Oliver Grütter

Dr Oliver Grütter is a post-doctoral researcher and lecturer in Modern German Literature at the German Seminar of the University of Tübingen. Holding a 2025-2027 Swiss National Science Foundation Postdoc.Mobility Fellowship for research stays at MLU Halle-Wittenberg and Brown University, he also served as Associate Professor for German at Kyushu University (Japan, 2023-2024) and remains affiliated with the University of Zurich where he completed his doctorate summa cum laude in 2022.

Education

• PhD, German Literature, University of Zurich, 2022 (summa cum laude)
• MA, German Language & Literature / Latin Philology / Medieval Latin, University of Zurich, 2016-2018
• BA, German Language & Literature / Latin Philology, Universities of Zurich & LMU Munich, 2011-2015

Research Interests

Grütter’s work centres on Early Modern German literature (1400–1800) with particular attention to the intersections of poetry, medicine and theology. His monograph Krankheit und lyrische Selbstsorge explores how early modern poets negotiated illness, care and devotional practices. He is equally engaged in the study of 18th-century lyric and elegy (Klopstock, Hölderlin), Classical reception, humanist poetics and the editorial challenges posed by complex canonical texts.

Current projects extend these themes toward medical humanities, comparative philology and the aesthetics of autonomy around 1800, pursued during fellowships in Germany, the USA and Japan.

Scholarships & Awards

• Postdoc.Mobility Fellowship, Swiss National Science Foundation (2025-2027)
• GRC Travel Grant (2022)
• Doctoral degree awarded with distinction “summa cum laude” (2022)
• Semester Prize of the University of Zurich (2014)

Grants, Teaching & Supervision

Grütter has been employed on several Swiss National Science Foundation projects, notably the Sinergia consortium “Hybride Zeiten” (temporal dynamics 1400-1600). While currently without doctoral students, he convenes undergraduate seminars (“Introduction to Modern German Literature”, “Classicism”) at Tübingen and has co-organised numerous international workshops and conferences that bring together doctoral and post-doctoral researchers from across Europe and Japan.

Collaborations & Networks

He is an active member of the Hölderlin-Gesellschaft Tübingen and co-founder of the research network “Frühe Neuzeit Südwest”. His collaborative editions and conference volumes connect universities in Zurich, Tübingen, Halle, Brown, and Kyushu, fostering interdisciplinary dialogue between German Studies, Classics, and Medical Humanities.