Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht is the Albert Guérard Professor in Literature in the Departments of Comparative Literature, of French & Italian, of Spanish & Portuguese (by courtesy), and is affiliated with German Studies, and the Program in Modern Thought & Literature at Stanford University. He is also Professeur Associé au Département de Littérature comparée at the Université de Montréal, Directeur d'études associé at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris), Professeur attaché au Collège de France, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

A talented and popular teacher he has recently taught courses such as IHUM 60, "Sex: Its Pleasures and Cultures" and French 231 "Denis Diderot." He has published many books and articles, among which Production of Presence. What Meaning Cannot Convey (Stanford, 2004), The Powers of Philology. Dynamics of Textual Scholarship (Urbana, 2003). His most recent study, In Praise of Atheletic Beauty, will soon appear with Harvard University Press.