Welcome to the Theory & Methodology page of the MERLIT project. Below you will find an overview of upcoming and past workshops. At these workshops, we discuss texts that are relevant in the context of the research we carry out in the different work packages (WPs) and associated research projects. Sometimes, we invite guest scholars to contribute to the planning of a T&M workshop and take part in the discussion. All workshops are open to anyone interested, on condition that they register, read the assigned texts and participate in the exchange.
If you are interested in joining the workshops as a guest, please register by writing an email to merlit@vub.be. We look forward to meeting you!
Upcoming T&M Workshop
T&M Workshop 9: Travel Writing, Coloniality and Meritocratic Paradigms
4 March 2026, 10:00-15:00, LIC, Room 4.05, Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussels
Guest: Prof. Dr. Natalya Din-Kariuki, University of Warwick, UK
Texts to be discussed:
- Din-Kariuki, Natalya and Guido van Meersbergen. "Travel Studies and the Decolonial Turn". Studies in Travel Writing 27.2 (2024): 77-93.
- Saïd, Edward W. "The Scope of Orientalism". Orientalism. London: Penguin, 2003. 31–92. (Reading the introduction is also recommended but not mandatory.)
Plus:
- A brief progress report on MERLIT WP 1: "The Politics of Change in Restoration Drama"
- A brief progress report on MERLIT WP 4: "Postmigrant Novels of Formation (Bildungsroman)"
- A brief report from MERLIT - associated project (Talent for Reseach) “Persia Illustrated: Paracolonial Space and the Geopolitical Aesthetic in the ILN, 1856–1873”
Past T&M Workshops
T&M Workshop 8: Visualising Data in Literary History Projects
4 December 2025, 10:30-13:00, VUB, C.2.07B, Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussels
Texts discussed:
- Wollheim, Richard. "On Pictorial Representation". The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 56.3 (1998): 221-226.
- Smith, Murray. "On the Twofoldness of Character". New Literary History 42.2 (2011): 286-291.
Plus:
Brief presentation of the collaboration with the VUB's Brussels Digital Text Lab B-TXT, "Mapping MERLIT", WP 3: "Modernist Manifesto in the Black Atlantic World"
T&M Workshop 7: Degrees of Realism, Autobiography and Form
30 October 2025, 10:30-15:30, LIC, Room 4.05 Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussels
Guest: Prof. Dr. Mandisa Mbali, University of Cape Town, South Africa
Texts discussed:
Smith, Sidonie andJulia Watson. Reading Autobiography Now. "Defining and Discerning Life Narrative Forms" (required); "What about Autobiographical Truth?" (suggested). Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2024. 3-37; 153-165.
Kornbluh, Anna. The Order of Forms: Realism, Formalism, and Social Space. "Ordering The Order of Forms" (excerpt); "The Set Theory of Wuthering Heights: Realism, Antagonism, and the Infinities of Social Space". Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2019. 27-32; 56-78.
Plus:
Progress report on MERLIT WP 2: "19th Century Travelogues"
T&M Workshop 7 organised in collaboration with the AFROPRESS project.
T&M Workshop 6: The Value of Work, Concepts of Re-Productivity
18 June 2025, 10:30-15:30, LIC, Room 4.05, Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussels
Guest: Prof. Dr. Anca Parvulescu, Washington University St. Louis, USA
Texts discussed:
- Parvulescu, Anca. "Introduction"; "Import/Export: Housework in an International Frame". The Traffic in Women's Work: East European Migration and the Making of Europe. Chicago/London: U of Chicago P, 2014. 1-20; 49-67.
- Smith, Zadie. "The Embassy of Cambodia". The New Yorker, 11 & 18 February 2013.
Plus:
- Progress report on MERLIT - associated project: "(Post-)Migrant Narratives of Mobility and Care"
T&M Workshop 5: Form, Hierarchy, Character
7 May 2025, 11:30-15:30, LIC, Room 4.05, Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussels
Texts discussed:
- Pfister, Manfred. "Dramatis Personae and Dramatic Figure". The Theory and Analysis of Drama. Transl. John Halliday: Cambridge: CUP, 1993. 160-194.
- Levine, Caroline. "Introduction: 'The Affordances of Form', 'Affordances'; 'Whole, Rhythm, Hierarchy, Network'"; "4: Hierarchy". Forms: Whole, Rhythm, Hierarchy, Network. Oxfordshire: Princeton UP, 2015. 1-11; 21-23; 82-93.
Plus:
- Progress report on MERLIT WP 1: The Politics of Change in Restoration Drama
T&M Workshop 4: Citizenship, Belonging, Agency in Colonial Hegemonies
6 February 2025, 10:00-15:30, LIC, R. 4.05, Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussels
Guests: Dr. Gibson Ncube, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa
Texts discussed:
- Tallie, T.J. "Introduction" and "'To Become Useful and Patriotic Citizens': Education and Belonging" Queering Colonial Natal: Indigeneity and the Violence of Belonging in Southern Africa. London/Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2019. 1-14. 151-182.
- Ncube, Gibson. "Skin and Silence in Selected Maghrebian Queer Films". Journal of African Cultural Studies, 33.1 (2021): 51-66.
Plus:
- Progress report on MERLIT WP 5: Heroes in 21st Century Afrofuturist Mediascapes
Workshop 4 jointly organised with the FORAGENCY Research Group.
T&M Workshop 3: Cultural Translation
4 December 2024, 10:00-15:30, VUB C.2.07B, Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussels
Texts discussed:
- Apter, Emily S.. "Introduction"; "Global Translatio: The 'Invention' of Comparative Literature, Instabul 1933"; "Nothing Is Translatable". The Translation Zone: A New Comparative Literature. Oxfordshire: Princeton UP, 2006. 3-11; 41-64; 85-93.
- Tymozcko, Maria. "Postcolonial Writing and Literary Translation". Post-Colonial Translation Theory and Practice. Eds. Susan Bassnett and Harish Trivedi. London: Routledge, 1999. 19-40.
Plus:
- Progress report on MERLIT WP 4: "Postmigrant Novels of Formation" (Bildungsroman)
T&M Workshop 2: Meritocracy, Concepts of Success and Failure
22 October 2024 10:00-15:30, VUB C.2.07B, Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussels
Texts discussed:
- Sandel, Michael J. "Great Because Good"; "The Rhetoric of Rising" & "Success Ethics". The Tyranny of Merit: What's Become of the Common Good? New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020. 34-58; 59-80; 113-152.
- Sennett, Richard. "Talent and the Spectre of Uselessness". The Culture of the New Capitalism. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006. 84-130.
Plus:
- Progress report on MERLIT WP 3: "Modernist Manifesto in the Black Atlantic World"
T&M Workshop 1: Approaching "Meritocracy"
26 June 2024, 10:00-15:30, Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussels
Guest: Prof. Dr. Therese Ennin, University of Cape Coast, Ghana
Texts discussed:
- Appiah, Kwame Anthony. "Class". The Lies that Bind: Rethinking Identity. New York: Liveright, 2019. 135-185.
- Young, Michael. The Rise of the Meritocracy. London: Penguin Books, 1958.
