Michael Multhammer

Michael Multhammer is a University Professor for Modern German Literature, Poetics, and Pragmatics of Literary Communication at the University of Siegen, specializing in the literary and cultural history of the early modern period. He leads subproject C03 'The Popularity of Others: The Vulgar between Normativity and Attribution' and contributes to working groups including 'Theories of the Popular' (AG1), 'Popularity Resilience' (AG4), 'Gender and Intersectionality' (since 2025), and 'Practices' (FW6). His research focuses on the interplay of vulgarity and refinement, popularization processes, and gender dynamics in early modern literature.

His recent publications explore topics such as the aesthetic dynamics of the vulgar, reflexive popularization mechanisms, and the role of invective logic in cultural discourse. Articles like Die Erfindung des Vulgären (2023) and No popularization without depopularization (2024) highlight his interdisciplinary methodology bridging literary theory, cultural history, and sociolinguistics.

• Buchveröffentlichung: Wider die Vulgarität. Grobianschreiben zwischen Bildungswelten (2025)
• Peer-reviewed works: The Popularity of Others (2024), On the complementarity of the low and the sublime in Schiller (2024)
• Conference reports: Grenzen des Ästhetischen (2022), Prefigurationen von Pop (2022)

Professor Multhammer's work intersects with critical theories of the popular, gender studies, and historical epistemology, emphasizing marginalized texts and discursive power structures. He has held academic positions at the Research Center in Gotha, University of Freiburg, and LMU Munich before joining Siegen in 2015 as a junior professor and 2020 as a full professor.