Teaching
Courses
In the current academic year I teach the following courses:
- Contemporary English Literature | Transcultural Holocaust Memory (MA)
- Seminar English Literature (BA3; co-coordinator)
Other courses taught in previous years:
- English Literature III: Modern Period | Literary Witnessing in Cross-Cultural Perspective (BA3)
- English Literature: Capita Selecta | Trauma Representation in Contemporary Literature and Film (BA3)
- English Literature II: Historical Survey: Seminars (BA2)
- English Literature I: An Introduction to English Drama, Poetry, and Prose (BA1)
Supervision
I am keen to supervise PhD and MA dissertations in the fields of contemporary literature in English (especially British, African, Caribbean, Indian, and ethnic American literature); trauma, memory, and Holocaust studies; postcolonial and transcultural studies; and ecocriticism.
PhD and postdoctoral research projects currently or recently supervised:
- Playing with Trauma: Interreactivity, Empathy, and Complicity in Video Games (Toby Smethurst, BOF, 2011-2015)
- Intersecting Memories: The Representation of the Holocaust and State Violence in (Post-)Yugoslav Literature (Dr. Stijn Vervaet, FWO, 2011-2014)
- Trauma beyond the Biomedical Paradigm: Towards a Subject-Oriented and Contextual Approach (Gregory Bistoen, BOF, 2011-2015; co-supervisor with Prof. Dr. Stijn Vanheule)
- Intersections of Cultural Memory and Human Rights: The Case of Dave Eggers (Sean Bex and Dr. Katrien Bollen, FWO, 2012-2016; with Prof. Dr. Pieter Vermeulen)
- Conjuguer la Shoah au présent. Représentation et incarnation de la mémoire du génocide
juif dans la littérature contemporaine (Dr. Evelyne Ledoux-Beaugrand, SSHRC, 2012-2014) - Expanding the Notion of Trauma Narration in Applied Theatre: A Post-Narrative and Postdramatic Inquiry into Trauma Reconstruction in Performance in Post-Transition South Africa (Sofie de Smet, NRF-FWO, 2014-2017; co-supervisor with Prof. Dr. Christel Stalpaert and Prof. Dr. Lucia De Haene)
- Conjuring Phantoms: A Comparative Study of Trauma in Comics (Dr. Maaheen Ahmed, FWO, 2014-2017; with Prof. Dr. Jan Baetens)
- Postcolonial Mnemonopoetics: Reading Transcultural Memory in the Poetry of Derek Walcott, Seamus Heaney, Bernardine Evaristo, Sherman Alexie, and Ingrid de Kok (Maria Zirra, joint PhD Stockholm University – UGent, 2014-2017; co-supervisor with Prof. Dr. Stefan Helgesson and Prof. Dr. Bo Ekelund)
- Historicizing Post-9/11 American Literature and Criticism through Biopolitics and a Genealogy of Statelessness (Holly Brown, BOF, 2015-2018)