Bio

Gaston Franssen (1977) is assistant professor of Literary Culture at the University of Amsterdam and program director for the MA programs in Literary Studies. He lectured at the University of Tilburg and Utrecht University, and was managing director of the Dutch Graduate School for Literary Studies (OnderzoekSchool Literatuurwetenschap OSL). In 2008, he defended his PhD thesis gerrit kouwenaar en de politiek van het lezen (Nijmegen: Vantilt), an analysis of the interpretive conventions at work in Dutch poetry criticism. His current research focuses on the impact of cultural diversification on modern literature and literary culture. Research topics include contemporary Dutch and American-English literature, reception aesthetics, bestseller authorship, literary celebrity, literary fandom, performance poetry, therapeutic fiction/fictional therapy, the narrative self and discourses of subjectivity.

• Academia page Gaston Franssen

• Literaire fancultuur in Nederland, 1800 tot nu (Themanummer Spiegel der Letteren)

• Literatuur in de wereld: handboek moderne letterkunde

• On Dutch performance poetry in the 1960s

• gerrit kouwenaar en de politiek van het lezen

Currect research activities (thesis supervision possible)

• Celebrity Authors between Literature and Popular Culture
• Literary Bestsellers: Between Prestige and Profit
• Fear of Fiction: Literature, Autofiction, Therapy
• Interdiscursivity
• Narrative Self
• Adaptation & Remediation

Lectures & Presentations

- Invited lectures and presentations
2011            '(Cross)cultural literacies and (trans)national literatures', with Thomas Vaessens, seminar (2x) during ACS Summer Institute 2011, University of Ghent, Belgium (11-15 July).
2011            Respons to Liesbeth Minnaard and Yasemin Yildiz during symposium Singularity: Diffracted Memories in Transnational Literature, Utrecht University (22-24 June).
2010            'De schrijver als ster. Populaire massacultuur, idolatrie, en de identiteit van de schrijver'. Lecture. BA Spring School Comparatieve Neerlandistiek, Freie Universität Berlin, 26 March.
2010           'Interdiscursive relaties tussen literaire auteurs en populaire beroemdheden'.Symposium Intertekstualiteit in theorie en praktijk, University of Amsterdam, 11 June.
2007           'De Dood van de Podiumdichter: het performend subject in de podiumpoëzie'. Lecture. Studiedag 'De tekst en de drager': nieuwe en oude media in de Nederlandse literatuur, Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium, 11 October.
2005           'Wetenschap, essayistiek en intermedialiteit: Kiez21.org'. Presentation. OSL-Masterclass Intermedialiteit (organized by Henk Oosterling and Kiene Brillenburg-Würth), Utrecht University, 10 February.
2004           'De toekomst van de letterkundige neerlandistiek'. Presentation. Symposium Nieuwe mogelijkheden voor taalkundig en letterkundig onderzoek in Nederland, Raad voor Geesteswetenschappen, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), Amsterdam, 26 November.
 
- Conference and workshop presentations (accepted after anonymous review)
2011           'Made in the U$A: Counter Culture, Consumerism & New Journalism in the 1960s'. Paper presentation. Witnessing the 1960s: Literature and Journalism in A Decade of Change, 19-20 May, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen.
2010           'The reception of literary Celebrity: Star Texts and the Construction of Literary Authorship'. Paper presentation. Text, Transmission, Reception: A Multidisciplinary Conference, 28-29 November, Radboud University Nijmegen.
2010           'Authors and Idols: Contemporary Authorship and Cultural Celebrity'. Paper presentation. 21st-Century European Literature: Mapping New Trends, 15-17th September, University of St Andrews, UK.
2010           'The Illusion ofIntimacy: Mass Culture Celebrity and the Construction of Authorial Identity'. Writings of Intimacy in the 20th and 21st Centuries. 10-12 September, University of Loughborough, UK.
2009           'Home of the Uprooted: The City as Drifting Topos in the Work of Robert Anker'. Paper presentation. Imagining Amsterdam: Visions and Revisions, University of Amsterdam, 21 November.
2007           'Poëziekritiek, ethiek, en de totaal witte kamers van Gerrit Kouwenaar'. Paper presentation, De Tekst op Tafel, Universiteit van Amsterdam, 27 April.
2007           'Ik zit in de boom: de verbeelding van het schrijvende subject in de Nederlandse poëzie'. Paper presentation, Cross-Over: Eerst Congres Nederlandse Letterkunde, University of Amsterdam , 19 January.
2006           'The Politics of Muteness. Silence and Political Commitment in Modern Poetry'. Paper presentation, Poetry & Politics 2006 Conference, University of Stirling, UK, 15 July.
2006           'Silence and the Dialogical Self: Considerations on Polyphony and Authorship', in collaboration with S.M. van Geelen (Wilhelmina Children's Hospital, Utrecht). Paper presentation, The Fourth International Conference on the Dialogical Self 2006, 3 juni, University of Braga, Portugal.
2005           'Intention, Commitment and Impersonality in Modern Poetry. The Case of Gerrit Kouwenaar'. Paper presentation, The HERMES 2005 International Seminar in Literary Studies: Portraits and Stories of the Self, University of Lisbon , Portugal , 20 June.
2005           'Naming Silence: Tropological Strategies, Aesthetic Autonomy and Political Commitment in (the Interpretation of) the Poetry of Gerrit Kouwenaar'. Paper presentation, Rhetoric, Politics, Ethics, Ghent University, Belgium, 21 April.
2004           'Representation, Aesthetic Autonomy, and Ethical Commitment in the Poetry of Gerrit Kouwenaar: Towards a History of Interpreting Poetry in the Netherlands'. Paper presentation, The 12th Interdisciplinary Conference on Netherlandic Studies: The Future of the Past: The Low Countries in the New Europe, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis MI, USA, 5 June.

No known ancillary activities