Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht

Sepp

My Life from a Distance
U1 for Sepp
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Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht
Sepp / Sepp
My Life from a Distance
Hans Ulricht Gumbrecht claims to have no great passion for reading or writing. And yet, he ranks among the most high-profile and productive social scientists living and working today. From an ironic distance, the emeritus Stanford University professor looks back on more than half a century of life. It all begins in the bombed-out ruins of the German city of Würzburg. But soon enough, his ambition lures him on a breathtaking journey around the globe. At the famous Lycée Henri IV in Paris, he...
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Hans Ulricht Gumbrecht claims to have no great passion for reading or writing. And yet, he ranks among the most high-profile and productive social scientists living and working today. From an ironic distance, the emeritus Stanford University professor looks back on more than half a century of life. It all begins in the bombed-out ruins of the German city of Würzburg. But soon enough, his ambition lures him on a breathtaking journey around the globe. At the famous Lycée Henri IV in Paris, he emulates the affectations of French intellectuals; in Salamanca, he begins to write; in Copacabana, he feels the presence of the past; and in Silicon Valley, he witnesses the birth of a new form of thinking.

With a beguiling lack of modesty and a radiant intensity, Gumbrecht conjures up scenes for eternity: a fall from grace before his first communion, a lunch with Michel Foucault, a handful of sentences exchanged with Neymar, a night in a San José prison, and a puma in the snow of the Andes. Over the course of these anecdotes, an image of an intellectual life emerges whose force ultimately does not crystallise in abstract judgements but in a name that rolls off the tongue on both sides of the Atlantic: Sepp.
2026, 450 pages
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Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht

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Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht was born in 1948. He has been teaching at Stanford University since 1989, where he is the Albert Guérard Professor in Literature. In addition to numerous visiting professorships, he has received eight honorary doctorates.

Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht was born in 1948. He has been teaching at Stanford University since 1989, where he is the Albert Guérard Professor in...

© Jürgen Bauer

OTHER PUBLICATIONS

Latest first
Lives of the Voice
Year of Publication: 2025
Hans Ulrich GumbrechtYear of Publication: 2025

Lives of the Voice

When it comes to understanding the ontology of individual existence—that is, the everyday behaviors that we all perform and hardly ever think about—the voice has a particularly complicated status....

Rights sold to:

English world rights (Stanford UP), Spanish world rights (Universidad Iberoamericana), Russia (NLO), Brazilian Portuguese rights (UNESP)

»Prose of the World«
Year of Publication: 2020
Hans Ulrich GumbrechtYear of Publication: 2020

»Prose of the World«

Philosopher and translator, critic and writer, art agent and encyclopaedist: Denis Diderot, born in Champagne in 1713, died in Paris in 1784, was one of the defining figures of the movement that...

Rights sold to:

English world rights (Standford UP), Spanish world rights (Universidad Iberoamericana), Russia (NLO), Brazilian Portuguese rights (UNESP)

After 1945
Year of Publication: 2012
Hans Ulrich GumbrechtYear of Publication: 2012

After 1945

The atomic bomb and the Cold War, but also the German currency reform and that country‘s first soccer Wold Championship (called the »Miracle of Bern«); these are the hallmarks of...

Rights sold to:

English world rights (Stanford UP), Spanish world rights (Universidad Iberoamericana), Russia (NLO), Brazilian Portuguese rights (UNESP), Poland (Krytyka Polityczna)

Our Broad Present
Year of Publication: 2010
Hans Ulrich GumbrechtYear of Publication: 2010

Our Broad Present

Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht’s new book, Our Broad Present, outlines a present of simultaneities, a present that is trapped between a threatening future that can no longer be planned, and a...
Rights sold to:

English world rights (Columbia UP), Brazilian Portuguese rights (UNESP), Italy (Bompiani), Turkey (Insan)

In Praise of Athletic Beauty
Year of Publication: 2005
Hans Ulrich GumbrechtYear of Publication: 2005

In Praise of Athletic Beauty

There is no more widespread or intense fascination in present-day culture than sports (both as an active physical practice, and as spectator sports) but, quite astonishingly, the reaction of...
Rights sold to:

English world rights (Harvard UP), Spanish world rights (Katz), Chinese simplex rights (Horizon), Italy (Sossella), Netherlands (Arbeiderspers), Korea (Dolbegae), Hungary (Kijárat), Ukraine (Dukh i Litera)

Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Russia (New Literary Observer), Brazilian Portuguese Rights (Companhia das Letras)