Hans Ulrich "Sepp" Gumbrecht is a literary theorist whose work spans philology, philosophy, literary and cultural history, and epistemologies of the everyday. A professor at Stanford University since 1989, he holds the Albert Guérard Chair as Professor in the Departments of Comparative Literature and French and Italian in Stanford's Division of Literatures, Languages, and Cultures; by courtesy, he is also affiliated with the Departments of German Studies, Iberian and Latin American Cultures, and the Program in Modern Thought and Literature

Born οn June 15, 1948 in Würzburg, Germany, Gumbrecht graduated from the Siebold Gymnasium of his hometown in 1967, also having studied at Lycée Henri IV in Paris. He specialized in Romance Philology and German Literature, but also studied philosophy and sociology during his university years, which took him to Munich, Regensburg, Salamanca, Pavia, and Konstanz.[3] After receiving his Ph.D. at the University of Konstanz in 1971, he became Assistant Professor, acquiring the Venia legendi (Habilitation) in Romance Literatures and Literary Theory in 1974