He worked as a chief editor for literature of the daily FAZ, and became co-publisher and author of the cultural magazine Merkur.
[1] He wrote his habilitation at the Bielefeld University, Die Ästhetik des Schreckens – Die pessimistische Romantik und Ernst Jüngers Frühwerk (The Aesthetics of Terror – The Pessimistic Romantics and Ernst Jünger's Early Work).
[1][2] Bohrer was appointed to the chair for Modern German Literary History at Bielefeld University in 1982, and held the position until emerited in 1997.
He was a thought-provoking writer in the journal (subtitle Deutsche Zeitschrift für europäisches Denken: German journal for European thought), writing for example a satirical "Die Ästhetik des Staates" in 1984, beginning a series about the "Bonn Republic" under Chancellor Helmut Kohl.
He also published an autobiography in two volumes, the first in 2012, Granatsplitter (Shrapnel), covering his youth, including World War II and post-war life in ruins, and the second in 2017, Jetzt.