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The Study Group for Literature and Culture (Werkgroep Literatuur en Cultuur or WOLEC) offers lunch lectures in which our speakers tackle a broad range of subjects and methodologies. We host a variety of modules, from reading sessions to lectures to discussions, etc. Each year, we receive a number of guest lecturers and young researchers from the VUB and beyond. The aims of the study group are to provide our speakers with the opportunity to present their work in an informal context, and to allow researchers to exchange views with their fellow researchers as well as with more experienced colleagues.

Upcoming WOLEC sessions:

17/06/2021

Alexandra Saemmer (Paris 8)

Master Class by the CLIC Lorand Chair Intermediality

Paper, Web and Stage: Cross-Medial Interactions between Database and Narrative

For several decades, authors are experimenting with the narrative and poetic potential of databases and generative grammars. Although the web medium appears spontaneously welcoming to these literary forms, they are also remediated on stage and in paper books. With recent developments in machine learning, the aesthetics and poetics of the database give rise to further experimentation. This master class will be dedicated in particular to cross-medial interactions between database and narrative.

The master class is a collaboration between CLIC, the inter-university group SEL – Centre for Study of Experimental Literature (UGent/VUB) and WOLEC – the Study Group for Literature and Culture (VUB).

Past WOLEC Sessions:

4/06/2021	Bette Dam (Vrije Universiteit Brussel)	The narratives of contemporary war journalism
17/05/2021	Laura Folica (Universitat Oberta de Catalunya) Master Class by the Emile Lorand Chair in Spanish Literature	Social Networks of the Past. Mapping Hispanic and Lusophone Modernity through Literary Translation in Periodicals
10/05/2021	Ezzahra Benlahoussine (Mohamed V University) Irina Stanova (VUB)	City-as-Text, Text-as-City: Mestizage and Hybridity in Juan Goytisolo’s text Makbara Containing an Epidemic: Reassessing W. S. Maugham’s The Painted Veil and Its Film Adaptations
16/04/2021	Stefan Clappaert & Anthony Manu (VUB)	Denkkaders in de 21^e-eeuwse literatuurwetenschap: leessessie Hans Demeyer & Sven Vitse - Affectieve crisis, literair herstel (2021)
19/03/2021	Tessel Veneboer (UGent)	The queer potential of fragmentation: sexuality and identity in Kathy Acker's work
8/12/2020	Chiara Zampieri (KUL)	Modern Etruscans
18/2/2020	Moderator: Carolien Von Nerom (VUB)	Roundtable: Defining Narrative
18/12/2019	Rachele Gusella (VUB)	“Every good artist makes their audience uncomfortable”: Street poetry as an expression of the political and social crisis in Western Europe
21/11/2019	Giovanni Pietro Vitali (University College Cork/Marie Curie Research Fellow)	Last Letters from the World Wars. Analysing Texts of Conflict through a Digital Approach
15/5/2019	Hannah Van Hove (VUB/FWO)	‘Belonging nowhere’?: British experimental women writers and the politics of marginalisation
14/2/2019	Mathias Meert (VUB/FWO)	Pantomime and/as Literature: Text, Theatricality, Genre
23/1/2019	Helena Van Praet (VUB)	Materiality and Textuality in the Work of Anne Carson
18/12/2019	Anthony Manu (VUB)	Humour in nineteenth-century lyric (H. Heine, A. de Musset, L. Eichrodt, G. Nadaud, W.S. Gilbert, P.A. De Génestet, F. HaverSchmidt and C. S. Calverley): adaptation and application of recent models for textual humour
21/11/2018	Andrea Penso (VUB/FWO)	The Italian Reception of English Novels During the Long 18th Century: A Digital Approach
10/10/2018	Carolien Van Nerom (VUB)	Meaningful Minimalism: Narrative Strategies in Operas by Philip Glass
13/6/2018	Thomas Thoelen (VUB/FWO)	The ‘Techno-Logical’ Voice of Writing in Beckett’s The Unnamable
3/5/2018	Zhuyun Song (VUB)	Chinese European literature in the theoretic field of postcolonial literature
14/2/2018	Charles Derre & Michel De Gruijter (DBNL)	DBNL: Aspecten en functionaliteiten voor onderzoekers en docenten
4/12/2017	Carolien Van Nerom (VUB)	Reading session: Philip Glass – from novel to minimalist opera
8/11/2017	Janna Aerts (VUB)	Reading session: Henri Lefebvre. ‘Work and Leisure in Everyday Life’ (1958)
11/05/2017	Stéphane Hirschi (Université de Valenciennes et du Hainaut-Cambrésis)	Chanson et intermédialité
27/04/2017	Annelies Augustyns (Universiteit Antwerpen)	Urban Experience in the Third Reich: A Topopoetic Analysis of German-Jewish Autobiographical Literature from Breslau
01/03/2017	Alyssa Verhees (Vrije Universiteit Brussel)	Ekfrasis voorbij: het kunstwerk als ding in het oeuvre van Stefan Hertmans
16/02/2016	Marc Farrant (Goldsmiths, University of London)	“With so many millions of souls to count [...] what does it matter if they miss one?”: The Word of God in Coetzee’s Jesus Novels
16/01/2016	Atinati Mamatsashvili (Université Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV)/Staatsuniversiteit Ilia Tbilisi)	Déconstruction de l’imaginaire antisémite : Klee, Heartfield, Beucler, Thomas
08/12/2016	Audrey De Landtsheer and Ellen Voets (VUB)	Presentation of Master Theses: ‘Evolution of the Portrayal of Women in Rewritings of Charles Perrault’s “Bluebeard”’ and ‘Differences and similarities in the portrayal of women in fairy tales written by female authors across the ages’
24/11/2016	Julio Monteiro (University of Brasília)	Literature, History, Memory: The Historical Novel in Suriname
04/11/2016	Jan Vanvelk (KU Leuven)	The Animal, the Alien, the Machine: The Rhetoric of Humanity in H .G Wells
14/04/2016	Mareike Sera (Humboldt Universität Berlin)	Next to nothing. Exhaustion and abundance in Jan Švankmajer's The Fall of the House of Usher (1980) and the writing of Henri Michaux
15/03/2016	Bart Vervaeck (KU Leuven)	Een greep op het ongrijpbare. Over unnatural narratology
03/03/2016	Douglas Atkinson (VUB)	De rol van stilistische en conceptuele negativiteit in het werk van Beckett
14/01/2016	Bram Lambrecht (KU Leuven)	Ik, jij, wij. De morele exemplariteit van Alice Nahons poëzie
10/12/2015	Claus Peter Neumann (Universidad de Zaragoza)	Loving the Goat: Edward Albee’s The Goat; or, Who is Sylvia as representative American tragedy
19/11/2015	David Martens (KULeuven / MDNR)	Autoportrait de l'écrivain en vis-à-vis. L'entretien dans les collections de monographies de poche illustrées "Qui êtes-vous?" (La Manufacture) et "Les Contemporains" (Le Seuil)
29/10/2015	François Staring (VUB)	Lezen hoe luisteraars verbeelden: associatieve beschrijving in de muziekroman van de twintigste eeuw
06/10/2015	Birgit Neumann (Universität Düsseldorf)	Postcolonial Ekphrasis and Counter-Visions in Derek Walcott’s Tiepolo’s Hound – Contact Zones, Contests and Translations
03/06/2015	Lesley Penné (VUB)	Grenslandschap in een land zonder grenzen - Heimat in de literatuur van de Duitstalige Gemeenschap
21/04/2015	Janine Hauthal (VUB)	Fictions of Europe: Transnational Discourses in Contemporary British Literature
27/03/2015	Nele Wynants (ULB/UA)	Philosophical Toys: Optical illusion at Play in Theatre and Performance
19/02/2015	Audrey Garcia (Université Montpellier 3, RIRRA21)	Posture(s) transmédiale(s) au prisme du cas Cocteau
27/01/2015	Anneleen Van Hertbruggen (UA)	Het nationaalsocialisme als politieke religie. Religieus taalgebruik in nazi-propagandapoëzie
28/12/2014	Sophie Zimmer (Leo Baeck Institute London)	Jewish Topographies in post-1989 Berlin
27/11/2014	Lieselot De Taeye (VUB/FWO)	Experimenteel realisme: documentaire aspecten in het Nederlandse en Vlaamse proza van de jaren '60 en '70
22/4/2014	Vik Doyen (KU Leuven)	Close reading of genetische tekstkritiek? Hoe bestudeer je het literaire werk van Malcolm Lowry?
17/3/2014	Kila van der Starre - Arno Van Vlierberghe (MaNaMa Literatuurwetenschap)	‘Een beminnelijke prater op visite.’ Nederlandstalige poëzie op geluidsdragers;	De ritmische impuls als kloppend hart in ‘Messiah’ (C.C. Krijgelmans) en ‘Het boek ik’ (Bert Schierbeek)
20/2/2014	Guy Dugas (Université Paul Valéry – Montpellier III)	Albert Memmi et le post-colonial au Maghreb (1957-2004)
10/2/2014	Thomas Ernst (Universität Duisburg-Essen)	Literatuur en subversie: politiek schrijven in het hedendaagse Duitstalige proza
17/1/2014	Kristiaan Versluys (UGent)	Het trauma van 9/11 in de Amerikaanse literatuur
2/12/2013	Bart Keunen (UGent)	Sleutelbegrippen in de narratologie: de ‘chronotoop’
31/10/2013	Mathias Meert (VUB/FWO)	In gesprek met Beer-Hofmann. Auteursbeeld en schrijversbezoek als paratekst en ‘Erinnerungsraum’
14/5/2013	Chiel Kattenbelt (Universiteit Utrecht)	‘The Experience of Temporality in Time-Based Media’
15/4/2013	Claire Swyzen (VUB)	‘Textimonies’ in Documentary Theatre: From Authentic ‘Character’ to Post-Human ‘Data Body’
11/02/2013	Lars Bernaerts (VUB/UGent)	Sleutelbegrippen in de narratologie: ‘bewustzijnsvoorstelling’