Professor of German Literature at the Department of Literature of the University of Lausanne. Specialized in the work of Robert Walser, he has worked at length on the publication of a critical essay on this author, with the title Tanz auf den Rändern: Robert Walsers “Jetztzeitstil” (Suhrkamp, 1998), later translated into French as Robert Walser: Danser dans les marges (Zoé, 2001). Peter Utz is also very interested in the process of translation, which is the focus of his work Anders gesagt – autrement dit – in other words. Übersetzt gelesen: Hoffmann, Fontane, Kafka, Musil (Carl Hanser, 2007). Recently his studies have focused on the culture of catastrophe in Swiss literature: Kultivierung der Katastrophe: Literarische Untergangsszenarien aus der Schweiz (Fink, 2013).