Dutch literary studies

Ralf Grüttemeier (1961) has been Professor of Dutch Literature at the University of Oldenburg in School III - School of Linguistics and Cultural Studies since 1997, where he was Dean from 2005-2007 and from 2019-2021. He has been Vice President for Research and Transfer at the University of Oldenburg since 2024. He studied Dutch, History and German Studies in Aachen, Cologne and Amsterdam and received his doctorate from the University of Amsterdam in 1994 with a dissertation on Nieuwe Zakelijkheid in Dutch literature.

In 2008/9 he was a research fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study (NIAS) in Wassenaar. From 2003 to 2012 he worked on the editorial board of the journal Internationale Neerlandistiek (from 2009 to 2012 as main editor) and from 2013-2022 co-editor of Spiegel der Letteren.

Together with Maria-Theresia Leuker he edited The Dutch History of Literature (Metzler, 2006) and together with Gillis Dorleijn and Liesbeth Korthals Altes The Autonomy of Literature (Peeters, 2007) and Authorship Revisited (Peeters, 2010). His most recent monograph was Intention and Interpretation. A short history (De Gruyter, 2022). One focus of his research is on Dutch literature of the first half of the 20th century. century: In 2013, for example, he edited the anthology Neue Sachlichkeit and Avant-Garde (Rodopi, 2013), together with Klaus Beekman and Ben Rebel, and led the DFG project 'Functions of the debate on Nieuwe Zakelijkheid in the Dutch field of the interwar period from a field-theoretical perspective' (2016-2019), which resulted in a dissertation and was concluded with the anthology Neue Sachlichkeit im Kontrast - Deutschland und die Niederlande (De Gruyter, 2021), co-edited with Janka Wagner and Haimo Stiemer. Another focus of his research is the relationship between literature and law. In this context, he has co-authored a study on literary trials in the Netherlands De wet van de letter (Athenaeum, 2005) with Klaus Beekman and led a DFG project from 2010-2015 on "Der Umgang der Jurisprudenz mit literarischen Texten in Belgien und Südafrika", which resulted in two dissertations and the anthology Literary Trials. Exceptio artis and conceptions of literature in court (Bloomsbury, 2016), as well as his most recent DFG project 'Literary concepts of the legal and political elites in the Netherlands in the 20th century' (2021-2025).