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Dr. S. (Stephan) Besser

Faculteit der Geesteswetenschappen
Capaciteitsgroep Nederlandse Letterkunde
Fotograaf: onbekend

Bezoekadres
  • Spuistraat 134
  • Kamernummer: 4.32
Postadres
  • Postbus 1637
    1000 BP Amsterdam
  • Profiel

     

    I am an assistant professor of Modern Dutch Literature and Literary Studies at the University of Amsterdam and member of the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA). I currently serve as coordinator of the Research Master's programme in Literary Studies at the UvA and as a series editor of the book series Experimental Practices: Encounters across Arts, Sciences and Humanities (Brill)I've been managing director of the Netherlands Research School for Literary Studies (OSL) and was a research fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study (NIAS) in 2020-21.

    My research interests include literature & science, poetics of knowledge, cognitive literary studies, literary representations of labor and creativity and contemporary Dutch literature. I welcome PhD proposals in these fields. 

     

    The Allure of Patterns: Exploring a 21st Century Figure of Knowledge

    This research project investigates the emergence of pattern as a key symbolic form and worldview of the (post)digital age. In a 2008 WIRED article Chris Anderson infamously predicted that digitization and big data would soon make scientific theory obsolete since large computing clusters can “find patterns where science cannot.” Intriguingly, however, patterns now increasingly acquire symbolic meaning that points far beyond the mere flattening out of theory and interpretative depth into large scale statistical empiricism. This project explores the new pattern aesthetics and its epistemic and ideological implications in contemporary works of art and literature and the human sciences. Related publications:

     

    Worlding the Brain: Neurocentrism, Cognition and the Challenge of the Arts and Humanities

    Moving beyond the neurohype of recent decades, this book introduces the concept of worlding as a new way to understand the inherent entanglement of brains/minds with their worldly environments, cultural practices, and social contexts. Case studies ranging from film, literature, music, and dance to pedagogy, historical trauma, and present-day discourses of mindfulness investigate how brains are worlded in an active interplay of biological, cognitive, and socio-discursive factors. Combining scholarly work with personal accounts of neurodiversity and essays by artists reflecting on their practical engagement with cognition, Worlding the Brain makes a case for the distinctive role of the humanities and arts in the study of brains and cognition and explores novel forms interdisciplinarity.

     

    Pathographie der Tropen: Literatur, Medizin und Kolonialismus um 1900

    Offering the first critical account of medical tropicality in German (post)colonial studies, this book analyzes the representation of the tropics as a space of disease and madness in Wilhelmine colonial culture. It includes chapters on the construction of 'Tropenkoller' (violent tropical neurasthenia) in colonial literature and politics, the representation of 'tropical fever' in medical literature and works of fiction such as Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain (1924) and expressionist short stories, tropicalist metaphors in the work of Friedrich Nietzsche and intersecting discourses of tropical and racial 'hygiene' that prefigured ideologies and politics of racial purity in Nazi Germany.

     

  • Publicaties

    2023

    • Besser, S. (2023). Een goddelijke braakbal: Maxim Februari's 'Klont' en de esthetiek van dataficering. Nederlandse Letterkunde, 28(2), 183-212.
    • Besser, S. (2023). Thanks for Sharing: Local Worlds, Xeno-Patterning, and Predictive Processing. In S. Besser, & F. Lysen (Eds.), Worlding the Brain: Neurocentrism, Cognition, and the Challenge of the Arts and Humanities (pp. 300-317). (Experimental Practices: Encounters across Arts, Sciences and Humanities; Vol. 3). Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004681293_021 [details]
    • Besser, S., & Lysen, F. (2023). Introduction: Together again, Apart. In S. Besser, & F. Lysen (Eds.), Worlding the Brain: Neurocentrism, Cognition, and the Challenge of the Arts and Humanities (pp. 1-15). (Experimental Practices: Encounters across Arts, Sciences and Humanities; Vol. 3). Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004681293_002 [details]
    • Besser, S., & Lysen, F. (Eds.) (2023). Worlding the Brain: Neurocentrism, Cognition, and the Challenge of the Arts and Humanities. (Experimental Practices: Encounters across Arts, Sciences and Humanities; Vol. 3). Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004681293 [details]

    2022

    • Besser, S. (2022). Binding Brain, Body and World: Pattern as a Figure of Knowledge in Andy Clark's Work on Predictive Processing. POROI: Interdisciplinary Journal of Rhetorical Analysis & Invention, 17(1). Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.17077/2151-2957.31133 [details]

    2021

    2019

    • Besser, S. (2019). Bonding with Oliver Sacks: A Posture Perspective on De vergeting (2013) by Daan Heerma van Voss. In A-F. van der Meer, W. Schrover, N. Moser, & M. Onrust (Eds.), Naar het onbekende: Perspectieven op literatuur, cultuur en kennis (pp. 51-64, 256). Literatoren. [details]

    2017

    2016

    • Besser, S. (2016). Calling Gaia: World Brains and Global Memory. In S. Groes (Ed.), Memory in the Twenty-First Century: New Critical Perspectives from the Arts, Humanities and Sciences (pp. 70-75). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137520586_9 [details]

    2015

    • Besser, S. (2015). Mixing Repertoires: Cerebral Subjects in Contemporary Dutch Neurological Fiction. In J. Grave, R. Honings, & B. Noak (Eds.), Illness and Literature in the Low Countries: From the Middle Ages until the 21st Century (pp. 253-272). V&R unipress. https://doi.org/10.14220/9783737005203.253 [details]

    2013

    2006

    • Besser, S., Baronian, M. A., & Jansen, Y. (2006). Introduction: Diaspora and Memory. Figures of Displacment in Contemporary Literature, Arts and Politics. Thamyris / Intersecting, 13, 9-16.

    2002

    • Besser, S. (2002). Germanin. Pharmazeutische Signaturen des deutschen (Post) Kolonialismus. In A. Honold, & O. Simons (Eds.), Kolonialismus als Kultur. Literatur, Medien, Wissenschaft in der deutschen Gründerzeit des Fremden (pp. 167-195). Tübingen/Basel: Francke. [details]

    2013

    • Besser, S. (2013). Benaderingen. In J. Rock, G. Franssen, & F. Essink (Eds.), Literatuur in de wereld: handboek moderne letterkunde (pp. 97-163). Nijmegen: Vantilt. [details]
    • Franssen, G., & Besser, S. (2013). Macht. In J. Rock, G. Franssen, & F. Essink (Eds.), Literatuur in de wereld: handboek moderne letterkunde (pp. 166-194, 250). Vantilt. [details]

    2004

    • Besser, S. (2004). Die Organisation des kolonialen Wissens - 10 Okt. 1902: In Berlin tagt der erste Deutsche Kolonialkongress. In K. R. Scherpe, & A. Honold (Eds.), Mit Deutschland um die Welt. Eine Literatur- und Kulturgeschichte des Fremden in der Kolonialzeit (pp. 300-309). Stuttgart: Metzler.
    • Besser, S. (2004). Die hygienische Eroberung Afrikas - 9. Juni 1898: Robert Koch hält seine Vortrag 'Ärztliche Beobachtungen in den Tropen'. In K. R. Scherpe, & A. Honold (Eds.), Mit Deutschland um die Welt. Eine Literatur- und Kulturgeschichte des Fremden in der Kolonialzeit (pp. 217-225). Stuttgart: Metzler.
    • Besser, S. (2004). Schauspiele der Scham - Juli 1896: Peter Altenberg gesellt sich im Wiener Tiergarten zu den Aschanti. In K. R. Scherpe, & A. Honold (Eds.), Mit Deutschland um die Welt. Eine Literatur- und Kulturgeschichte des Fremden in der Kolonialzeit (pp. 200-208). Stuttgart: Metzler.
    • Besser, S. (2004). Tropenkoller - März 1904: Freispruch für Prinz Prosper von Arenberg. In K. R. Scherpe, & A. Honold (Eds.), Mit Deutschland um die Welt. Eine Literatur- und Kulturgeschichte des Fremden in der Kolonialzeit (pp. 300-309)
    • Besser, S. (2004). Zwischen Land und Meer - August 1901: Die Woermann-Linie fährt in 30 Tagen nach Swakopmund. In K. R. Scherpe, & A. Honold (Eds.), Mit Deutschland um die Welt. Eine Literatur- und Kulturgeschichte des Fremden in der Kolonialzeit (pp. 264-270). Stuttgart: Metzler.

    2003

    • Besser, S. (2003). Mynheer Peeperkorn's Fever. Arcadia, 2, 257-264. [details]
    • Besser, S. (2003). Tropenkoller. The Interdiscursive Poetics of a German Colonial Syndrome. In G. Rousseau, & M. Gill (Eds.), Framing and Imagining Disease in Cultural History (pp. 303-320). Londen: Palgrave Macmillan. [details]

    2021

    2017

    • Besser, S. (2017). Gewaar van het lichaam, gewaar van de wereld. Vooys, 1/2, 97-100.

    2016

    2014

    • Besser, S. (2014). Turns en verstrengelingen: gedachten over de toekomst van de interdisciplinaire literatuurwetenschap aan de hand van William Gibsons 'Pattern Recognition'. Vooys, 32(3), 6-14. [details]
    • Besser, S. (2014). [Bespreking van: L. Bernaerts (2011) De retoriek van waanzin: taalhandelingen, onbetrouwbaarheid, delirium en de waanzinnige ik-verteller]. Tijdschrift voor Nederlandse Taal- en Letterkunde, 130(1), VI-VIII. http://www.tntl.nl/index.php/tntl/article/view/324/130 [details]

    2013

    2012

    • Besser, S. (2012). Neurocultuur: een kleine verkenning. Parmentier, 21(1), 21-30. [details]

    2010

    • Besser, S. (2010). [Review of: V.M. Langbehn (2010) German colonialism, visual culture, and modern memory]. German Studies in India, NF, 2, 197-200. [details]

    Andere

    • Besser, S. (organiser) & Kiverstein, J. D. (organiser) (28-2-2019). Brain-Culture Interfaces, Amsterdam (organising a conference, workshop, ...).
    • Besser, S. (organiser) & Caracciolo, M. (organiser) (6-12-2017). Animal Minds between Narrative and Cognition (SMART CS conference workshop), Amsterdam (organising a conference, workshop, ...).
    • Besser, S. (organiser), Keestra, M. (organiser), Lysen, F. C. (organiser), Kiverstein, J. D. (organiser), Pisters, P. P. R. W. (organiser) & Kuipers, H. H. (organiser) (2-11-2017 - 4-11-2017). Worlding the Brain 2, Amsterdam (organising a conference, workshop, ...).
    • Besser, S. (organiser), Keestra, M. (organiser), Pisters, P. P. R. W. (organiser) & Kiverstein, J. D. (organiser) (16-11-2016). Predictive Processing as an Interdisciplinary Concept, Amsterdam (organising a conference, workshop, ...).
    • Besser, S. (organiser), Keestra, M. (organiser), Kiverstein, J. D. (organiser), Lysen, F. C. (organiser) & Pisters, P. P. R. W. (organiser) (17-3-2016 - 19-3-2016). Worlding the Brain: Patterns and Rhythms in Neuroscience and the Humanities, Amsterdam. These upcoming three days, numerous artists and scholars from diversebackgrounds will address the ubiquity of the human brain in contemporary (…) (organising a conference, workshop, ...). https://worldingthebrain2016.com/
    This list of publications is extracted from the UvA-Current Research Information System. Questions? Ask the library or the Pure staff of your faculty / institute. Log in to Pure to edit your publications. Log in to Personal Page Publication Selection tool to manage the visibility of your publications on this list.
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