Michael Gamper

Prof. Dr. Michael Gamper is a Professor of General and Comparative Literature at the Peter Szondi Institute, Department of Philosophy and Humanities, Freie Universität Berlin. He has served as the institute's Managing Director (2017–present) and is currently the Vice Dean for Research at the Department of Philosophy and Humanities (since April 2023). Gamper's academic career includes positions at ETH Zürich, Leibniz Universität Hannover, and visiting professorships at Princeton University and Columbia University.

His research focuses on interdisciplinary intersections, including cultural history of knowledge, literature-science-technology relationships, societal imaginaries, collective phenomena, and mass culture. Key themes include aesthetic temporalities, literary meteorology, and experimental epistemologies.

Gamper leads major research initiatives such as the DFG Priority Program 1688 'Aesthetic Eigenzeiten' (2013–2020) and the EXC 2020 'Temporal Communities' (2019–present). His work explores how literature engages with scientific concepts like physics and meteorology, alongside political and social collectives.