Gerhard Plump

Gerhard Plumpe (born April 22, 1946 ) is a German university professor and professor for German studies in the Department of Modern German Literature at the Ruhr University in Bochum . In 1975 he received his doctorate as Dr. phil. with a work on Alfred Schuler and the function of myth in literary modernism. In 1986 he completed his habilitation with a study on photography in the era of realism inspired by Michel Foucault's discourse analysis . From 1995 to 2011 he was a professor at the Ruhr University Bochum.

Since the late 1980s, Plumpe has campaigned in numerous publications primarily to establish a system-theoretical literary study that strives to apply Niklas Luhmann's systems sociology to literary phenomena of the modern age. A renewal of the intention is to bring the social history of literature , the other side of the long time the German-language literature Sociology dominant theory of reflection of Marxism provides an insight into the social conditioning of literary processes.

Plump is considered to be the main exponent of the "Bochum Model" developed in the 1990s at the Ruhr University in Bochum within the system-theoretical literary studies. In it he advocates, among other things, the thesis that the literary system fulfills an entertainment function that is becoming socially necessary in the course of increasing free time contingents with the help of the key difference “interesting” / “boring”. The literary works take on a central role as symbolically generalized communication media within the literary system.

In recent years, Plumpe's publications on realism (literature) of the 19th century, on the aesthetic discourse of modernity, and on the problematization and system-theoretical reformulation of literary epoch terms have become known to a broader specialist audience.

Publications (selection)

• Aesthetic communication of modernity . Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen 1993

1. From Kant to Hegel . ISBN 3-531-12393-9
2. From Nietzsche to the present . ISBN 3-531-12400-5

• The interest in the beginning. To Bachofen research. In: Hans-Jürgen Heinrichs (Hrsg.): Materials on Bachofen's 'Das Mutterrecht'. Frankfurt 1975, pp. 196-212.
• Alfred Schuler . Chaos and a new beginning. On the function of myth in modern times; shown at the "Kosmikerkreis" . Edition Agora, Berlin 1978, ISBN 3-87008-052-3 (also dissertation, University of Bochum 1975)
• Observations of the literature. Aspects of a polycontextural literary study . Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen 1995, ISBN 3-531-12665-2 (together with Niels Werber )
• Bourgeois realism and the early days from 1848 to 1890 . Dtv, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-423-04348-2 (together with Edward McInnes )
• Epochs of Modern Literature. A system-theoretical draft . Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen 1995, ISBN 3-531-12527-3
• Literature can be coded. Aspects of a systems theoretical literary study (together with Niels Werber). In: Siegfried J. Schmidt (Ed.): Literary studies and systems theory. Positions, controversies, perspectives . West German Verlag, Opladen 1993, ISBN 3-531-12418-8 , pp. 9-43.
• Bourgeois realism theory . Reclam, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-15-008277-3
• The dead look . Fink, Munich 1990, ISBN 3-7705-2592-2