Elisabeth Walther-Bense studied Philosophy, German Language and Literature Studies, Romance Studies, Physics and Mathematics at the Universities of Jena, Mainz and the Stuttgart Institute of Technology. In 1950, she graduated under Max Bense with her thesis entitled “Die Rolle der Logik von Port-Royal in der Frühgeschichte der exakten Wissenschaften” [The Role of the Logic of Port-Royal in the early history of The Exact Sciences]. Her research interest was in Charles Sanders Peirce, Max Bense and Francis Ponge. She was teaching at several institutions, for example at the Stuttgart Institute of Technology, University Stuttgart and School of Design Ulm. She was editor of augenblick, co-editor of the series of rot and the international journal of semiotics and aesthetics Semiosis. Since 1990, she has been the sole editor of the latter two. She also worked as a translater, mainly from the English and French. Her first translation was in the fifties, a work by Peirce.
In the 60s Stuttgart became a center for semiotics, when Max Bense and Elisabeth Walther published several writings on the topic. They both were part of the Stuttgart School that build up on these developments.

[ZKM, 2010]