He was one of the very first professors appointed at the University of Bremen – we sadly report that the renowned literary scholar Peter Bürger passed away at the age of 80 in Berlin. The University of Bremen mourns the loss of this highly respected Romance philologist, who in 1971 was among its very first professors. University President, Professor Bernd Scholz-Reiter, praised Peter Bürger, saying: “With his alert and critical mind, Peter Bürger played a major role in shaping the area of Linguistics and Literary Studies at the University of Bremen”. According to Bürger’s main thesis, it is in literature that modernity shapes its destiny. “He was not only a renowned representative of his subject, but also an outstanding thinker and essayist, who moreover had faith above all in the orientation power of aesthetic theory”, says the Dean of the Faculty of Linguistics and Literary Studies, Professor Thomas Althaus. From 1971 to 1996, Peter Bürger was a professor in the Department of Romance Studies at the University of Bremen. Among his major works is “Theorie der Avantgarde” [Theory of the avant-garde]. It appeared in 1974 and was quickly acclaimed as one of the decade’s most important pieces of literature. It is still being discussed today. Following news of his death, a number of obituaries have appeared in the national media – among others in the Süddeutschen Zeitung (text in German) and Deutschlandfunk (text in German). The journal “Romanische Studien” published a review of the new edition of his Theorie der Avantgarde (text in German).