Liesbeth Minnaard is a University Lecturer at the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society.

More information about Liesbeth Minnaard

Liesbeth Minnaard is Assistant Professor at the Film and Literary Studies Department of Leiden University (since 2007). She received her PhD with honors from Trier University, Germany (supervisors: Prof. Dr. Herbert Uerlings and Prof. Dr. Ernst van Alphen) and holds a MA degree in Algemene Letteren (Specializations: Modern Western Literature and Gender Studies) from Utrecht University. She obtained a Gymnasium degree at the Goese Lyceum, Goes.

Liesbeth has received various research grants (Erasmus, NIAS, DAAD, DFG, CORE, LUF). She has been a visiting scholar at Sheffield University, UK and University Duisburg-Essen, Germany, visiting PhD candidate at Cornell University, USA and at the European University Viadrina, Germany, and a regular participant in Mieke Bal’s Theory Seminar at ASCA, the Netherlands. She is a member of the board of NOG, the Dutch Research School of Gender Studies and member of the CLIC Advisory Board (Centre for Literary and Intermedial Crossings, Vrije Universiteit Brussel). Together with Dr. Isabel Hoving and Prof. Dr. Elisabeth Bekers, Free University Brussels, she is the organizer of the Platform for Postcolonial Readings (since 2008).

Liesbeth’s research is situated in and across the fields of comparative literature, literary and cultural theory, migration studies, Dutch literary studies, German literary studies, postcolonial studies, gender studies and intersectionality. In her work she explores the various ways in which literature, as a cultural and artistic expression on a local, national and global level, positions itself in relation to society/societies and to the socio-political issues at play there. She considers works of literature as aesthetic interventions and examines the myriad manners in which they signify, matter and – sometimes, in some situations and for some individuals or groups – make a difference.

Liesbeth teaches primarily in the BA Film- en Literatuurwetenschap, the Minor Gender and Sexuality in Society, MA Cultural Analysis and Literary Theory, and the ResMA Art and Literature at Leiden University. Her courses cover a wide range of topics, from introductory courses to literary studies and literary theory, courses in the fields of interculturality and globalization, to “thematic” courses on concepts such as Crisis or the Literary Fantastic. She has been involved in various education activities for the research schools OSL, NICA and NOG. In 2022 she obtained the Senior Teaching Qualification (SKO, Senior Kwalificatie Onderwijs).

Liesbeth has published widely on a broad variety of themes, literatures and literary texts. She is the author of the monograph New Germans, New Dutch. Literary Interventions (Amsterdam University Press, 2008) and co-author of De lichtheid van literatuur. Engagement in de multiculturele samenleving (Acco, 2015 – with Maria Boletsi, Sarah De Mul, and Isabel Hoving). She is co-editor of the volumes Ethnizität und Geschlecht. (Post-)Koloniale Verhandlungen in Geschichte, Kunst und Medien (Böhlau, 2005), Literature, Language and Multiculturality in Scandinavia and the Low Countries (with Wolfgang Behschnitt and Sarah De Mul, Rodopi 2013), Beyond the Myth of Monolingualism and Nach der einen Sprache: literarische Mehrsprachigkeit? (both with Till Dembeck, KultuRRevolution, 2013 and Rodopi 2014), and Languages of Resistance, Transformation and Futurity. From Crisis to Critique (Palgrave Macmillan 2020 – with Maria Boletsi and Janna Houwen). For an overview of her other publications, articles and book chapters, see the Publications tab or visit her academia.edupage.

Fields of interest:

• Literary and cultural theory
• Migration Studies
• Postcolonial Studies
• Globalisation Studies
• Crisis Narratives
• Gender and Sexuality
• Intersectionality
• Modern Dutch Literature
• Modern German Literature

Activities