Elisabeth Walther-Bense

Elisabeth Walther-Bense (née Walther) was a German semiotician. She also worked as a publicist, editor, and translator.

Early life

Walther-Bense was born on August 10, 1922 in Oberweißbach, Thuringia, Germany.

Education

In 1950, She earned her doctorate at the University of Stuttgart under Max Bense, where she wrote her dissertation 'Die Rolle der Logik von Port Royal in der Frühgeschichte der exakten Wissenschaften' (The Role Of Port-Royal Logic In The Early History of The Exact Sciences). She was the first woman to hold a professorship at the University of Stuttgart's Department of Systematic Philosophy.

Career

Walther-Bense taught at the Stuttgart Technische Hochschule (from 1967, the University of Stuttgart) from 1956 to 1983. Along with her husband Max Bense, she also taught at the Ulm School of Design and the Escola Superior de Desenho Industrial in Rio de Janeiro.

She was a significant co-contributor with Max Bense to work on art, design, and semiotics as influenced by information and control systems theory emerging at the time, and documented much of his work in Germany and Brazil.

She was the editor of the journal Augenblick (1955-1960), co-editor of Rot (1960-90) and co-editor of Semiosis (1976-1990), which she co-founded with Max Bense.

Major works

With Max Bense, she co-authored Wörterbuch der Semiotik (Dictionary of Semiotics) in 1973. Her 1974 work Allgemeine Zeichenlehre (General Theory of Signs) helped to make Charles Sanders Peirce's work accessible in Germany. She later published Charles Sanders Peirce Leben und Werk in 1989.

Personal life

Walther married her employer and colleague Max Bense in 1988.