifswald, Freiburg, New Delhi, Beijing, Madrid, and Tokyo among others. He taught block seminars at universities in Melbourne, Pavia, Guadalajara, Jerusalem and Zadar.
Hermann Broch. Kommentierte Werkausgabe, 17 Bände. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1974–1981. (also as an ebook)
Deutsche Literatur in der Bundesrepublik seit 1965 (with Egon Schwarz). Athenäum, Königstein 1980
Romane und Erzählungen der deutschen Romantik. Neue Interpretationen. Reclam, Stuttgart 1981.
Goethes Erzählwerk. Interpretationen (with James E. McLeod). Reclam, Stuttgart 1985.
Zeitgenossenschaft. Festschrift für Egon Schwarz zum 65. Geburtstag. with Herbert Lehnert and Gerhild S. Williams. Frankfurt am Main: Athenäum, 1987.
Spätmoderne und Postmoderne. Beiträge zur deutschsprachigen Gegenwartsliteratur. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1991.
Hoffnung Europa. Deutsche Essays von Novalis bis Enzensberger. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1994.
Europe after Maastricht. American and European Perspectives. Berghahn Books, Providence, Oxford 1994. (also translated into Rumanian)
Poetik der Autoren. Beiträge zur deutschsprachigen Gegenwartsliteratur. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1994.
Hannah Arendt-Hermann Broch. Briefwechsel 1946–1951. Jüdischer Verlag im Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1996.
Schreiben zwischen den Kulturen. Beiträge zur deutschsprachigen Gegenwartsliteratur. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1996. (translated into English)
Der postkoloniale Blick. Deutsche Autoren berichten aus der Dritten Welt. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1997.
Räume der literarischen Postmoderne. Gender, Performativität, Globalisierung. Stauffenburg, Tübingen 2000.
Kleists Erzählungen und Dramen. Neue Studien (with David Pan). Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2001.
Michael Kessler et al. (ed.): Hermann Broch – Neue Studien. Festschrift für Paul Michael Lützeler zum 60. Geburtstag. Stauffenburg, Tübingen 2003 (with bibliography Paul Michael Luetzeler)
Mark W. Rectanus (ed.): Über Gegenwartsliteratur/About Contemporary Literature. Festschrift für Paul Michael Lützeler zum 65. Geburtstag. Bielefeld, Aisthesis 2008 (with bibliography Paul Michael Luetzeler).
Peter Hanenberg und Isabel Capeloa Gil (ed.): Der literarische Europa-Diskurs. Festschrift für Paul Michael Lützeler zum 70. Geburtstag. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2013. (with bibliography Paul Michael Luetzeler).
Michael Braun (ed.): Deutsche Literatur und Europäische Zeitgeschichte. Für Paul Michael Lützeler zum 75. Geburtstag. Stauffenburg, Tübingen 2018.
Michael Kessler (ed.): Interkulturelle Dialoge. Exil- und Gegenwartsliteratur, Europa- und Kunst-Diskurse. Festschrift fuer Paul Michael Lützeler zum 80. Geburtstag. Tübingen: Stauffenburg, 2023. (with bibliography Paul Michael Lützeler)