Written by Prof. Jan Baetens I have no idea whether Yukio Mishima is (still) a key figure in queer and LGBTQ studies, but his lesser known 1963 novel The School of Flesh would be a good starting point of a broad and stimulating cultural analysis (original title: Nikutai no gakkō; I read the book in … Continue reading
It is always great to read a piece of research that you would have wanted to write yourself: thoroughly researched, fascinating and funny. The Personality Brokers is such a book. The book starts off as a personal quest as well as an archival research into the origins of the famous Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), a personality test frequently used by human resources and professional coaching. Continue reading
DETECt is a large collaborative initiative that involves scholars, teachers, students, professionals of the creative industries, and the general public in investigating how practices of transnational production, distribution, and consumption in the field of popular culture have facilitated the appearance of engaging representations of Europe’s cultural identity.
The project researches the popular genre of crime novels and TV series, and in particular, tries to find out what explains the successful circulation of e.g. the European Noir. Continue reading
During my bachelor years at KU Leuven, I was told that if I wanted to pursue my true passion, I should be ready to defend it tooth and nail. Certainly, that came true when I discovered metal music studies. What are those? And why are they worthwhile? This is a question that I, following my graduation from the Master of Cultural Studies in 2018/9, have strived to answer and defend. Continue reading
(Dutch article) Andries Haesevoets writes about the process leading up to writing his master thesis about theater and autism. A dissertation that would later win him the Passwerk Price. Continue reading
A recent initiative by bookshop Crypte Tonique is the “blowbook”, a new type of small-sized visual narrative books that “reinvent” a special type of books launched by Dutch cartoonist Alfred Mazure during the Second World War, at a moment of great paper shortage. Yet blowbooks (and there are currently already four of them) are much more than just “little books”. Continue reading
The European Capital of Culture (ECOC) initiative sheds an impressive light on the relevance of cities and their culture for the development of Europe. Every year two cities succeed with their candidacy and receive the title of being ECOC aiming at shaping an extraordinary year of the respective cultural capital as sustainable and ambitious as possible. Continue reading
The seminar will focus on the rising female fashion designers in Iran and the way they take advantage of social media platforms, in particular Instagram, to push back the existing restrictions on the underground fashion activities in Iran, in order to advance their business plans by introducing their designs to a large audience, marketing, and acquiring artistic inspirations, while at the same time contributing -not always intentionally- to the anti- compulsory hijab campaigns. Continue reading
Who has never read or watched a crime drama raise your hand. Crime fiction is, without any doubt, one of the most popular genres of our time. From P.D James to Fred Vargas, from Hercule Poirot to Commissario Montalbano, we are constantly -visually and literary- surrounded by characters, stories, allusions that refer to this genre. Continue reading
Poland was one of the first countries to impose a strict lockdown in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. This early decision of the Polish government to shut down prevented the situation from spiralling out of control, but it has also proven to be a heavy blow to a cultural field that was already under pressure before the pandemic struck. Continue reading
