Gerhard Lauer

Gerhard Lauer (born November 14, 1962) is a German literary scholar. He is currently Gutenberg Professor of Book Studies at the University of Mainz. He works on literary history, reading studies, and digital humanities.

Lauer initially studied literary studies, philosophy, and musicology at the Saarland University and University of Tübingen, and completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Munich. He was then trained in German studies and Jewish studies. He went on to complete his Doctor of Philosophy in 1992 on the history of scholarship in exile with Wolfgang Frühwald as his doctoral supervisor. In 2000 he defended his habilitation on the rise of the Haskalah.

In 2002 he succeeded Wilfried Barner, who had succeeded Albrecht Schöne in 1992, as chair of Modern German Literature at the University of Göttingen. Professor Lauer is a member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities, was distinguished Max Kade visiting professor at the Washington University in St. Louis, senior research fellow at the Institut of Advances Studies/St Mary's College, Durham University, is a cofounding editor of the ''Journal of Literary Theory'', associate editor of the journal ''Scientific Study of Literature'', and of the ''Gutenberg-Jahrbuch''. Provided by Wikipedia