Michiel Rys

Assistant Professor

Research Profile

Michiel Rys studied German, Latin and Dutch Linguistics and Literature at the University of Leuven (Belgium), where he graduated in 2012 and obtained an MA in literary studies in 2013. In 2017, he obtained his PhD with a dissertation on the literary representation of Maximilien Robespierre in German literature. Between 2017 and 2024, Dr Rys held two Postdoctoral Fellowships of the Flemish Research Foundation at KU Leuven, with projects on the representation of precarious labour in late-nineteenth century literature and on the cultural memory of the German labour movement. In 2022-2023, he was a Teaching Fellow at Durham University (UK). In 2024, he started as Assistant Professor in German at Trinity College.

His research focusses on German literature in the context of the labour movement, literary representations of precarious work and class identity, cultural memory, identity and activism.