This thesis aims at thinking through the ethical position of animals in a way that differs radically from the manner in which this ethical position is thought within contemporary animal rights discourse.

In which way was literary celebrity constructed in the nineteenth century and what forms of fandom were there?

This collaborative project aims to explore the history of the concept “barbarism” in Europe from the 18th century to the present, with a particular emphasis on the role of literature and art in the concept’s shifting functions.

This project is a close and sensitive contextual study of Jacob of Sarug's (ca. 451-521 AD) metrical homily

In my research I am concerned with the possibility of a politics of sexuality without reverting to identitarian conceptions of sexuality. In a reading of the work of the American author James Purdy, I propose to move towards a politicizing of the concept of narrative identity as developed by the French…

The subject of motherhood is interwoven with themes of survival, power and identity. It is also at the heart of any consideration of women’s writing. Conversations of Motherhood sensitively charts common themes, intersecting experiences and related topics within the cultural specificities of South African…

This study examines the system and poetics of literary patronage in the Renaissance by presenting a comprehensive analysis of the poetry of Giannantonio Campano. In this way, it addresses two themes largely overlooked by modern scholarship.

De lichtheid van literatuur: Engagement in de multiculturele samenleving (The Lightness of Literature: Engagement in the Multicultural Society) is a plea for the social relevance of literature. The book delves into an age-old debate about literature and social engagement, which has recently been reinvigorated…

In this overview of the reception of Duchamp, the plurality of possible approaches is examined.

Hermeneutics and the Humanities: Dialogues with Hans-Georg Gadamer / Hermeneutik und die Geisteswissenschaften: Im Dialog mit Hans-Georg Gadamer

Haunting the future through poetry

Every month a member of the Institute for History tells about a book that inspired him or her. Afterwards, the pen is passed on to another colleague. This month dr. Meike de Goede tells about the book 'Between Tides' by Valentin Mudimbe. The novel, little known beyond the circles of Africanists and…

Counter-Discourse in Zimbabwean Literature is a study of specific aspects of counter-discursive Zimbabwean narratives in English. In discussing the selected texts, my thesis is based on Terdiman’s (1989) the postcolonial concept of counter-discourse.

The project focuses on an intriguing aspect of André Chénier’s poetry, which has not received much attention in scholarship: Chénier’s indebtedness – in the form of translation, adaptation, borrowing, reference – to Hellenistic poetry; it interprets the role of this indebtedness in his poetical and…

'The World Upside Down. The Geographical Revolution in Humanist Commentaries on Pliny's Natural History and Mela's De situ orbis (140-1700)', in: Enenkel, K.A.E. & Nellen, H. (Eds.), Neo-Latin Commentaries and the Management of Knowledge in the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period (1400-1700).Humanistica…

This study interrogates contemporary and historical uses of barbarism, arguing that barbarism also has a disruptive, insurgent potential.

This research focuses on a historical/social analysis of a selected corpus of novels from modern Turkish literature which have the common theme of migration from Anatolian towns and villages to Istanbul, and the immigrants’ struggle in this city against various exclusion mechanisms.

In this study I explore literary structures of identity-formation in the works of assimilated/acculturated Jewish writers: Kafka’s novella “The Metamorphosis” (“Die Verwandlung”, 1912) and David Vogel’s Hebrew novel Married Life. 1929).

The figure of the barbarian has captivated the Western imagination from Greek antiquity to the present. Since the 1990s, the rhetoric of civilization versus barbarism has taken center stage in Western political rhetoric and the media. But how can the longevity and popularity of this opposition be accounted…

Victorian Fairy Tales

This study will investigate the role of Henri Jean Francois Borel (1869-1933) as an ‘interpreter of China'.

It is often claimed—in both scholarly and popular sources—that guide dogs for the blind are a modern innovation. But as this project demonstrates clearly, guide dogs also existed during the medieval period.

Exploring cultural production in Europe, Latin America and Africa, the institute’s research programme focuses on the continuous interconnectedness of the Arts and Society in both the textual culture of literature, learning and public debate and the visual culture of art, architecture, film, photography…

‘The Survival of Pliny in Padua. The Botanical Renaissance and the Transformation of Classical Scholarship’ in: Transformations of the Classics via Early Modern Commentaries, ed. by K.A.E. Enenkel. Intersections 29 (Leiden/Boston: Brill, forthcoming autumn 2013), pp. 327-62.

This collection brings into conversation several kinds of scholarship on medieval authorship which have tended to remain separate over the last two to three decades, a period of steadily increasing scholarly interest in this topic.

Bernini and Pallavicino, the artist and the Jesuit cardinal, are closely related figures at the papal courts of Urban VIII and Alexander VII, at which Bernini was the principal artist. The analysis of Pallavicino's writings offers a new perspective on Bernini's art and artistry and allow us to understand…

The Animated Image addresses the entire range of contexts in which images were described by Roman authors as being animated, as well as the accounts that Roman writers produced to explain the animation of inanimate matter.

Blood, Sweat and Tears: The Changing Concepts of Physiology from Antiquity into Early Modern Europe

Combining cutting-edge quantitative approaches with more traditional book history approaches, this new book offers the first history of medieval manuscript destruction in England from the medieval period to the present.

In the History of the Roman Emperors, what does Herodian’s method of composition consist of and how does it relate to his writing intention, particularly in terms of political and moral idea(l)s?

Marije Groos was a PhD researcher at the LUCAS. She completed her thesis on socio-political engagement in Dutch literary periodicals of the fifties. Her promoters are Yra van Dijk, professor of Modern Dutch Literature, and Ton Anbeek, emeritus professor of Modern Dutch Literature.

How De Haan is using language in general and his specific style of language in particular to provide truth, solidarity and justice for both the individual and the collective?

This dissertation examines how Benedictine monks at the Abbey of Fécamp designed, produced, and read books over the course of the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

Shifting the Compass: Pluricontinental Connections in Dutch Colonial and Postcolonial Literature

Çağlar Köseoğlu, MA student Literary Studies, has received the Fulbright Graduate Student Grant intended for students who want to study for a master’s degree or a PhD in the United States. He will do a one-year MA called Aesthetics and Politics at the California Institute of the Arts.

How did nineteenth-century non-Anglophone translators and authors creatively engage with the poem Beowulf?

Members of LUCAS work in various buildings on the Witte Singel-Doelencomplex. The board and the secretariat are housed on the first floor of the P.N. van Eyckhof 3 (building 1165).

How can the importance of the image in late medieval spirituality be understood in the context of the love mysticism inspired by the imagery of the Song of Songs?

At the invitation of the Centre for Early Christianity and Its Reception (CECIR), Peter Liebregts, Full Professor of Modern Literatures in English (LUCAS), visited the University of Kent in Canterbury from March 17 to 20, to give a lecture and a masterclass.