Campe was an assistant professor at the University of Essen from 1986 to 1996. He joined the German department of Johns Hopkins University in 2001 and served as the department's chair for several years. Since 2007, Campe has been a German and Comparative Literature professor at Yale University. At Yale, he has served as the department chair and has been Alfred C. and Martha F. Mohr Professor of German Languages and Literatures since 2016.[3][4]
Campe has been a visiting professor at New York University, the universities of Konstanz, Siegen and Viadrina (Frankfurt/Oder).[5] He has served on several advisory boards, including Leibniz-Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung (ZfL) at Berlin,[6] the Erich-Auerbach-Institute at Cologne[7] and the Hans Blumenberg Society.[8] Campe has held advisory board positions in journals, including the Monatshefte, the Bucknell Goethe series, Athenäum, and Studia Theodisca.[9][10]
Research
Campe's research explores the interconnections of literature, aesthetics, and science. In the Game of Probability: Literature and Calculation from Pascal and Kleist (2002, trans. 2012), he explores the humanities and mathematical sciences, particularly the science of probability and games, as part of an interrelated discourse and a continuing rhetorical tradition. According to Campe, literary-rhetorical traditions allowed a better understanding of probabilities, while probability theory revitalized literary traditions.[11]
Affekt und Ausdruck. Zur Umwandlung der literarischen Rede im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1990).
The Game of Probability. Literature and Calculation from Pascal and Kleist, trans. Ellwood Wiggins, Jr. (Stanford University Press, 2012). Revised trans. of “Spiel der Wahrscheinlichkeit.”
Baumgarten-Studien. Zur Genealogie der Ästhetik, co-authored with A. Haverkamp, C. Menke (Berlin: August, 2014).
Die Institution im Roman. Robert Musil (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann 2020).
Modern Language Notes, Special issue: Literature and Science, 118 (2003), ed. Rüdiger Campe.
Gesetz. Ironie, ed. Rüdiger Campe, Michael Niehaus (Heidelberg: Synchron, 2004).
Modern Language Notes, Special issue, dedicated to the memory of Bianca Theisen, 121 (2006), ed. Rüdiger Campe.
Penthesileas Versprechen. Exemplarische Studien zur literarischen Referenz, ed. R. Campe (Freiburg: Rombach, 2008).
Telos, Special Issue, Hans Blumenberg, ed. R. Campe, P. Fleming, K. Wetters, 158 (2012).
Germanic Review, special issue „The Case of Citation,“ 2014, co-ed. with Arne Höcker.
Rethinking Emotion. Interiority and Exteriority in Premodern, Modern, and Contemporary Thought, co-ed. with Julia Weber (Berlin, Boston: De Grutyer, 2014).
Bella Parrhesia. Begriff und Figur der freien Rede in der frühen Neuzeit, co-ed. with Malte Wessels (Freiburg: Rombach, 2018).
Screen Genealogies. From Optical Device to Environmental Medium, ed. Craig Buckley, Rüdiger Campe, Francesco Casetti (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2019).
For a New Aufklärung/Enlightenment, special issue in: Germanic Review 95 (2020), co- ed. with Hans Adler.