Education
Lauer initially studied literary studies, philosophy and musicology at the Saarland University and University of Tübingen, and completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Munich. He went on to complete his Doctor of Philosophy in 1992 on the history of scholarship in exile, with Wolfgang Frühwald as his doctoral supervisor.
Career
He is currently Professor of Modern German Literature at the University of Göttingen. He has worked on literary history, digital humanities and cognitive poetics. He is known for his social cognitive approach in literary studies.
He then trained in German studies and Jewish studies.
In 2002 he succeeded Albrecht Schöne and Wilfried Barner as chair of Modern German Literature. Professor Lauer is a fellow of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities, was distinguished Max Kade visiting professor at the Washington University in Saint Louis, senior research fellow at the Institut of Advances Studies/Street Mary"s College, Durham University, and is a cofounding editor of the Journal of Literary Theory.
Views
In 2000 he defended his habilitation on the rise of the Haskalah.