Research projects (1 - 500 of 2917)

www.researchportal.be - 28 Feb 2013 07:41:32 

Research projects (1 - 500 of 2917) 

Search filter: Classifications: HUMANITIES (H) 

Aristotle and the Gomarists: The controversy between Cornelius Jansenius and Gisbertus Voetius. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: No English Abstract 

Organisations: 

• De Wulf-Mansion Centre for Ancient, Medi 

Researchers: 

• Mathijs Lamberigts 

• Russell Friedman 

I am paid by the KULeuven as 'Doctoraatsbursaal'. That means that I will be officially employed as a PhD student 

receiving a full 

salary. 

K.U.Leuven 



• Health Psychology 


• Johannes Vlaeyen 

Fighting Crime and Corruption: The Impact of Police Forces and Army on Village Life in Graeco-Roman Egypt. 

K.U.Leuven 



• Ancient History 


• Katelijn Vandorpe 

I have a doctoral fellowship, funded by the research council of the KU Leuven (Grant OT/08/013), under supervision of 

Prof. Dr. Luc Goossens. Title of the fellowship is: 'The Natural Course of Loneliness in Mid-Adolescence: 

Determinants, Concomitants, and 

K.U.Leuven 



• School Psychology and Child and Adolesce 


• Janne Vanhalst 

Ambiguous words. Mismatches between syntax and the lexicon 

Hogeschool-Universiteit Brussel 

Abstract: It seems obvious why the sentence the cat played with the mouse is considerably better than the sentence the play catted with the mouse. 

Cat is a noun and play is a verb and we should use them as such. Using play as a noun and cat as a verb simply does not seem to work. Put 

differently, words seem to belong to a specific category and this category determines how the word is used. This view is commonly held in 

linguistics because it is straightforward: nouns are used as nouns, verbs are used as verbs, etc. More generally, the category of a word matches its 

use in the sentence. I will refer to it as the matching principle. 

One expects that if a principle is commonly held in a field that counter-examples are hard to find. This is not the case for the matching principle, 

however. Consider the following example. The words Britney and Timberlake are proper names. According to the matching principle, we expect that 

one can only use them as such. 


• Center for Research In Syntax, Semantics and Phonology 


• MARIJKE DE BELDER 

Third order non-linear Raman microscopy in material science. 

K.U.Leuven 



• Molecular Imaging and Photonics 


• Hiroshi Ujii 

• Maarten Roeffaers 

New Hermeneutics for Renewed Dialogues. A Catholic Perspective on Crucial Theological Issues in Jewish-Christian and 

Ecumencical Dialogues in the Perspective of a Future-Oriented Interpretation of Key Johaninne Texts. 

K.U.Leuven 



• Research Unit Biblical Studies 


• Didier Pollefeyt 

• Reimund Bieringer 

• Peter De Mey

European Muslims and the End of Life. Turkish and Moroccan Attitudes towards Suffering, Dying and Mourning in 

Antwerp, Belgium 

K.U.Leuven 



• Research Unit Theological Ethics 


• Bert Broeckaert 

Caput Iohannis in Disco or St John's Head on a Platter (Johannesschüssel): Object, Context, Medium, Roots. Towards an 

Iconology of the head in the Middle Agnes and the early Modernity, between North and South. 

K.U.Leuven 



• Art History 


• Barbara Baert 

Mapping the Antwerp-Brussels-Oudenarde tapestry complex (1600-1700) viasocial network analysis. 

K.U.Leuven 





• Koenraad Brosens 

This project aims to elucidate the interdependency of music analysis and music historiography through metamethodological 

reflection and case studies from twentieth-century music. The study will be based on: An in-depth 

discussion of the way analysis is i 

K.U.Leuven 



• Musicology 


• Mark Delaere 

Authority and Social Interaction in Graeco-Roman Egypt. 

K.U.Leuven 





• Mark Depauw 

Reform and the Bishop: Episcopal Attitudes towards the Administration and Reform of Religious Communities during the 

Central Middle Ages (Ecclesiastical Province of Rheims, c. 900−c. 1100). 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: Research into the phenomenon of the reform of the medieval Church in general and of religious communities in particular has stood at the 

forefront of historical scholarship for a considerable time. However, until recently, the study of reform was characterized by the prevalence of a 

dominant interpretive framework. The almost revolutionary changes in the institutional Church and in Christian life from c. 1050 onwards, on the one 

hand, have been explained by a top-down model in which local reform initiatives are considered to have derived directly from the increasingly 

centralized power of the papacy. On the other hand, the manifold phases of 'renewal' typical for monastic - and to a lesser degree canonical - 

communities during the tenth and eleventh centuries have predominantly been interpreted by focusing on the influence of specific 'reform centres', 

the activities of their charismatic abbots and the spread of their consuetudines. The local episcopacy, however, when it is at all disc 


• Medieval History 


• Brigitte Meijns 

Exploring the Crisis Years: Stratification and Social-Economic Transformation in the Eastern Mediterranean during the 

Bronze - Iron Age Transition (1200-950.B.C.) 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: 1200 B.C. resonates as one of those symbolic dates in history; its importance lies in its position at the beginning of a phase of crucial 

change. In the Eastern Mediterranean, the decades following 1200 B.C. are a period of crisis during which significant Aegean, Cypriot, Anatolian, 

Levantine and Egyptian centres were devastated (Dothan & Dothan 1992; its importance lies in its position at the beginning of a phase of crucial 

change. In the Eastern Mediterranean, the decades following 1200 B.C. are a period of crisis during which significant Aegean, Cypriot, Anatolian, 

Levantine and Egyptian centres were devastated (Dothan & Dothan 1992; Gitinet al. 1998; Oren 2000). The Bronze Age political and economic 

system collapsed and the aforementioned region underwent profound transformations. Failed harvests, food shortages, floods, earthquakes and fire 

destructions are all mentioned in contemporary literary sources. All these can be considered as partial explanations for the complex p 


• Near Eastern Studies 


• Joachim Bretschneider 

Under the spell of learning: The learning society as challenge for the public role of school, university and family 

education. 

K.U.Leuven

Abstract: Combining empirical methodologies with fundamental philosophical and theoretical work, the aim is to investigate how the current 

evolution towards learning environments is transforming tratdional educational institutions(school, university, family). More particularly we want to 

investigate how this evolution affects the kind of gathering or association that is staged and configured within these sites and especially how this 

affects their public character. On the basis of ethnographicresearch into concrete case-studies - professional learning communitiesat the level of 

parents, teachers and lecturers, as well as families and classrooms as learning environments - a cartography and morphology will be developed. 

This will allow to understand which kinds of gathering appear inside (or as reaction to) these learning environments/communitiesthat are emerging 

today. Based on the mapping of the practices and the articulation of the form of the implied gatherings, the overall aim of this pro 


• Education, Culture and Society 


• Stefan Ramaekers 

• Jan Masschelein 

• Maarten Simons 

Authentic cooperative or team learning environments: How do student andcontext characteristics influence the learning 

process and product? 

K.U.Leuven 



• Education and Training 


• Filip Dochy 

From chaos to order - the creation of the world. New perspectives on the reception of the Platonic cosmogony in the 

Greek, pagan and Christian thought. 

K.U.Leuven 





• Joseph Verheyden 

• Johan Leemans 

• Geert Roskam 

• Peter Van Deun 

• Gerd Van Riel 

Approaching patterns of nature-society interactions in regional development. An interdisciplinary dialogue between past 

and present in the region of Sagalassos. 

K.U.Leuven 



• Archaeology 


• Jeroen Poblome 

Literature and media innovation: the question of genre transformations. 

K.U.Leuven 



• Literature and Culture 


• Jan Baetens 

ALIAS- Archivio di Lingua Spontanea. Een corpus van spontaan gesproken Italiaans, aanwezig in de verschillende 

Italiaanssprekende regio's en gemeenschappen in Europa: een didactische tool voor academisch onderricht van de 

Italiaanse taal. 

K.U.Leuven 



• French, Italian and Comparative Linguist 


• Stefania Marzo 

The reception of Platos khôra in the Early Modern Period (1400-1650). 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: If you strip down the material universe to its basic constituent, what is left? From the very outset, philosophy has faced the difficulty of 

conceiving this puzzling substrate. Since this substrate should by its very nature be indeterminate, it cannot be properly conceptualized. Hence, the 

acceptance of this underlying nature confronts philosophy with its own limits: right in the centre of the philosophical system there is something that 

cannot be grasped by discursive reasoning. This problem underlies a long tradition, initiated by Plato and continued by his pupil Aristotle. 

Seemingly, this incomprehensible element was only banned in the seventeenth century, due to a different approach to matter. This projectwishes to 

discuss this problem by means of the reception history of an emblematic concept put forward by Plato. The latter refers to the above-mentioned 

substrate as a receptacle of Ideas. According to Plato, this third kind is invisible, unshaped and only apprehennbsp;sibleb 





• Guy Claessens 

Drowning in Narcissus´ mirror: psychological readings of Graeco-Roman Imperial literature.

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: The project aims to show how the way in which Imperial literature was produced and consumed contributed to the fact that the topperformers 

of this era - who produced a major part of the extant literature - often display narcissistic character traits, traces of which can be found in 

their lives and literary works. Moreover, the direct contact between the author and his audience during literary performances brought about a 

climate in which success and failure (along with potential traumas) could be very close to each other. Through studies of texts by Philostratus, Aulus 

Gellius, Favorinus, Aelius Aristides, Lucian, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, the project aims to open new perspectives on the interaction between 

socio-cultural data and psychological conditions, while simultaneously, through a thorough attention for the public reception of these textsand 

figures, questioning and exploring the culturally defined boundaries of the normal and the pathological. 


• Text and Interpretation 


• Luc Van der Stockt 

• Jeroen Lauwers 

The Categories: Ockham and Beyond. 

K.U.Leuven 






Re-investigating the musical surface. 

K.U.Leuven 





• Pieter Bergé 

Defining the Elite in Roman Egypt: The Place of the Metropolitan and GymOrders in the Roman Social Structure. 

K.U.Leuven 






• Yanne Broux 

The role of discourse in grammaticalization. 

K.U.Leuven 



• Functional, Cognitive and Descriptive Li 


• Nicole Delbecque 

Managing With Integrity: An Ethical Investigation Into The RelationshipBetween Personal And Corporate Integrity And Its 

Implications For The Managers In An Indian Context. In Conversation With Muel Kaptein And Johan Wempe 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: It is well documented that ethics in the practice of managers from political, ecclesial and business contexts is wearing down in India today. 

Even though moral education is a mandatory subject in schools and there are specific codes of conduct expected of the managers, no one can 

deny the unethical behaviour on the part of the managers and other employees in both profit and non-profit making organizations. Corporate 

integrity seems to be a possible solution, but taken alone, it may not ensure individual integrity. Corporations are moral agents; however, individuals 

arethe real constitutive elements, playing important roles in the performance of corporations. Therefore, it is necessary to explore the relationship 

between personal integrity and corporate integrity based on the hypothesis that the personalist (subjective) approach to corporate integritymay find 

success while other models have failed. Although some researchhas been done on the meaning of integrity, the intimate bond betwee 




• Johan Verstraeten 

A Righteous Shepherd to Lead the Flock. Jeremiah 23,1-8 in Text-Critical and Literary-Critical Perspective 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: The book of Prophet Jeremiah is a mixture of poetic oracles, prose narratives as well as discourses. Studying Jer 23,1-8 in my Fifth 

Year#s Research Paper, it is found that the said pericope is a highly debated one as it raises questions regarding the very text itself and its growth. 

Against this background, the present project aims to study the text of Jer23,1-8 from both a text-critical and a literary-critical point of view in order to 

search for its historical and actual theological meaning andrelevance. In this respect, special attention will be paid to the extent to which the 

discourse on leadership in Jeremiah could be related to the modern discourse on leadership in the Indian context. The present doctoral dissertation 

will consist of four main parts. Each part concentrates on a specific area of research: to study the growth of the text of our pericope, to analyse textcritical 

problems related to it, to bring out literary problems and finally to study the theological themes con 




• Bénédicte Lemmelijn 

Overforminghe as deification? The theme of deification in the work of John of Ruusbroec in light of the older mystical 

tradition of the Low Countries and the condemnation of Marguerite Porete

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: The proposed project will research the theme of transformation in love in the works of John of Ruusbroec, specifically Ruusbroec#s critical 

reworking of the central theme in the work of Marguerite Porete, who was condemned by the Inquisition in 1310. The investigation of this case 

studywill shed new light on the broader theme of #deification# in Christian thought in the Western Middle Ages. This theme occupied a central place 

in Patristic and Eastern Christian reflection, but very few studieshave focused on its later development in the medieval West. The objective of the 

proposed research is twofold. First, to investigate the development of the theme of deification in the tradition inherited by John of Ruusbroec 

(William of Saint-Thierry, (Ps.-)Hadewijch and Marguerite Porete, among others), which had become problematic resulting from Porete#s 

condemnation. Second, to investigate the extent to which Ruusbroec, influenced by Porete, with whose work he was undoubtedly familiar, 

recognise 


• Research Unit History of Church and Theo 


• Robertus Faesen 

The Church: Universal Sacrament of Salvation in the Era of Globalisation. Perspectives from the Theology of Walter 

Kasper 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: The Church is and remains the universal sacrament of salvation. In itself this essence of the Church is no synonym to opacity. Instead, it 

is full of overtures to every hint of good that can be found in each person,people, culture and human realization. And in order for the Church to be 

truly an actor and protagonist of this history, it has to open itself to a dialogue. It is for this reason that I have chosen globalization asthe subject of 

this dialogue with the Church so that the latter, by purifying the former of its limitations, will bring it to perfection of Gods glory and the salvation of 

the world. 


• Research Unit Systematic Theology 


• Kristof Struys 

Theologies of Love as Combat Literature: Frantz Fanon's Decolonial Challenge 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: Our research begins with the persistence of coloniality, the cultural and epistemological matrix that undergirded colonialism and which was 

constitutive of modernity. We then seek to clarify and address the tension between coloniality and theologies# discourses on love that fail to 

address coloniality. In order to point towards a theology of love that can become part of a decolonial project, we engage Frantz Fanon (1925-61), 

who thought from the context of being victimized by French colonialism. Byusing Fanon#s thought, we seek to re-imagine and articulate a 

Christiantheology of love that functions as what Fanon called combat literature:literature that is itself praxis in the service of humanization. 




• Jacques Haers 

The Rhythm of Life in Late Antiquity: The Impact of Christianity. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: Didnt that happen on the Sunday before last Christmas? This questionrefers to 18/12/2011, but we rarely mention such a precise date 

spontaneously, as the calendar does not reflect our mental framework to understand time. Days of the week and holidays give a rhythm to the 

progress oftime, thus creating a mental chronological framework. Such frameworks are archconservative and are affected only by revolutionary 

changes.The mass conversion to Christianity in the fourth and fifth centuries was such a revolution: it led to the introduction of the seven-day week 

and new holidays.The transition from a pagan to a Christian world wasa complex process that remains poorly understood, because research too 

often focuses on the elite. We know when Sunday became a day of rest by law, but not when it started to be widely observed; we know when 

particular feasts are last attested or appear, but not yet when Christian holidays replaced pagan feasts in the shared chronological framework. This 

project 





Authorship and Anonymity in Sixteenth-Century Music: The Case of the Alamire Manuscripts. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: The attribution of a musical work to a composer does not seem to have been one of the more important factors of 16th-century manuscript 

production. This project aims to answer what anonymity meant in early modern Europe during a period of increasing composer attributions. It takes 

as a starting point the Alamire manuscripts, undoubtedly the most astonishingsurviving sources of Renaissance music. They comprise more than 

60 choirbooks prepared at or around the Burgundian-Habsburg court between 1498 and 1534. Beautifully copied and exquisitely decorated, these 

products of the scribal workshop of Petrus Alamire contain over 600 polyphonic works by three generations of leading Renaissance composers. 

This unique complex of music manuscripts is vital to any understanding of 16th-centurymusic, but deplorably little is known about the circumstances 

in which they were conceived, produced, and utilized. While many of the works areattributed, 25% of the repertoire is anonymous; these works have 

ne 




• David Burn 

• Zoe Saunders 

Horizontale ongelijkheden en voedselrellen in Afrika 

K.U.Leuven 



• Faculty of Canon Law 

• Centre for Research on Peace and Develop 


• Arnim Langer

Exploitation, Inequality and Domination: A Re-examination of some fundamental political concepts. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: This project aims to rejuvenate the contemporary debate on the just society by developing and defending a novel account of exploitation. 

The theory of exploitation is presently enjoying a renaissance, thanks to the global pervasiveness of phenomena like forced labour, human 

trafficking,sweatshops, guest workers and the rise of the so-called global justice movement. This project aims to re-situate the concept of 

exploitation from its present philosophical habitat, viz. distributive justice, to the less familiar (to analytic philosophers) territory of domination. The 

account of exploitation I shall defend lends itself to a number of extensions, from the moral assessment of macrophenomena such as contemporary 

capitalism and capitalist globalization, to the study of microphenomena such as sweatshops and guest workers. 


• Centre for Ethics, Social and Political 


• Bart Raymaekers 

• Nicholas Vrousalis 

Seriality in the Contemporary 'Long-Term Television Narrative': Remediation and Migration of the Serial. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: This project will take a more in-depth look at contemporary television series that produce an overarching narrative that spans the whole 

seasonor series, in contrast with TV series whose episodes only function as stand-alone stories. This kind of TV serial, which is called a long-term 

television narrative, has boomed in the past decade, and is different from its predecessors in that the narratives are much more complex. This 

project will focus on three facets of those TV series: how their seriality is indebted to past serial forms in other media; how the complexity ofthe 

storylines forms a vast narrative with branches into various other media and texts; and how seriality is formed and guaranteed through the 

underlying structure of the episodes, seasons and series. 





• Thomas Van Parys 

Theology and the Quest for Authentic Humanity: The Theological Existentialism of John Macquarrie 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: Our doctoral project seeks to raise the question of the nature, and more importantly, the question of the relevance, of existential theology. 

It can be asserted that serious research into existentialist theology today has largely ceased and there is a prevailing attitude that this brandof 

theology has had its day. Thus, our project will seek to inquire into the works of one of the most prominent Anglo-Saxon expositors of existentialist 

theology, John Macquarrie (1919-2007), and using Macquarrie#s approach to existentialism as a test-case to investigate the legitimacy of the 

(#classical#) charges against existentialist theology. Our work will progress in a threefold manner: Firstly, we shall provide an overview of the main 

concerns of existentialist theology by means of a discussion of the main existentialist themes developed by two prominent existentialist thinkers who 

influenced Macquarrie, namely, R. Bultmann and M. Heidegger. Secondly, we will outline the main contours and the disti 




• Terrence Merrigan 

The Turn towards Concrete Reality in Twentieth-Century Theology: An Historical-Critical Study of Gustave Thils Theology 

of History 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: In historical research on the Roman Catholic Church in the twentieth-century, the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) is a point of 

intense interest. Research at the KU Leuven Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies focuses on movements of renewal preceding the Council, 

the Belgian contribution to the Council and the revolutionary thought of theological openness towards the world. However, interest in the #theology 

of history#and the role of Gustave Thils (1908-2000), one of its main proponents, have until now been largely neglected. In his ground-breaking 

book, Théologie des réalités terrestres, Thils produced #one of the most fundamental and articulate presentations of a #theology of history# ever 

written#(Connolly 1965; cf. also Gibellini#s standard work 1992; 20076). The current proposed research project will fill a lacuna within studies on 

Thils# theological #uvre in the following ways: (A) It aims to give an account of #theology of history# as a theological trend, or current, of 





Contemporary Orthodox ¨Perspectives on the Filioque: Dumitru Staniloaes and John Zizioulas Trinitarian Ecclesiology 

and its Implications for the Ecumenical Dialogue 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: Onze benadering zal er in bestaan om twee prominente theologen te bestuderen van wie hun leven en werken hebben bijgedragen aan 

de ontwikkelingvan dit theologisch onderzoeksveld: Dumitru Staniloae, een Roemeense theoloog en John Zizioulas, een Griekse theoloog. Hoewel 

Staniloae, in navolging van Lossky, in zijn vroege theologische periode deze controverse voornamelijk benaderde vanuit een trinitair en 

ecclesiologisch perspectief, ontwikkelde hij in een later stadium een meer evenwichtige positie: de orthodoxe en Rooms-Katholieke Kerk 

verkondigen dezelfde trinitaire theologie en de Filioque kwestie is geen obstakel voor het herstel van de communio, zoals de dogma#s van 

pauselijke primauteit of pauselijke onfeilbaarheid wel zijn. Zich baserend op Y. Congar#s pneumatologisch onderzoek, stelt Zizioulas dat het 

spreken over #Christomonisme# in eender welkdeel van de christelijke traditie gelijk staat met het verkeerd begrijpen van of onrecht doen aan een 

bepaald deel van de traditie. Het ec 




• Peter De Mey 

Towards An Empowering Theological Ethical Vision on Informal Work: Guidelines for Future Catholic Social Teaching and 

Strategies for Improving the Conditions of Unorganised Labourers in India 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: The growing predominance of informal and casual employment has been oneof the essential features of the labour market in India. While 

the former is labour that is not officially registered, the latter refers to working in bad conditions. Informal work covers a diversified set of economic 

activities both in agricultural and non-agricultural sector. The Church Social Teaching mainly focuses on regular working conditions but doesnot pay

much attention to irregular and casual work. In this sense, it develops a western perspective, neglecting the growing mass of informal workers in the 

south who are totally deprived of their basic rights. We will critically analyse whether the main aspects of CST on organised labour are meaningful in 

the evaluation of informal work. Though the Catholic Bishop's Conference of India (CBCI) has formed the labour commission in 1971 and Worker's 

India Federation (WFI) in 2007, in general, it lacks a coherent strategy to address the needs of the vulnerable inform 




• Johan De Tavernier 

The Pastoral Relativization of the Latin Vulgate in the 

Post-Vatican II Church: A Study on the Later History of 

a Biblical Translation 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: There has been little in-depth historical analysis done on the observedpastoral relativization of the Latin Vulgate in the post-Vatican II 

hurch. This study aims to verify and probe into certain hypothesized shiftsin the fields of Biblical studies, ecclesiastical censorship, and the liturgy as 

contributing factors in the diminishment of the status 

and place of the Latin Vulgate in the life of the contemporary Church. 





The Transformation of the Promised Land into the Land of Slavery 

John Steinbeck as an Interpreter of the Biblical Imagery in Nehemiah 9, 9-37 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: This doctoral project tries to promote an idea of an alternative biblical interpretation via the literary form of a novel. It uses two established 

approaches to biblical criticism # Reception History and Reader-Response Criticism # both in a modified way to complete the project. This 

alternative interpretation is applied to the biblical text of Nehemiah 9, 9 # 37. The reader of this text is an American novelist, John 

Steinbeck,following a rich American tradition of novelists working with the biblical #land motif# (Exodus and Settlement of the Promised Land # 

Exodus ofBritish Puritans and settlement of the #new world# # North America). Inthis project, we shall see the same pattern in Nehemiah 9, 9 # 37 

and in the novels of John Steinbeck. The Promised Land becomes the Land of Slavery. 




• Brian Doyle 

Theology from a Post-Totalitarian Perspective: What Can West-European Theology Learn from Post-Communist, Central- 

Eastern European theologians? 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: Theologians and philosophers who originated from areas affected by totalitarian regimes provided an intellectual engagement with the 

totalitarian systems and developed genuine criticism of totalitarianism that we call a post-totalitarian perspective. These thinkers provide a critical 

theological engagement with culture and society on the one hand; and formulate serious challenges for theology itself from within, on the other 

hand. Hence, we delve into experience of totalitarianism in Central-Eastern Europe and we investigate the question what contribution to the current 

debate on religion, theology and society might be expected from philosophical-theological efforts to resist totalitarianism. We believe theology as 

such is intrinsically anti-totalitarian. However, at a time when national, ethnic and religious identities tend to close in on themselves,theology from a 

post-totalitarian perspective, therefore, provides a critical approach to society as well as raising its own self-critica 




• Lieven Boeve 

Setting the stage for an Indian Christology in dialogue with Raimundo Panikkar and Michael Amaladoss: Lessons from a 

comparative analysis regarding the role of history and context in the construction of Christological images in the work of 

Joseph Ratzinge 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: The aim of this project is to explore the role of history/context in the construction of Christological concepts and images in order to 

proposea methodology for an Indian Christology. Our working hypothesis is thata great deal can be gained from studying the way in which two 

proponents of Christological research have dealt with these questions, namely Joseph Ratzinger and Edward Schillebeeckx. Moreover, on closer 

inspection, most probably, it is their outspokenly divergent ways of dealing with the question of historicity and contextuality which sharply 

differentiatestheir Christologies. We will make this point through a thorough comparative and critical study of their Christologies, including their 

variousconceptions and images of Christ as well as their methodological approaches. A special emphasis will be given to their methodological 

preferences (especially as regards their reception of historical critical and theological hermeneutical research methods) to evaluate how far they 

have 





• Gilbert Van Belle 

Christianity and the World: A Critical-Constructive 

Investigation of Joseph Ratzingers Theological 

Perspectives on the Relationship between Christian 

Faith and Contemporary Culture

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: Our doctoral project will investigate Joseph Ratzinger#s theology, morespecifically, the theme of the relationship 

between Christianity and contemporary culture (1), and formulate an evaluation of his thoughts in light of the 

current religious situation in the Western world, something which will be analyzed through contemporary 

sociological surveys (2),in order to finally provide a more elaborate and fruitful vision for Christian faith in the 21st 

century (3). 





Sanctification through the Paschal Mystery. 

A Study of the TheologicalRelations between the Liturgy of the Eucharist and the Liturgy of the Hours in the Roman and 

Syro-Malabar Rites 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: In the context of the 50th anniversary of Sacrosanctum Concilium, we investigate the theological bases of the liturgy particularly through a 

detailed study of the relations between liturgy of the Eucharist and the Liturgy of the Hours. Though the council asserted the importance of the 

Liturgy of Hours (Divine Office) as official public prayers of the Church, liturgists and theologians do not seem to have given due attention to the 

significance of these prayers in the life and mission of the Church.Therefore, we intend to investigate the theological connections betweenthe liturgy 

of the Eucharist and the Liturgy of the Hours by looking closely to the liturgy itself as well as to magisterial teachings, historical studies, and 

theological reflections. The project focuses on the Roman Rite and the Syro-Malabar Rite, which belongs to the East-Syrian tradition, and aims to 

contribute to the mutual understanding of different rites within the same faith community. Though the paschal mystery is 


• Research Unit Pastoral Theology 


• Joris Geldhof 

The Relevance of Love in Julian of Norwich for Jean-Francois Lyotards Sublime 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: Lyotard stresses those sections of the Jewish tradition in which reality is the #dark message of an unknown addressor#. He foregrounds 

polemos and obliquity, which creates a hypostatization of the sublime for our anthropology. For Julian, the agonistic aspects of love are both (a) 

verticalized and (b) instrumentalized. The verticalization of suffering guarantees the provisional status of all attempts to commodify suffering; Christ 

suffers eschatologically. The instrumentalization of suffering instills hope that a message beyond darkness will be heard. This coincident of 

opposites, between a vertical and instrumental engagement with suffering, which Julian#s text negotiates, is built into the tripartite structure of my 

research: (i) how do both Lyotard#s sublime and Julian#s concept of love safeguard against intensive and complacent forms of idolization? (ii) How 

do these philosophic and religious methods against idolization facilitate our engagement with suffering, and lastly (iii) how 






Becoming Christian: Reconsidering Identity and Meaning in the work of Edward Schillebeeckx 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: This doctoral project seeks to reread the theology of Edward Schillebeeckx for a new, contemporary context beginning with his concept of 

subjectivity and the radical finitude of human beings. This radical finitude acts as a ground for subjects to encounter reality and the other in a 

manner that allows Schillebeeckx to critically and constructively conceiveof #difference#. The interplay of difference and identity, even withinthe 

subject itself, necessitates the question of meaning in the formation of individual identity and the narration of a meaningful history. This project will 

explore the historical and narrative process of specifically Christian identity formation within a pluralized context, and how specifically Christian 

subjects can create and conceive of meaningful history of salvation coming from God. 





• Leo Kenis 

The Crisis of Political Theology 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: Our research project is a fundamental investigation into the field of political theology with two overarching goals. First, it seeks to overview 

the field as a whole, with special focus on how the notion of #the city# is explicated by various positions within the field and what the anthropological 

and ethical implications of these explications are. 

Second,it argues for a #theology of the city# which situates itself between political extremism and political irrelevance. It will do so on the basis of an 

underlying biblical-theological conception of humanity as homo adorans, in contradistinction to competing modern notions of man as homo politicus 

and homo faber. 




• Yves De Maeseneer 

Evolutionary Explanations of Religion: Breaking the Spell or Revealing the Wonder? 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: This project aimes at showing if and how evolutionary studies of religion can take into account the particularity of a religion, with its own 

narrative perspective on reality. Thus science can avoid a reductionist approach, in which religion is e.g. seen as merely a cultural 'tool' or as a sideeffect 

of the structure of the human brain. This project will present a case-study of a 'Mutual Interaction of Theology and Science'.





The Icon as a Window for Environmental Dialogue 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: In this project the potential of an 'iconic vision' of nature will be studied, aiming at a christian ecotheology engendering a liturgical, ascetic 

and ethical dynamic. Can this ecotheology truly be credible in the dialogue with the environmental movement, taking into account the strong 

polarisation due to the antithetically perceived positions of antropocentrism versus biocentrism/ecocentrism? Inspiration will be drawn from 

thestrong theistic position of Judaism and the orthodox theology of the icon. Elements of iconicity present in actual christian theology will alsobe 

studied with a clear focus on their ecotheological potential. Additionally there seems to be a turn toward aesthetics in current environmental 

philosophy. Could there be a strong similarity in approach and underlying principles between the aesthetic and the iconic experience of nature? And 

how can this elucidate and improve the sometimes difficult dialogue between christian ecotheology and the environmental movement / e 





Re-mapping the transnational spread of the novel:nbsp;French pseudo-translations in German translation (1731-1776). 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: This project offers an original contribution to our understanding of the Rise of the Novel through a comparative analysis of some 40 French 

pseudotranslations from English works and their German translations published between 1731 and 1776. The projects merit lies in the combination 

ofa theoretical reflection on the rather unexplored concept of pseudotranslation and a discursive analysis of the status and the function of pseudotranslations, 

which played a pivotal role in literaryhistory by contributing to the Rise of the ("European") Novel in the 18th century. First, I shall study 

the (para-)textual strategies applied by "pseudo-translators" in order to support the emergence of the novel in a hostile literary environment. A 

second set of research questions addresses the representativeness of the pseudo-translations, which are actually textual constructs by a French 

author, rather than the results of a faithful transfer between languages (and cultures)which they pretend to be. Finally 


• Literary Relations and Post/national Ide 


• Beatrijs Vanacker 

• Dagmar Vandebosch 

The author is dead, long live the author: exploring authorship and readership in Greek mythography. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: As is evident from the shelves of popular bookshops and research libraries alike, classical myths have appealed to a broad public from 

time immemorial. In fact, the scholarly study of these myths draws greatly from so-called mythographic writings, that are lesser-known prose texts 

which, unlike the imaginative creations of poets, approach myths from a non-artistic perspective to capture their essential plots. Contrary to recent 

trends in other genre studies, the importance of authors and readers in the process of literary communication has not yet fully made its way into 

current scholarship on mythography. Worse still, present scholars often tend to erase the author and his reader by depicting the mythographer as a 

slavish compiler of earlier texts who is deprived of all self-determined creativity and by extending the intended audience to anyone interested in 

Greek mythology, ranging from school boys to the educated upper class, as a result of which the reader is denied to have had any 


• Greek Studies 



• Ulrike Kenens 

Rameau and Rousseau: harmony and history in the age of reason. 

K.U.Leuven 






• Nathan Martin 

The search for categories in eighteenth-century German philosophy: Thomasius, Baumgarten, Lambert. 

K.U.Leuven 



• Centre for Metaphysics and Philosophy of 


• Karin de Boer 

• Arnaud Pelletier 

The cross pressures of morality. Friedrich Nietzsche and Charles Taylor on meaning, morals and post-modernity. 

University of Antwerp 

Abstract: This project provides, for the first time, a confrontation between Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), the herald of nihilism who claimed that 

all previous foundations of morality have been undermined, and Charles Taylor (*1931), the advocate of strong evaluation and the inevitability of 

meaning. The basic thought, however, is not the clash between Nietzsche and Taylor, but rather the idea that, despite several differences, there is 

an important level of agreement between both thinkers as well. Central to this discussion is the morally pluralistic context of post-modern Western 

society. How do Nietzsche and Taylor understand and evaluate the post-modern moral context, and in what respects does the dialogue between 

them allow for a normative account on how to move among the cross pressures of morality? Can Nietzsche's and Taylor's positive moral views be 

viewed as adopting a 'third' position between fundamentalism and moral relativism? This question is explored by focussing on one of the most 

important moral ideals of post-modernity: authenticity. 


• Center for Ethics


• Willem Lemmens 

• Guido Vanheeswijck 

• Michiel Meijer 

Modal collocation and how delicate modal systems can be. A cognitive-functional corpus study of semantic and syntactic 

effects of collocation between modal verbs and modal adverbs in UK and US English. 


Abstract: The research will investigate the dynamic nature of an aspect of language called 'modality', which enables speakers to assess the truth of 

what they say in terms of likelihood and obligations. Traditionally, the main recognised grammatical category of modality in English is built up of a 

paradigm of 'modal verbs' (can, could, will, would, shall, should, may, might and must). English, along with a large number of other languages, also 

has lexical ('more meaningful') means to express modality, for example 'modal adverbs' (probably, possibly, necessarily, certainly, well, ...). 


• Center for grammar, cognition, and typology 


• Johan Van der Auwera 

Universalism vs. particularism in the transnational civil society of human rights organizations. Amnesty International USA 

and Human Rights Watch between cooperation and competition (1978-2008). 


Abstract: At the beginning of the 21st century the number of non-governmental organizations participating in the transnational civil society of human 

rights is almost uncountable. One could applaud the proliferation of human rights organizations (HROs) but one should also wonder why so many 

exist. Does this reflect an effective division of labour or does it indicate particularistic interests? This project, which dovetails with the very recent 

growth of historical research into HROs, focuses on the tension between their universalist mission and their particularistic tendencies. The 

underlying hypothesis is that the increasing participation of HROs in a 'human rights marketplace' has created a competition that is sometimes at 

odds with the universalist logic of cooperation and the defence of human rights. Or in other words: organizational self-interest may have fragmented 

the universal ideal of human rights and hampered the effectiveness of the activities and campaigns 

of HROs. This hypothesis will be tested through an analysis of the relations between Amnesty International USA and Human Rights Watch between 

1978 and 2008, combining structural-quantitative research (historical social network analysis) and a qualitative examination of sources. 


• Political History 


• Maarten Van Ginderachter 

• Bart De Sutter 

American maximalist fiction between global and local knowledge – Richard Powers, David Foster Wallace, and 

the novel of information. 


Abstract: This project investigates a pivotal response in contemporary American fiction to the representational aporias of canonical postmodernism. 

In answer to their literary forebears-self-conscious writers such as John Barth or Thomas Pynchon, who turned toward irony, metafiction and 

fragmentation¿Richard Powers and David Foster Wallace revalorize narrative as the ideal vehicle for the creation of meaning. They envision the 

"novel of information" (Powers 2008) as a text that combines diverse fields of knowledge so as to enable the reader to develop a personal and yet 

integrated perspective on the world. The central question that consequently needs to be addressed is: how can their novels create the illusion of 

totality without being totalitarian? This question will be answered on the levels of form and content. Drawing on recent instances of reader-oriented 

narratology, the project first intends to show how various formal aspects of The Gold Bug Variations (Powers 1991) and Infinite Jest (Wallace 1996) 

can entice the reader to continuously reconstruct his or her mental representation of the narrative. This cognitive approach will be further developed 

in a thematic analysis, which will focus on the novels' many passages about mental mapping as potential beacons in the reader's search for 

coherence. 


• Literature and Modernity 


• Luc Herman 

• Toon Staes 

Church music and confessionalization in transformation. Case Antwerp, ca. 1585-1794. 


Abstract: This project aims to investigate the interaction between church music and urban society during a period of multiple transformations. By 

mapping the use of church music as a means to establish and consolidate a confessional identity on the one hand, and by assessing the influence 

of the religious, political and socio-cultural changes on the production and patronage of church music on the other hand, evolutions in musical life 

will be interpreted in relation to the societal context and vice versa. Through this study, the layered meaning and functioning of church music in an 

urban environment will become apparent. 


• Centre for Urban History 


• Bruno Blondé 

• Guido Marnef 

• Stefanie Beghein 

The interaction between tense and lexical and grammatical aspect. A comparative study of present-time 

marking in the verbal paradigm. 


Abstract: This project focuses on the interaction between time reference and classes of lexical aspect (actionality) and of grammatical aspect, from 

a cross-linguistic perspective. It starts from the observation that the actional features of a verb (e.g. the stativity, telicity, punctuality etc. of the 

situation designated) and its viewpoint aspect (perfective versus imperfective) often determine the way in which present-time reference is brought 

about. In many languages, stative and imperfective situations can readily be located in the present through the use of what may be called a presenttense 

marker. With dynamic and perfective situations, on the other hand, this marker will typically be given a non-present interpretation: past or 

perfect in some languages, future in other languages and in yet other languages a generic or habitual interpretation arises. This project intends to 

account for the problem of present-time reference with dynamic/perfectivized verbs, to describe in detail the strategies different languages employ 

to solve this problem, and to examine what the critical variables are in choosing a particular strategy. At the same time, more fine-grained aspectual 

and actional distinctions will be introduced than the ones employed in previous studies of this subject.





• Frank Brisard 

• Marie-Astrid De Wit 

Heirs, Kinship ties and urban associations. City dwellers and their networks in 16th century Mechelen. 


Abstract: This research proposal aims at analyzing the way in which and the reasons why town dwellers in 15th and 16th century Mechelen 

bequeathed to their extended family, and how this correlated with simultaneously adhering to diverse formal and informal urban associations. This 

will be traced primarily in wills by means of a systematic and diachronic discourse analysis of specific patterns of identification in will preambles, and 

the motivations that lay behind the division of the heritage, which will be combined with a quantitative approach. Assembling 

the legacies to urban groups and kin in grids and tables will enable us to analyse their relative proportion in the long run. 

To present a more nuanced image of pre-modern urban society than traditional history permits, we will combine this line of research with an indepth 

study of the social profiles of the testators. The already advanced state of data collection on associational life in Mechelen makes it feasible to 

postulate how legacies to the extended family in wills correspond with the testators¿ membership in particular urban groups, as well as with their 

gender and wealth. Hence, this proposal fits in a broader field of research on civil society and urban 

associational life, linking this with research on kinship and family life. 




• Maarten Van Dijck 

• Peter Stabel 

• Kim Overlaet 

A new typology of indefinite pronouns and adverbs. 


Abstract: The state of the art typology of indefinites (i.e. indefinite pronouns and adverbs) is Haspelmath (1997). Haspelmath proposes a semantic 

map with nine regions claimed to be identifiable on semantic grounds and hypotheses about how these regions are related to one another, 

synchronically and diachronically. After a decade and a half, it is time for a revision. There are 3 main reasons, which imply three research 

objectives. Firstly, detailed studies show aspects of the Haspelmath hypothesis to be wrong. Thus the corrections have to be integrated into a new 

account, together with what remains valuable from the original account. Secondly, his typology has a strong European bias. The project will be 

based on a truly world-wide sample. Thirdly, the map is built on shaky foundations: some regions seem to be defined in terms of the meanings of 

the indefinites, other regions in terms of the contexts. The project will come up with a new geometry and strictly separate meanings from contexts. 

The project will use the typological method for a survey account, based on a 179-language sample, as well as corpus-linguistic analysis, for a few 

restricted (diachronic) studies. 





• Lauren Van Alsenoy 

At Home in Sixteenth-Century Flanders. Materiality and Domesticity in the City (1450-1650). 


Abstract: The main objective of this project is to look beyond studies that treat citizens as members of the public urban community (e.g. Nicholas 

1985; Stabel and Boone 2000) without acknowledging the key role that may have been played by living patterns in their 

households. 






• Julie De Groot 

Narrative interest and religious belief in contemporary American fiction. 


Abstract: This project will attempt to apply post-classical narrative theories about narrative interest to contemporary U.S. fiction that evokes the 

diverse cultural dialogue about belief. As a means of investigating the ways in which narrative interest is affected by the transmission of cultural 

material during the reading process, the literary corpus of this dissertation will consist of popular and critically-acclaimed American writers who 

choose to thematize their religious beliefs - Marilynne Robinson, Allegra Goodman, Louise Erdrich, and 

Fae Myenne Ng. 




• Luc Herman 

• Megan Milota 

Restoring gestures: exploring Aby Warburg's method for theater studies. 


Abstract: This project will explore the relevance of Aby Warburg's (1866 – 1929) art historical method for theater studies. Warburg sought to 

uncover the survival of Antiquity in a plethora of images from different origins (examples of 'high art', advertisement, astrological drawings etc.), 

using the returning gesture as a motif to map this survival. The notion of a survival or return of the image is anti-historicist in nature and calls for a 

change of the image's status from historical artifact to autonomous presence. This project proposes that gesture as a reembodiment of historical 

memory produces a tension between representation and presence 

located in the body and that this marks a parallel between the body in the image – as Warburg analyzes it – and the body on stage. 


• Research Centre for Visual Poetics 

Researchers:

• Kurt Vanhoutte 

• Esther Tuypens 

Poor relief and community building in the Southern Low Countries, ca. 1300-1600. 


Abstract: This project will study poor relief in an integrated way in three towns in the Southern Low Countries from circa 1300 to 1600 (Ghent, 

Mechelen and Bergues/Sint-Winoksbergen), in order to examine how, through poor relief schemes, urban communities of solidarity were shaped. I 

will analyze which communities were implied or shaped when it was regulated and decided who could profit from poor relief, and how this changed 

in the long run. Who had access to relief systems (and who did not) and what community thereby served as a frame of reference? Which social 

boundaries were created (and by whom)? Was increasing social fragmentation reflected in a fragmentation of poor relief, or was there a shift from 

local and particular communities to the whole city in the fifteenth and sixteenth century? 




• Bert De Munck 


The Emotions of Rational Agents. 


Abstract: The project will describe the relation of affective and rational capacities in terms of asymmetrical explanatory relations. This can be done 

by thinking of agents as embodied subjects, who through complex selfrepresentational and self-regulative abilities structure their actions in the light 

of rational considerations. This approach to the unity of the subject has historical antecedents in Fichte (1794) and Hegel (1830). 


• Centre for Philosophical Psychology 


• Bence Nanay 

'Wo mistus, da Christus'. A micro-perspective on the allocation and recycling of urban waste in the rural economy of early 

modern Flanders. 


Abstract: This project aims to investigate to what extent the contribution of urban waste and manure could overcome the challenge of fundamental 

nutrient deficiencies in regions of dense urbanisation and intensive agriculture. In order to reach that goal, the social relations that are at the core of 

this project, will be confronted with three other strategic factors affecting the manure allocation: transport improvements, institutional change and 

economic growth 





• Tim Soens 

• Pieter De Graef 

Human capital from a household perspective: knowledge investments in early modern Antwerp, Ghent, Lier and Aalst. 


Abstract: As evidenced by this short state of the art, there is an urgent need for a micro-level approach in which education and the mechanisms 

behind human capital formation are analyzed comprehensively. This project aims to fulfill this requirement by 1° introducing a new kind of source to 

quantify the investments in various types of education and to identify the different causal factors involved from a household perspective; and 2° 

analyzing the situation in four distinct early modern cities in the Southern Low Countries, the first industrializing region on the continent. 





• Jord Hanus 

• Annelies De Bie 

The commons backstage: the social agro-system of the late medieval Campine area explored. 


Abstract: The initial goal of this research project was to analyse actors, arguments and outcomes of conflicts regarding common pool regimes and 

institutions in the late medieval Campine Area, in order to reveal changing uses and expectations of the commons by different stakeholders. 




• Tim Soens 

• Maïka De Keyzer 

Singularity and Responsibility. 


Abstract: At first glance the question of responsibility seems to be a question of freedom: is one responsible for his/her actions, because she/he has 

chosen these actions freely? In a recent philosophical debate that has been inspired by the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, responsibility is 

however understood as the result of a call: as a task that isn¿t the result of any free choice, but that is received in a passive way. This call is 

received by a singular person and has to be answered by this person only. Levinas¿ concept of responsibility has been put into question by some 

critics as Jean-Luc Marion and Paul Ricoeur, who doubt Levinas¿ claim that ethical responsibility (the call to do the good) can be singular. Ricoeurs 

and Marions criticisms point at the fundamental problem of an ethics of responsibility: how is it possible for a call that is addressed at any person, to 

ask for an answer that only I can give? This question will be the core of the following research project which goal consists in investigating how 

singularity can be considered as a condition of freedom. The project will carefully investigate the following three questions. 

1.) Can the call for the good be singular (i.e. unique) so that it is possible to say that it singularizes me? 

2.) Can a passive call for responsibility result in concrete ethical practice? 

3.) In what sense does freedom depend on singular ethicalacting in practice? 


• Centre for Philosophy of Culture


• Arthur Cools 

• Geoffrey Dierckxsens 

Building garments: Researching fashion design through architecture. 


Abstract: This project is aimed at a doctorate in the arts, in the field of fashion design. Its outcome will be an innovative experimental collection 

based on academic research and technological experimentation which - together with a description of the design processes themselves - will be 

reported on in a doctoral dissertation. The specific orientation of the doctorate is an integration of creative processes at the point of overlap between 

the practices of architecture and fashion design. The contextual academic research will concentrate on past and present forms of mutual influence 

and collaboration between these two artistic and technical domains; this will also include depthinterviews with prominent practitioners. Experiments 

will be conducted with fabrics, colors and shapes, starting from up-to-date technologies which already blur the traditional borders, and contributing 

to their further development. The collection to be designed and created (from drawing via try-outs to production) will experiment with the tension 

between innovative aesthetics, rational principles of construction, and wearability; it will make use of architectural principles adapted to clothing, and 

of advanced technologies, while seeking a balance with traditional materials and techniques. 





• Alexandra Verschueren 

A medieval Stylome? Exploring the Universal Stylome Hypothesis in medieval prose. 


Abstract: In this project I will further explore the applicability of the Stylome Hypothesis in medieval literature: 

1. I will apply computational stylometry to medieval prose. Because so many (anonymous) medieval prose texts survive, stylometric techniques for 

authorship attribution in prose are highly relevant. The proposed case study targets religious prose (13th/14th century) from Brabant. 

2. Throughout medieval Europe, a lot of Latin literature was produced. I propose to extend my research to Latin, via the original case study of the 

Flemish monks (11th century) who were attracted by English nobility to write Latin biographies. 


• Institute for the Study of Literature in the Low Countries (ISLN) 


• Walter Daelemans 

• Frank Willaert 

• Mike Kestemont 

Conscience and its objections: a comprehensive investigation. 


Abstract: The research project I propose will contribute to ongoing discussions on this matter in academic and popular writing. It sets itself the task 

of examining the central problem more comprehensively than has been done to date. I will start by clarifying the concept of 'conscience'. Building on 

this, I will investigate whether, and to what extent, a person is justified to act on her conscience, irrespective of what her conscience holds. In 

addition, I will discuss cases in which following conscience becomes problematic in the light of other moral demands. 


• Center for Ethics 



• Liesbet Vanhaute 

Communities without citizens. A sociological analysis of the discursive construction of moral status in Belgian asylum 

centres. 


Abstract: This research proposal seeks to investigate the social construction of moral status through the discursive use of cultural variables such as 

gender, age, faith, and ethnicity. It thus deals with core social processes such as social exclusion, as well as the cultural construction of moral 

meaning and status. 


• Centre on Inequality, Poverty, Social Exclusion and the City 


• Christiane Timmerman 

• Gert Verschraegen 

• Robin Vandevoordt 

Eating with your fingers, dining with your eyes. Table manners in the late medieval and early modern Low Countries. 


Abstract: The challenge we take up in this project is to flesh out if and how table manners were materialized in tableware, and how tableware 

contributed to changing social intercourse. Therefore, scattered information from archaeology, art history and cooking 

history awaits to be integrated. This project – at the crossroads of discourse analysis and material culture studies, will consider the dialectics 

between individuals and materiality, by using complementary sources and methods. 1) A discourse analysis of dining manuals will shed light on 

shifts and continuities in the meaning of dining manners. 2) Confronting this analysis with the material culture of tableware will reveal the extent to 

which this prescriptive literature was really appropriated. 3) Probate inventories will prove crucial to clarify the complex downward and upward social 

dimensions of these manners. In order to do justice to the genuine contribution of middling groups in urban society, the late medieval cities of 

Antwerp, Oudenaarde and Bruges with their shifting social textures and sociabilities were chosen for analysis. 






• Inneke Baatsen 

The tearing tissue. Family, friends and neighbours: the resilence of everyday social relations (Brussels - Antwerp 1715- 

'90).


Abstract: Our first objective is to look beyond various bold theories on (in)formal social relations, democratisation, poor relief, and civil society. 

Rather, we seek to resuscitate the simple everyday dimensions of community life. Earlier research may have settled for drawing a comprehensive 

still life of the who is who – and the who with whom – in myriad sorts of social networks and institutions; however, we wish to portray the praxis of 

everyday social relations at work. How, when and why did ordinary city dwellers appeal to neighbours, colleagues, friends, and family? Were these 

social ties strong or weak? Vertical or horizontal? 





• Gerrit Verhoeven 

The Planet on the Table: Wallace Stevens as a World Poet. 


Abstract: This research project is meant to contribute to the process of reading the canonical modernist poet Wallace Stevens as a transnational 

and global poet. It seeks to provide a more systematic focus to such readings, present a variety of relevant data not yet available to Stevens 

criticism, evaluate what is critically at stake in transnationalizing this poet, and recalibrate current theories on world literature, ecocriticism, and 

cultural topography by confronting them with Stevens' complex poetic thinking in this regard. Borrowing its main title from the poem in which 

Stevens looked back on his own poetic career, "The Planet on the Table," the project will investigate Stevens as a "world poet" from a variety of 

complementary angles that may be organized into three main parts: "Wallace Stevens in the World" (which is to be based on archival research), 

"The World through Wallace Stevens" (which will draw on theories of world literature, ecocriticism, and a combination of rhetorical analysis and 

cultural topography), and "The World after Wallace Stevens" (which will involve case studies about translations, adaptations, and the poet's afterlife 

on the internet). 




• Bart Eeckhout 

• Lesley Janssen 

Audio-description in Dutch: A corpus-based study into the linguistic features of a new, multimodal text type. 


Abstract: The project presented here is a corpus-based study of the linguistic features of a new, multimodal text type within Audiovisual Translation 

(AVT): Audio-description (AD) for the blind and visually impaired. The aim of this interdisciplinary project is to describe the lexico-grammatical 

features of AD-scripts and examine the role they play in the specific communicative function of the text. The object is to explore one of the keyissues 

in AD research: How are images put into words and what are the implications for the language use in AD? A recent pilot study confirmed the 

hypothesis that the language of AD contains distinctive grammatical (morpho-syntactic) and lexical features and that these specific patterns can be 

identified by corpus analysis. Firstly, the current project aims to develop an extensive and varied text corpus of AD scripts of Dutch audio-described 

films and series. Secondly, this text corpus will provide the basis for quantitative linguistic research, aiming to identify the prominent lexicogrammatical 

features of the text type. Finally, the quantitative analysis will be combined with a qualitative analysis of the (communicative) function of 

these features. In this last stage, special attention must be paid to the multimodal nature of the text type, since the AD-script only makes sense in 

combination with the dialogues, music and sound effects of the original film or series with which it forms a coherent whole. A qualitative analysis into 

the (communicative) function of the features will explore the unique interaction between the language of AD and the other channels of the 

audiovisual text. Ultimately, the project's ambition is to conduct an extensive linguistic audience design oriented analysis of the AD-discourse. This 

will allow us to identify the features that characterise the AD text type, will clarify how these linguistic and stylistic features are used to ensure 

maximum communicative efficiency, and how these features are related to the function and multimodal character of AD. The project presented 

here is a pioneer in the field: AD has become an international research topic recently but for Flanders and the Netherlands no study of AD is 

available yet. In addition, it can offer the basis for future application-oriented studies. AD in Flanders is in its infancy (public broadcaster VRT only 

started with its first audio-described series in January 2012). In brief, basic research projects like the one presented here support the development 

of a local AD tradition in Flanders that meets international quality standards. 


• Centre for Computational Linguistics and Psycholinguistics (CLiPS) 


• Reinhild Vandekerckhove 

The Country House and the Tension between Modernity and Tradition in Flemish Narrative Prose: Towards a New 

Reading of Maurice Gilliams 


Abstract: This project calls for a significant rethinking of the scholarly attitudes towards Maurice Gilliams (1900-1982). It aims to cast new light on 

Gilliams's image as a writer whose literary world is said to be 'disconnected from immediate current affairs or the common world of representation'. 

(M. de Jong) Not unlike Gilles Deleuze has convincingly argued that there is another Proust than the writer within the cork walls, this project shows, 

by different means, that there is another Gilliams than the perfection-seeking producer of autonomous aesthetic objects. It will become apparent 

that Gilliams can be situated in a context in which the Flemish Movement plays a prominent role and the autonomist poetics are less evident than in 

e.g. France or England. In order to situate Gilliams within a broader literary history, the author will be compared with English novelist and social 

critic E.M. Forster (1879-1970). The literary topos of the country house, which in this research is key, is a prominent feature in both Gilliams's and 

Forster's work. Although Forster was, unlike Gilliams, blessed with a higher education and a family that had all the gravitas and social influence 

Gilliams's lacked, both writers cultivated an image of 'aristocrat of the mind'. Therefore, this project questions Gilliams's elitist status. For what did it 

actually mean to be a writer of highly stylized Flemish fiction in an emancipating Flanders, when one belonged to the Flemish-speaking middle 

class? 




• Kristiaan Humbeeck 

• Filip De Ceuster 

Scientific research in the city's history. 


Abstract: The project for this sabbatical consists of two research axes: 

firstly the completion of a monograph on economic change and guild economies in late medieval Bruges; 

secondly archival prospection and data gathering in archival depots in Belgium.





"Seriously, it's just beyond a joke now": 'Teasing' (im)politeness out of Big Brother. 


Abstract: This project investigates how people tease in two different varieties of English. The purpose is to address some shortcomings in research 

on politeness and impoliteness. In particular, the project seeks (1) to go beyond the simple opposition between politeness and impoliteness that is 

characteristic of most earlier work; (2) to pay special attention to hearers' interpretations; 

(3) to clarify the relationship between everyday concepts of (im)politeness and analysts' concepts; and (4) to explore the cultural variability of 

(im)politeness practices. 


• Antwerp Center for Pragmatics / IPrA Research Center 


• Jozef Verschueren 

Capturing citations, impact factors and BOF-weight of journal articles in the Academic Bibliography. 


Abstract: This project represents a research contract awarded by the University of Antwerp. The supervisor provides the Antwerp University 

research mentioned in the title of the project under the conditions stipulated by the university. 


• Institutional Research Unit 


• Tim Engels 

A portrait of the statesman as an artist. Writing statesmen in antiquity 

Ghent University 

Abstract: How did ancient authors evaluate a statesman who united in one person the figures of literary artist and statesman? Focusing on a 

number of diachronically selected case studies this project will analyze how the combination of literary art and political power is perceived and 

represented by ancient authors, and of course by writing statesmen themselves. 


• Departement of French 


• Kristoffel Demoen 

De ontwikkeling van het conditioneel gebruik van modale werkwoorden in het West-Germaans 


Abstract: The project traces the historical development of the ?conditional? use of modal verbs in West Germanic, testing the hypothesis that 

semantic change correlates with syntactic change, as different structural positions appear to correlate with different modal meanings on the 

grammaticalisation cline. This comparative project is based on a large-scale corpus study of historical Dutch, English, Frisian, High and Low 

German. 


• Department of Latin and Greek 


• Liliane Haegeman 

• Torsten Leuschner 

Alfred Loisy as a comparative historian of religions. An investigation of Loisy?s position within early 20th century and 

current comparative methodology 


Abstract: This project aims at investigating the methodological contribution to the early 20th century comparative study of religion of Alfred Loisy 

(1857-1940), professor of History of Relgions at the Collège de France, and analyzing the impact of his comparative work on current studies of the 

origins of Christianity. It will also investigate the sociological context (scientific networks) in which Loisy worked. 


• Departement of Philosophy and moral sciences 


• Danny Praet 

The Literary Fringe? Ethos Construction and Social Discourse in Post-War Italian Literature: Ennio Flaiano and Goffredo 

Parise 


Abstract: The research intends to make a methodological contribution to the theory of the literary ethos construction (the strategic présentation de 

soi of the author in a text) by means of a case study of two post-war Italian authors who represent themselves as ?outsiders? in the literary field. 




• Sabine Verhulst 

Information structure in the Medieval Greek vernacular politikos stichos romances 


Abstract: I will investigate the language of the later Medieval Greek (12th-16th centuries) vernacular romances composed in metre of the politikos 

stichos within the modern framework of information structure (most important concept: intonation units), since these texts are assumed to adopt an 

oral discourse. Special attention will be paid to word order, particles, clitics, dislocations, parentheticals and discourse markers. 




• Marc Janse

Entrepreneurial networks in the Roman business world. Kinship, trust and cooperation and the impact of empire. 


Abstract: This research project intends a structural analysis of business networks in Roman long-distance trade. We will focus on the business 

communities in Republican Delos and Imperial Puteoli and Ostia. The aim of the comparison is to assess whether the unification of the 

Mediterranean world under Roman rule altered the nature of merchant networks. As a working hypothesis, we assume this unification to facilitate 

commerce and create larger and more efficient networks. 


• Department of History 


• Koenraad Verboven 

Church Architecture in the Age of Reason: The Ethics 


Abstract: This project aims to examine the concepts and ideas that relate church building to human passions and devotion in 18th century France 

and England. It wants to examine how views of this relation between church architecture, devotion and human passions were exchanged across 

Europe. In so doing, it also hopes to clarify the influence of confessional differences on church design. 


• Departement of Architecture and urban planning 


• Maarten Delbeke 

Vanden Twaelf dogheden: an exemplary study of the functions, distributuin and impact of Middle Dutch mustical writing 


Abstract: the proposed project wants to examine the function, distribution and carry-over of a 14th-century mustical treatise, vanden twaelf 

dogheden, and in broader sense the development and impact of medieval and early modern spiritual literature. 




• Youri Desplenter 

the serial nature of experimentation 


Abstract: this project proposes a systematic, philisophical analysis of experimentation udnerstood in terms of series. it aims to illuminate and 

understand how experiments connect sequentially, looking specifically at the early modern period, where serial experiments are abudant. its 

hypothesis is that serial experimentation is used to generate knowledge. 




• Eric Schliesser 

Case alternation in present-day German: A corpus-based analysis of the conditions of use of accusative and dative with 

non-transparent two-way prepositional verbs 


Abstract: Building on corpus-based analysis, this project explores the motivations behind the case alternation between accusative and dative in 

verbal constructions with two-way prepositions in present-day German from a constructionist perspective, considering both cases as parts of 

alternating constructions with semantic functions in their own right, and focusing on the interplay between the constructions and the semantic and 

morphosyntactic properties of the lexical items. 




• Klaas Willems 

The Dawning of the Modern State: Institutional Reform, Financial Reconstruction and the Penetration of the State in the 

Austrian Netherlands 


Abstract: This research project focuses on three consecutive plans of state reform in the eighteenth-century Southern Netherlands, which were 

chiefly pursued to cut government costs and to maximize tax income. The aim of the project is a better understanding of factors and actors 

furthering or hindering the modernization of the central governmental apparatus in the era of burgeoning Enlightenment ideas. 




• René Vermeir 

Multilingual landscapes and linguistic vitality in urban surroundings: case-studies of Brussels and Amsterdam. 


Abstract: This project aims to address the vitality and structured linguistic hierarchies of languages used and displayed in the linguistic landscapes 

of Brussels and Amsterdam by means of quantitative and qualitative methodologies as well as geographical analyses. The project also aims to 

address the current conceptual void and lack of clarity on the relation between vitality and linguistic landscapes in general. 




• Stefaan Slembrouck 

Identity and stigmatization: the case of the Roman freedman. A qualitative analysis of the socialization and stratification 

of and the interaction between freed and freeborn Romans. 


Abstract: This project focuses on the highly underrepresented group of Roman freedmen. The main goal is to find out which processes determined 

the interaction between Roman elites and freeborn ?commoners? on the one hand, and the ambivalent class of freedman on the other. Rather than

taking the ?stain of servility? for granted in the freedman?s social life or using it as an explanans, we wish to study it as an explanandum, a social 

phenomenon worth studying for itself. More specifically, we intend to focus on the discrimination mechanisms that both defined and excluded the 

freedman class. 




• Koenraad Verboven 

Self-determination and (im)mobility in the Russian-German contemporary novel 


Abstract: Increased globalization has paved the way for a broader reception of migration and minorities? literature in German literary studies. The 

aim of this project is to uncover the fictionalisation of shifts in identity under the influence of processes of (im)mobility in the Russian-German 

contemporary novel, by focusing on rhetorical and narratological strategies against the Russian-German socio-historical background. 




• Benjamin Biebuyck 

• Gunther Martens 

Robert Schumann?s and Richard Wagner?s 'Musikkritik': a stylistic analysis. 


Abstract: The stylistic opposition between Robert Schumann?s narrative and Richard Wagner?s polemic Musikkritiken exemplifies the rich formal 

variety within 19th century German Musikkritik. My study will examine the stylistic processes within the writings and situate them within a poetics of 

instruction vis-à-vis the reader which challenges previous notions of ?romantic elitism?. As such, my project will accredit Schumann?s and 

Wagner?s fundamental innovation of the genre conventions of Musikkritik. 




• Francis Maes 



Peter Paul Rubens and the distribution of secret knowledge in Antwerp and Italy. 


Abstract: This project will discuss the possesson, circulation and exchange of learned and secret knowledge in Antwerp and Italy, foucusing on 

Rubens's interaction with leading scholars of his time and his pupils. In order tot do so it will particularly focus on the books, manuscripts, 

gnostic gems and some antiquities belonging to the artist's collections as a representation of his attitude towards the appropriation of occult 

knowledge. 


• Departement of Art, music and theatre sciences 


• Koenraad Jonckheere 

The interface between information structure, syntax and 


Abstract: The proposed PhD Project aims at studying Information Structure (IS) of Kikongo. Such study is unprecedented for a western Bantu 

language. The research is both descriptive and comparative, since IS of different Kikongo languages will be compared. Moreover, a historical 

dimension will be added through the integration of the oldest remaining written Bantu sources (17th century), which are in Kikongo. 


• Department of African languages and cultures 


• Gilles-Maurice De Schryver 

• Koen Bostoen 

Global justice: Assessing cosmopolitan approaches in the 


Abstract: Our main focus will be on the realist objection that cosmopolitan justice is utopian and will remain unfeasible. We will investigate the 

interconnectedness between the responsibility of the individual, the role played by states and the changes in the global institutional order needed to 

maximize global justice. 




• Sigrid Sterckx 

From Boudica to Morgan Le Fay: the perception of the celtic woman in victorian fine arts (1837-1901) 


Abstract: How was the imaging of Celtic women in Victorian fine arts during the Celtic Revival? Using 18 cases - comprising painting, sculptures 

and illustrations - from England, Wales and Ireland, the paradoxical (conservative and progressive) impact on this 19th century patriarchal society 

will be examined, taking into account the context of the first emancipation wave in the UK and Ireland. 




• Marjan Sterckx 

• Maryse Demoor 

The sacralisation of knighthood. A study of religious knightly identity in the Southern Low Countries during the High 

Middle Ages. 


Abstract: This project proposes a reinvestigation of the 'sacralisation of knighthood' within the Low Countries during the eleventh and 

twelfth centuries by testing the hypothesis that the development of a sacred ordo equester for the miles Christi became as much a deeply rooted

component of chivalrous identity as a legitimising construct offering power to knights, noblemen and clerics alike. 




• Jeroen Deploige 

Towards the development of ArcheoGML: a conceptual data model for a 4D archaeological GIS 


Abstract: The proposed project consists of a first step towards a formal definition of a conceptual data model specifically designed for 4D 

archaeological data and analysis. The requirements of the archaeologists will take a central position in this development. The model will be 

gradually created using test cases on archaeological sites and continous feedback with the detected user requirements. 


• Departement of Geography 


• Philippe De Maeyer 

The serial nature of experimentation 


Abstract: This project proposes a systematic, philosophical analysis of experimentation understood in terms of series. It aims to illuminate and 

understand how experiments connect sequentially, looking specifically at the early modern period, where serial experiments are abundant. Its 

hypothesis is that serial experimentation is used to generate knowledge. 





• Maarten Van Dyck 

The tribuni plebis and the end of the Roman Republic 


Abstract: The tribuni plebis are central in understanding the political power of socio-political groups in Roman society. They had massive influence 

in the late Republic, and are often linked with the transformation into the Principate. My study will provide a more correct image of them through the 

use of a socio-political methodology, based on principal-agent analysis and models of social conflict. 




• Andries Johan Zuiderhoek 

Quintus Smyrnaeus' Posthomerica: an analysis in a diachronic and synchronic literary field 


Abstract: The subject of my research project is the literary analysis of a late antique Greek author (Quintus of Smyrna), who figures in a 

contradictory literary tradition. I will investigate his literary position by means of a narratological analysis of his epic 'Posthomerica' and 

an intertextual comparison to relevant diachronic and synchronic sources, from Homer onwards. 




• Kristoffel Demoen 

Ferociously female Kali in Kerala: from tribal to deity to pan-Hindu goddess. Reviewing a religious process of assimilation 

and co-optation in a feminine context. 


Abstract: This project will provide a contextualized study of goddess worship in the South Indian state Kerala. We will reconstruct the centuries-long 

evolution that purged a tribal deity from her folklore characteristics and show how goddesses at the margins have succeeded in gaining a place at 

the central Hindu pantheon. Simultaneously our results will be embedded in Kerala's unique feminine history. 


• Departement of Languages and cultures of South and East Asia 


• Eva De Clercq 

Generalisation of exteroceptive and interoceptive cues. 

K.U.Leuven 



• Psychology of Learning and Experimental 


• Tom Beckers 

• Dirk Hermans 

Antwerp Yiddish Noun Plurals (AYNP). 


Abstract: The project will explore structure and acquisition in contemporary Yiddish used by the Jewish Ultra-Orthodox community in Antwerp, 

Belgium. This community lives in a unique multilingual situation that includes three main languages: Yiddish and Dutch - two living languages 

competing as native tongues, and Loshn Koydesh (Classical Hebrew) - restricted only for praying and not used for daily communication. Our 

window onto native Antwerp Yiddish is the system of noun plurals, whereby a singular noun takes on a plural suffix. The aim of the project is twofold: 

first, to describe the system of noun plurals as it is currently used by adults, taking into account the intensive contact with Dutch, and second, 

to understand how this system is acquired by children from the same community. 





• Etienne Gillis 

What with Sign Language? A longitudinal investigation into the language development of young deaf children with a 

cochlear implant (CI) 


Abstract: This study investigates the language development of congenitally deaf chidren who receive a CI in the first year of life. Four questions are 

addressed: (1) how does the deaf child with CI develop Dutch, (2) and Flemish Sign Language, (3) what is the relationship between these two 

languages, and (4) what is the influence of communication choice on language development? 




• Annemieke Van Herreweghe 

• Miriam Taverniers 

From denial to insurgency: The PKK and the (re)construction of Kurdish identity 


Abstract: This study aims at understanding the 30-year long struggle of the Kurdish national movement in Turkey. In this sense, it examines the 

evolution of the PKK from an insurgent movement to a transnational social movement organization as well the emergence of Kurdish identiy politics 

as outcome of this movement. This research will be at junction of three areas: (ethno)-nationalism, social movements and identity politcs. 


• Department of Third World studies 


• Christopher Parker 

Indeterminism and instabilmiteit in nineteenth-century physics 


Abstract: This research is about the end-nineteenth-century debate about deterlinisme in physics, about the different ways in which physicists and 

philosophers could doubt or reject this determinism, and about whether the question if nature is deterministic was regarded(and should be 

regarded) as a purely physical or rather as a philosophical issue. 





ELABORATION OF A METHODOLOGY FOR THE EVALUATION OF SUSTAINABILITY IN THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: The growing interest for sustainable construction led to the development of a multitude of Building Sustainability Assessment Methods 

(BSAM). Among these methods, a distinction can be made between qualitative tools (e.g. BREEAM) consisting of rating systems based on multicriteria 

assessment and quantitative tools (e.g. ATHENA) using a life cycle approach to evaluate the impacts generated during the whole building 

life span. Although quantitative tools are preferred because of their scientific base, current methods are limited to the microscale (individual 

buildings) and global environmental impacts. The meso and macro scale are not addressed and local impacts (e.g noise and indoor air quality) are 

not evaluated. 

The objective of this research is to elaborate a methodology to evaluate the sustainability of the built environment, using an integrated life cycle 

approach combining financial (Life Cycle Costing (LCC)) and environmental (Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)) impact calculations. Th 


• Department of Architecture, Urban Design 


• Frank De Troyer 

I am a PhD candidate at the KULeuven. In September 2011, I obtained my scholarship at the Intercollegiate Center 

for Management Science (ICM). The ICM grant is a three-year scholarship (September 2011 September 2014) which 

finances research in the field 

K.U.Leuven 



• Research Centre Finance 


• James Thewissen 

GIStorical Antwerp: a micro-level data tool for the study of past urban societies, test-case: Antwerp. 


Abstract: This project represents a formal research agreement between UA and on the other hand the Flemish Public Service. UA provides the 

Flemish Public Service research results mentioned in the title of the project under the conditions as stipulated in this contract. 







• Hilde Greefs 

• Tim Soens 

The syntax of idioms 


Abstract: Every language contains idiomatic expressions. In spite of their widespread occurrence, their linguistic properties have so far not been 

deeply and systematically investigated. The aim of this project is to increase our understanding of ‘the language of idioms’ by focusing on their 

behavior in syntax. Therefore, the main research question is: What is the syntax of idioms? This question can be naturally divided into two subquestions, 

which correspond to two sub-projects: (i) What is the internal syntax of idioms, i.e. what characterizes their internal organization and

makeup?; (ii) what is the external syntax of idioms, i.e. how does material contained within the idiom interact with material that is not part of the 

idiom? Subproject 1 aims to show that idioms, in spite of their superficially ‘special’ appearance, are built up by the very same syntactic and 

morphological structure building mechanisms that are responsible for non-idiomatic expressions. Subproject 2 aims to show that idiomatic 

expressions are essentially opaque domains, but that dependencies with idiom-external material is possible under certain narrowly defined 

circumstances. The empirical basis for our investigation into the syntax of idioms will consist of idioms from non-standard varieties of Dutch. On the 

basis of dialect grammars and dictionaries, and also on the basis of additional field work, an electronic database will be developed which will serve 

as a tool for our systematic investigation into the syntax of idioms. 




• JEROEN VAN CRAENENBROECK 

• TANJA TEMMERMAN 

(BKCIRC) Bridging knowledge collections: integration of a digital repository with the online museum catalogues of 

Egyptian objects and the Egyptological library. 

K.U.Leuven 





• N N 

Christian identity-formation and the emergency of the early Church. 

K.U.Leuven 






The Development of Metaphorical Conceptualizations in the Book of Job as refecting the Characters Emotional 

Development. 

K.U.Leuven 





• Pierre Van Hecke 

Tradition and Innovation: Byzantine Homiletics on Pentecost and RelatedFeasts. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: OT/09/003 Preaching after Easter: Greek Patristic Sermons on Ascensioentecost (01.10.2009-30.09.2013). 





Whose citizen then? Minority languages and the minorities in Europe: the case of Iranian minorities in Sweden 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: FP7-PEOPLE-2010-ITN-263954 TIME: Translation Research Training: An integrated and intersectoral model for Europe 




• Reinhilde Meylaerts 

The Synopsis Scripturae Sacrae of John Chrysostom and the Byzantine catedition. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: OT/10/022 Title: On Titles and Chapters. Investigations into the NatPatristic and Byzantine Literature 





• Reinhart Ceulemans 

Overseas Korean Studies Incubation program. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: Increasing demands for more courses on Korean language, society and politics are received at the KU Leuven in recent years. This 

tendency is the obvious result of a dynamic Korean cultural scene that has increased its presence in Europe in recent years but also it is the result 

of vigorous trade relations with Europe that have been stimulated by the Korea-EU FTA since July 2011. The Korea Society for the Promotion of 

Science (KSPS) offers the possibility to develop the Korean studies program at theKU Leuven (Research section of Japanese studies) for a period 

of three years. Promotor of the grant will be prof. Dr. D. Vanoverbeke Co-promotor is prof. dr. W. Vande Walle. They will collaborate with Dr. 

Ransook Kang and Drs. Nicholas Peeters to deepen the Korean language courses, develop a seminar on Korean society and political 

developments andstimulate research on Korea in a global and regional context. 


• Japanese Studies 


• Willy Vande Walle 

• Dimitri Vanoverbeke

Beyond Baudelaire's indignation : an enquiry into the interplay between the art markets and the decline of the 

representation theory in art criticism. The case of Brussels, 1848-1914. 


Abstract: The purpose of this interdisciplinary project is to gain an in-depth understanding of 'art value' through a diachronic analysis of the 

Brussels art market (1848-1914) in relation to simultaneous transformations in the art-theoretical discourse and aesthetic thinking. Preparatory 

historical research has shown that the Brussels art market was profoundly restructured during the second half of the 19th century (Arnout). 

Interestingly enough, this reorganization of the Brussels art market did not only coincide with a striking increase in the number of specialized art 

magazines, but also with the decline of the representation theory and the rise of the expression theory in the visual arts at the end of the 19th 

century. Through a systematic analysis of various forms of discourse on art value (ranging from market value eloquently phrased in auction 

catalogues to art criticism in magazines and philosophical aesthetics), these phenomena will for the first time be approached in one research 

project. Whereas historical research on art markets benefits both from an in-depth art-historical knowledge of the works sold and from an insight 

into the aesthetic canon of a certain period (Lyna), the need for a historical dimension becomes more and more explicit in art-philosophical research 

concerning the criticism of representation. In this interdisciplinary project, the paradigm shift from representation theory to expression theory offers a 

unique opportunity to fathom the interplay of aesthetic thinking and the (historical transformations of the) art markets. 






Morfosyntactische taalvaardigheid bij dove kinderen met een cochleair implantaat: een cross-linguïstisch onderzoek naar 

het Nederlands en het Duits (MORLAS). 


Abstract: The proposed project will investigate speech and language skills of cochlear implant children at the onset of their school career. The 

project will focus on Cochlear Implant children's achievements in a major aspect of language, its morphosyntax. 




• Etienne Gillis 

KASKA - The tradition of the future / the future of the tradition. 


Abstract: This project represents a formal research agreement between UA and on the other hand the Province of Antwerp. UA provides the 

Province of Antwerp research results mentioned in the title of the project under the conditions as stipulated in this contract. 




• Henk de Smaele 

City and city region: the spatial coherence in the development of Antwerp, the Kempen, 1950-1990. 


Abstract: This project represents a formal research agreement between UA and on the other hand the Province of Antwerp. UA provides the 

Province of Antwerp research results mentioned in the title of the project under the conditions as stipulated in this contract. 


• Centre on Inequality, Poverty, Social Exclusion and the City 


• Stijn Oosterlynck 

TIC-Collaborative. A Database of International Congresses and Organisations, 1840-1913 


Abstract: The requested research equipment is an international extension and research-oriented modification of ODIS, the Belgian web database 

for the Study of 19th and 20th Century Intermediary Social Structures in Flanders (www.odis.be). By developing a tailor-made interface, we will be 

able to add existing data collections of the international project partners (Maastricht University, EHESS-Paris, Münster and Newcastle). 




• Christophe Verbruggen 

• Geert Van Goethem 

Mattauch-Herzog ICP-mass spectrometer 


Abstract: Recently, an ICP ? mass spectrometer equipped wth a double-focusing sector field mass spectrometer of Mattauch-Herzog geometry was 

commercially introduced. The most important advantage of this set-up is that the entire elemental spectrum (from Li to U) can be monitored 

simultaneously owing to the use of a detector with 4800 miniaturized detector elements. After a systematic evaluation of its capabilities and 

limitations, the instrument will be deployed for applied research, e.g., in the domains of archaeometry and environmental chemistry ? preferably in 

combination with laser ablation for sample introduction. 


• Departement of Analytical chemistry 


• Frank Vanhaecke 

HISSTER 


Abstract: HISSTER aims to generate and develop a central database of historical statistics concerning mortality in Flanders and Belgium at the local 

level since 1841. 


• Department of History


• Isabelle Devos 

Compassion and Sympathy: Schopenhauer and his Critics. Towards Retrieving Schopenhauers Perspective on Mitleid 

(Compassion) as the Metaphysical Foundation of Ethics. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: Schopenhauer#s perspective on Mitleid (compassion) articulates a voluntaristic virtue ethics that is founded on metaphysical monism. The 

moral significance of Mitleid is viewed as the seeking of the well-being of others, which stems from a response to the apprehension of their 

sufferingengendered by human egoistic agency. The metaphysical relevance of Schopenhauer#s perspective on Mitleid lies in the fact that it 

essentially underscores the notion of the oneness of Being and especially, the notionof common humanity against the evil consequences of 

individualism whichsome consider to be the bane of modernity. Despite the general relevance of the phenomenon of compassion to ethics, 

inadequate conceptions of compassion by Schopenhauer#s critics tend to diminish its ethical import.Hence, a question that deserves much 

attention in this research is how valid is Schopenhauer#s perspective on Mitleid as the metaphysical foundation of ethics given these criticisms. Of 

particular interest are th 




• William Desmond 

Language awareness raising in Flemish primary schools. An implementation study. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: In 2011 a review study, commissioned by 'VLOR' (Flemish council ofeducation) was carried out by the Centre for Language and Education 

(CLE, KU Leuven) and 'Steunpunt Diversiteit en Leren' (SDL, UGent), inassociation with the research unit Language and Education (KU Leuven) 

and the network of expertise School of Education Association KU Leuven. The study reports on the concept, the use and the effects of language 

awareness raising in Flemish primary and secondary education. It concludes that a well-thought implementation project can provide all those 

involved (policy-makers, educational counselors , schools and teachers) with the necessary information and instruments to understand the 

importance of language awareness raising as well as to put language awareness raising in practice. In order to initiate this implementation project, a 

short-term study is carried out (by CLE, SDL and the Flemish educational support-services), aiming at the following goals: (1) support the 

pedagogical suppo 


• Language and Education 


• Koen Van Gorp 

• Kristiaan Van Den Branden 

Social Commerce and business intelligence techniques. 

K.U.Leuven 



• Research Centre for Management Informati 


• Bart Baesens 

Understanding Chinese and European structural foreign policy at the crossroads between interculturality and diversitycomparitive 

analysis andcase-study(DR Congo). 

K.U.Leuven 



• Institute for International and European 


• Stephan Keukeleire 

Unity and diversity: an investigation of managerial coaching in 'BRIC countries' - a study of Brazil, Russia, India China 

from 2003to 2013. 

K.U.Leuven 



• Occupational & Organisational Psychology 


• Martin Euwema 

The eternal and the infinite in Arnold Geulincxs moral philosophy 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: Explores the significance of the concepts of the infinite and the eternal in the moral philosophy of Arnold Geulincx, in the context of his 

metaphysics, physics, and the thought of his contemporaries. 


• Husserl-Archives: Centre for Phenomenolo 


• Roland Breeur 

The origin of Platonic hylomorphism. The role of pseudo-Pythagorean textte ancient philosophy of nature 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: OT/11/003, The Explanation of Qualitative Properties in Neo¬platonic Phy of Nature and Metaphysics' 




• Jan Opsomer 

• Pieter d'Hoine 

• Angela Ulacco

RICH: Reflectance imaging for cultural heritage. 

K.U.Leuven 





• Jan Van der Stock 

• Luc Van Gool 

• Frederik Truyen 

• Melvyn Collier 

Cultuur in de Spiegel in Vlaanderen. 

K.U.Leuven 



• Research Group Education and Lifelong Le 


• Anneloes Vandenbroucke 

Sketched by themselves. From cultural identity to socigraphy. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: In the first half of the XIXth Century, numerous books were published throughout Europe, that combined the satirical depiction of manners 

("étude de moeurs") with the form of the self-portrait. These books, usually organised in edited collections, offered a textual and iconic 

representation of different types associated with social groups or professions. This research project comprises two complementary parts. On the 

one hand, a special issue of the online KULeuven-UCL journal "Interferences littéraires - Literary interferences" ((URL:https://owaie.kuleuven.be/owa/redir.aspx?C=ce06fb33c5dc4077ab8766d739b86158&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.interferenceslitteraires.be)www.interferencesl 

itteraires.be) will be prepared on this panoramic literature (W. Benjamin) in cooperation with international experts. On the other hand a website will 

be set up for thescientific online edition of this literature, from the late eighteenth century to the mid-nineteenth century in Europe (incl. Germany, 

Engl 




• David Martens 

Number sense: towards new investigational and instructional methods 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: This junior fellowship+ project is linked to the GOA project nr. 2012/010 entitled Number sense: Analysis and improvement a 3-year postdoc 

position is available. The central theme of the GOA project is the association between (the development of) lower-order and higher-order 

aspects of number sense, their relationship with school mathematics, and the possibility and effects of stimulating number sense. The GOA project 

will address general questions such as: What are the rootsof number sense? How are various aspects of number sense, particularly its lower-order 

and higher-order aspects, connected? How do the (lower-order and higher-order) aspects of number sense develop in relation to each other, both in 

typically developing children and in children with mathematical learning difficulties? And how is this development related to their school mathematics 

learning? How can we enhance the development ofnumber sense through instruction? What is the effect of game-based learning enviro 




• Jan Elen 

• Lieven Verschaffel 

• Patrick Onghena 

• Wim Van Dooren 

• Bert De Smedt 

• Bert Reynvoet 

The role of MMP-3 in survival and regeneration of retinal ganglion cells: insights from mouse models for optic 

neuropathies. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: OT10/033 

Role of matrix metalloproteinases in development, survival and regeneration of retinal ganglion cells: insights for treatment of glaucoma 


• Animal Physiology and Neurobiology Secti 


• Godelieve Moons 

The inhibitory circuitry in the visual cortex of mice with visual deficits 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: OT09/22 Vision and cortical plasticity 


• Animal Physiology and Neurobiology Secti 


• Lutgarde Arckens 

Exploiting space-scale separation in a multiscale method for plastic deformation of polycrystalline materials 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: ZKC0318 / IDO/08/009 Ontwikkeling van een geoptimaliseerd meerschalenmodel voor de simulatievan plastische vormgeving van 

metalen


• Numerical Analysis and Applied Mathemati 


• Dirk Roose 

• Paul Van Houtte 

Molecular determinants of reduced HIV integration in Elite Controllers 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: OT/09/047 2009-2013 

All promoters and copromoters approve this application. 


• Laboratory of Molecular Virology and Gen 


• Zeger Debyser 

• Rik Gijsbers 

Public service leadership in world perspective and Training top civil servants: a comparative research programme 

K.U.Leuven 



• Public Management Institute 


• Geert Bouckaert 

• Annie Hondeghem 

Decoding the self-generated wave fluctuations and their role in the formation 

of the solar wind 

K.U.Leuven 



• Plasma-astrophysics Section 


• Stefaan Poedts 

The nature of intensity oscillations in the solar corona 

K.U.Leuven 



• Plasma-astrophysics Section 


• Marcel Goossens 

• Tom Van Doorsselaere 

Motor Cortical Perturbations in 3-Dimensional Reaching Movements 

K.U.Leuven 



• Movement Control & Neuroplasticity Resea 


• Ilse Jonkers 

• Stephan Swinnen 

Comparing regionality and sustainability in Pisidia, Boeotia, Picenum and NW Gaul between Iron and Middle Ages (1,000 

BC - AD 1,000). 

K.U.Leuven 






City and Society in the Low Countries (ca. 1200-ca. 1850). The condition urbaine: between resilience and vulnerability. 

K.U.Leuven 



• Early Modern History (15th-18th Centurie 


• Eric Aerts 

Craeater Mesopotamia: reconstruction of its Environment and History. 

K.U.Leuven 





• Karel Van Lerberghe

Kennis en attitudes van Vlaamse verpleegkundigen en zorgkundigen ten aanzien van ouderenseksualiteit. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: Knowledge and attitudes of nurses towards sexuality in institutionalized elderly: an empirical study in nursing homes in Flanders, Belgium 

Institutionalized elderly continue to have the need for sexual expression and intimacy. Nurses often display negative responses when they are 

confronted with the sexual behavior of residents. They feel ashamed and do not know how to react. This generates feelings of discomfort, resulting 

in the denial of resident's needs and desires for sexual fulfillment.The objective of this study is to describe the knowledge and attitudes of nursing 

staff toward sexuality in residents living innursing homes in Flanders, Belgium. We will describe the relationship between knowledge and attitudes, 

and whether certain demographic factors relate to the knowledge and attitudes of nursing home caregivers. 


• Interfaculty Centre for Biomedial Ethics 


• Chris Gastmans 

In tune with eternity: song and spirituality of the Modern Devotion. 


Abstract: The textual culture of the Modern Devotion is more differentiated than previous scholarship has acknowledged, with respect to 

transmission, production, reception, and content. The project will provide new perspective to the field by developing an innovative view on the 

pragmatic functionality and the thematic uniqueness of Middle Dutch devotional song, particularly by including 

sermons and sister books into song research, and by methodological integration. The project aims to expand the established research paradigm 

and will yield new insights in the unique position of devout song. 


• Research centre Ruusbroec Institute 


• Thomas Mertens 

City and society in the low countries (ca. 1200 - ca 1850). The condition urbaine: between resilience and vulnerability 

(City&Society). 


Abstract: In the previous IAP phase, our network covered the wide time-frame of the late Middle Ages and early modern period (roughly speaking 

the period between 1200 and 1800). In this new IAP phase, driven by the need for wider comparisons and a better understanding of patterns of 

transformation, our network intends to extend the chronological scope until ca. 1850, allowing the transition to modern society to be included. The 

study of transformations and continuities between, on the one hand, the medieval and early modern period and, on the other hand, the early 

modern and modern period, will therefore be at the core of our research. 





Prefiguration and Hegemony: Representation and Counter-Democratic Movements in the 21st Century 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: Aim of this project is to conceptualise #representation# from the perspective of #counter-representative# movements, such as #Occupy#, 

the #Arab Spring#, or (rightwing) populism. Two different approaches to representation will be developed: #prefiguration# and #hegemony#. 




• Timmy Heysse 

PICTo. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: Mensen met cognitieve beperkingen hebben het vaak moeilijk om in het huidige digitale tijdperk deel te nemen aan online communicatie 

zoals email, chat en sociale netwerken. Voor vele personen die niet kunnen lezen of schrijven, is het bestaan van digitale verzamelingen van 

pictogrammen daarom ook een absolute noodzaak om via digitale platformen te kunnen communiceren via een pictogramtaal, die gebruik maakt 

van een specifieke pictogramverzameling. Het probleem is echter dat, zelfs binnen eenzelfde taalgebied, verschillende standaard 

pictogramverzamelingenen -talen bestaan; allen gebruikmakend van hun eigen figuren en principes. Sommige pictogramtalen steunen op een 

letterlijke vertaling vande verschillende woorden en begrippen, terwijl anderen trachten om de actie, richting en het subject in een pictogram te 

vatten. Dit maakt vertaling van de ene pictogramtaal naar de andere pictogramtaal moeilijk. Vertaling is echter een concrete nood uit het werkveld, 

vermits elke pictogramtaal dui 


• Dutch, German and Computational Linguist 


• Frank Van Eynde 

BEAT. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: PROJECT TITLE : (URL:http://www.beat-eu.org/)Biometrics Evaluation and Testing Keywords: Biometric technologies - evaluations - 

benchmarking The goal of BEAT is to propose a framework of standard operational evaluations for biometric technologies. This will be achieved by 

(1) developing an online and open platform to transparently and independently evaluate biometric systems against validated benchmarks, (2) 

designing protocols and tools for vulnerability analysis, and (3) developing standardization documents for Common Criteria evaluations. 

Additionally, legal aspects will be considered to address the issues of both privacy data protection and Intellectual Property and so ensure that the 

BEAT framework can be used by the research community and companies. There will be three outcomes of this project. The first is that the reliability 

of biometric systems will be measurable and thus should lead to a meaningful increase in performance. The second is that technology transfer from 

research 


• Research Unit Law and Information Techno 


• Joseph Dumortier

Preparation of recombinant exopolysaccharide EPS depolymerase encoded by Pseudomonas aeruginosa phages and 

determination of its activity in biofilm degradation.nbsp; 

K.U.Leuven 



• Division of Gene Technology 


• Rob Lavigne 

MAGIS Brugge: Marcus Gheeraerts Information System, a dynamic digital interface for the history of Bruges. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: MAGIS Brugge (MAGIC Bruges) is a multidisciplinary research project which focuses on the well-known 16th-century bird-eye view of the 

cityof Bruges, engraved by Marcus Gheeraerts. At a first stage, the complexcartographic content of the 16th-century map will be analysed 

profoundly by means of a recently developed digital research method, the digitalthematic deconstruction. Secondly, the thousands and thousands 

of cartographic elements discovered on the map will be linked to a topographic database and a GIS, which both will be developed into a dynamic 

tool and interface for the history of Bruges. It will allow scholars to visualise topographic elements, to make historical reconstruction maps and to 

renew/proceed the study of the urban topography, town development, segregation patterns, socio-economic trends, etc. of late medieval and early 

modern Bruges. The partners involved in MAGIS Brugge will submit a new project in order to remodel the cartographic analysis and database into a 





• Brecht Dewilde 

• Jelle Haemers 

• Bram Jasper Vannieuwenhuyze 

Grammatical Studies in Buddhist Hybrid Chinese: the passive construction in early Chinese translation literature (2nd-5th 

century AD) 


Abstract: The thesis is a study of early Buddhist Hybrid Chinese with an amphasis on the development of the passive constructions. Based on the 

quantitative analysis of materials collected in a database, the evolution of passive constructions, their distributions during different periods, 

questions concerning grammaticalization processes, and the influence of Indic languages and Chinese dialects will be studied and analyzed. 




• Ann Heirman 

Cultural aspects of health behavior: An anthropological study on Congolese people with a disability and their networks in 

transnational spaces 

K.U.Leuven 



• Interculturalism, Migration and Minoriti 


• Patrick Devlieger 

The Nature of the Priestly Tradition in the Pentateuch: The Flood Story(Gn 6,59,19) as a Test Case 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: The present dissertation will focus on the nature and literary form of the Priestly tradition in the Pentateuch. To this end, the project will 

particularly focus on a detailed analysis of the so-called Flood story (Gn 6,5-9,19) as a test case. The first part will review the research history of the 

debate on the nature of P, by focusing on two major models: P as an independent source and P as a creative redaction. The second part will 

present an analysis of the Flood story against the background of the debate on P#s nature presented in the first part. In this way, the dissertation 

aims to shed light on and contribute to a better understanding of P#s nature in the Pentateuch. 





Knowledge through Worship: The Epistemological Underpinnings of Liturgical Theology 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: The underlying principle on which this project is based is the belief that through participating in the communal act of 

worship, people gain atype of knowledge which cannot be characterized as "about" anything. Rather, this 

knowledge seems somehow to be" through" something, and it cannot be untied from its context in active worship. 

Despite the centrality of worship to Christian practice, there has not, to date, been an in-depth study of the different 

dimensions of these types of knowledge within the field of liturgical studies. This project seeks to do justice tothe 

experiences of those who participate in liturgical (or ritual) celebrations by examining the philosophical 

underpinnings of contemporary liturgical studies. To do this, the pressupositions of liturgical theologians concerning 

the nature of knowledge must be challenged while examining the philosophical foundations of their reflections. The 

project itself seeks to be interdisciplinary, engaging the work of both theol 


• Research Unit Pastoral Theology



The Catholic Church Vis-A-Vis the World Population Growth and (Neo-)Malthusian Policies. A Glance to Rwandan Context 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: The research project in hand, articulated in four parts, wants to be a contribution to the world population growth debate with a glance on 

the context of Rwanda. Firstly, starting with statistical data, a historic overview of the world population growth will be presented, so as to appreciate 

its past and current state, its projections, its dynamics and its distribution on the world, regional and local (Rwandan) level. Secondly,we get to the 

heart of the (neo)-Malthusian thesis, analyzing its influence on the demographic policies and checking the plausibility of their thesis for birth control 

at all costs. Thirdly, we evaluate the relevance of the Catholic Church teaching, which was often limited to sexual ethics in connection with birth 

control methods that were or were not allowed. The floor will also be given to local bishops and to theologians. Fourthly, departing from creation 

theology, Louvain tradition and Vatican II personalist conception of human dignity and marriage, we work o 





La naissance de l'aniconisme en Israel et l'évolution de culte de Yhwh 

K.U.Leuven 






La théologie morale dans son rapport à la théologie ascétique et mystique chez Saint François de Sales 

K.U.Leuven 






Religious aspects in Chinese female literature 


Abstract: With this research project we aim at investigating the role of Christianity and Humanistic Buddhism in the writings of Chinese female 

authors of the twentieth century. 





Ontwikkelen van een instrument voor detecteren en stimuleren van ondernemingszin. 

K.U.Leuven 





• Ferdinand Laevers 

Conferentie: A taste of home - Dat smaakt naar thuis. Voeding, identiteit, plaats en herinnering in Europa vanuit een 

historisch perspectief (19e en 20e eeuw) 

Vrije Universiteit Brussel 

Abstract: Conference addressing the concept of 'home' in terms of food. 


• History 

• Political Science 


• PETER SCHOLLIERS 

• PATRICIA VAN DEN EECKHOUT 

The French verb in a constructional perspective 


Abstract: The elaboration of a global construction grammar of the French verb with special attention to (1) the outline of an adequate verbtypology; 

(2) the analysis of the mechanisms which lay at the basis of the most frequent meaning extensions; (3) a thorough analysis of some specific 

verbclasses (perception, cognition, transfer and communication). 


• Department of Research Affairs 


• Dominique Willems 

Preservation of Kaya district colonial archives ans assessment of the potential/feasibility of recovering other former 

district capitals' collections, Burkina Faso. 

K.U.Leuven 



• Institute for Anthropological Research i 


• Mark Breusers 

EuropeanaPhotography. 

K.U.Leuven 



• IT Services, Faculty of Arts 



Research on discrimination and persecution of Jews in Belgium between 1918 and 1950, by developing a database and 

analyzing the available data. 


Abstract: This project represents a formal research agreement between UA and on the other hand the Flemish Public Service. UA provides the 

Flemish Public Service research results mentioned in the title of the project under the conditions as stipulated in this contract. 


• Government and Law 


• Herman Van Goethem 

Cultural transfers in the Middle Ages: monasticism as a generator and mediator of 'secular' practices of 

social interaction and entertainment (Western Europe, 11th-15th centuries) 


Abstract: This project will look at the phenomenon of cultural exchange based on the study of the role of medieval monastic groups in the creation 

and dissemination of entertainment games. Monastic groups incorporated elements of play from secular culture and transformed them to make 

them suitable for use inside the monastery and usable in the dissemination of monastic attitudes in the secular world. 




• Steven Vanderputten 

Regulation of ciliogenesis in neurodevelopment and de novo lipogenesis ubrafish as a model organism. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: Nathalie Jurisch-Yaksi 


• Department of Human Genetics 


• Patrizia Agostinis 

• Willem Annaert 

• Johannes Swinnen 

• Nathalie Jurisch-Yaksi 

Kant on Biblical Interpretation 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: The provisional title of this dissertation is: #Kant on Biblical Interpretation.# This research project will investigate into 

the principles of Kant#s philosophical interpretation of the Bible within the boundariesof mere reason, particularly 

vis-à-vis his concept of #truth# and the proper relation between philosophy and revelation, as well as into the role of 

Scriptural exegesis in Kant#s philosophy of religion. 




• Martin Moors 

Reason and Religious Consciousness in Schelling's Later Philosophy 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: Mythology and revelation rarely enter the scene of philosophical reflection, but Schelling#s later thought is a marvellous exception. His 

philosophical clarification of the conception of revelation and of mythology as its presupposition helps us understand human religiosity on the 

basisof historical sources of religious notions. Nevertheless, Schelling#s endeavour remains a philosophical enquiry, not an empirical-historical 

induction. Schelling calls his philosophical approach #positive philosophy# in distinction from the #negative# one, which only moves within the field 

of conceptual possibilities without being able to deal with actuality. Therefore, my study must elucidate how Schelling, through his critical 

appropriation of the Kantian reason, is able to deal with such comprehensive religious phenomena and also with man#s actual consciousness of 

God. In other words, this project considers how philosophical reason finds itself dissatisfied in its negative stage and therefore welcomes 




• Ludovicus De Vos 

The Epistemic Puzzle of Perception 

K.U.Leuven 



• Centre for Logic and Analytical Philosop 


• Stefaan Cuypers

A relationship of reciprocity? The changing position of teaching and research wiithin the nineteenth-century history 

professorship. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: Studies in the research activities of nineteenth-century history professors have greatly multiplied in recent years. There has been shown 

that those activities were stimulated by the creation of a solid job market for historians, the formation of academic communities, the rise of archives, 

and the many professional and friendly relations between historians world-wide. However, there has been relatively little analysis of the part history 

professors played as teachers. The literature almost ignores one of the most substantial aspects of the nineteenth-century history professorship. 

Besides conducting research in an increasingly specialized way, nineteenth-century history professors devoted a lot of their time to education 

activities. They did not only teach their own students. By publishing textbooks and writing more popular works, they did also instruct the pupils from 

secondary schools and even the whole nation. My project explores how history professors in Belgium combined their rese 


• Cultural History since 1750 


• Tom Verschaffel 

• Katelijne Wils 

• Matthias Meirlaen 

Writing and Reading Greek Myth: the Importance of Authors and Readers in Defining the Mythographical Genre. 

K.U.Leuven 






• Ulrike Kenens 

Muscle degeneration/regeneration in animal model for cancer-related cachexia. 

K.U.Leuven 



• Embryo and Stemcells 


• Maurilio Sampaolesi 

• Emanuele Berardi 

Feminism, domesticity and imperialism in the fiction of Flora Annie Steel. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: The turn of the nineteenth century saw a remarkable change in the perception and representation of women in both Britain and Colonial 

India. Moreover, in the fictional and non-fictional writings of these times, feminism, domesticity and imperialism emerge as dominant subjects. While 

there has been quite some research on these writings in a strictly British context, it has not yet been analysed how this change in climate affected 

the perception and representation of Indian and Anglo-Indian characters. This study, therefore, aims to investigate the imperialised portrayalof 

Indian womanhood in the fictional work of Flora Annie Steel (1847-1929), in the context of the issues and changes that took place in 

Britainregarding women and feminism. It will do so by comparing the changes inthe moral framework, the norms of domesticity, and imperialism in 

the work of Steel with that of Sarah Grand (1854-1943) and George Egerton (1859-1945). 




• Elke D'hoker 

Overforminghe as deification? The theme of deification in the work of John of Ruusbroec in light of the older mystical 

tradition of the Low Countries and the condemnation of Marguerite Porete. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: The project will research the theme of transformation in love in the works of John of Ruusbroec, specifically Ruusbroecs critical reworking 

of the central theme in the work of Marguerite Porete, who was condemnedby the Inquisition in 1310. The investigation of this case study will shed 

new light on the broader theme of deification in Christian thoughtin the Western Middle Ages. This theme occupied a central place in Patristic and 

Eastern Christian reflection, but very few studies have focused on its later development in the medieval West. The objective of the research is 

twofold. First, to investigate the development of the theme ofdeification in the tradition inherited by John of Ruusbroec (William ofSaint-Thierry, 

Beatrice of Nazareth, (Pseudo-)Hadewijch and Marguerite Porete, among others), which had become problematic resulting from Poretes 

condemnation. Second, to investigate the extent to which Ruusbroec, influenced by Porete, with whose work he was undoubtedly familiar, re 





Lost (and found). A critical study and analysis of the history of research on lost documents and hypothetical sources of 

early christianity. 

K.U.Leuven 






The authority of the bishop in the Post-Carolingian and Pre-Reform Age (c.900-c.1050). An inquiry into the lives and deeds 

of episcopal leadersin Western Francia and into the nature of their authority (Church province of Rheims). 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: The goal of this research is to provide a new insight into the complexity of the episcopal office in post-Carolingian Western Francia (c. 

900-c.1050). To improve our understanding of the role played by the bishop inthis period of transition in European history, this project will focus on 

the singularity as well as on the entirety of the episcopal function within the archdiocese of Rheims. Any new and unprejudiced research, on the one 

hand, has to depart from a thorough study of the post-Carolingian episcopate in its own right. Reiteration of the tenor of the eleventh-century

polemical writings of the reformers and of the negative depictions in older scholarship leads to anachronistic assumptions and should becarefully 

avoided. Only a global approach to the nature of the episcopal function, on the other hand, can do justice to the sophisticated interlocking of secular 

and ecclesiastical interests and realities in early medieval society. The central research questions that require an ans 





Farming in tropical Africa. Agricultural science and knowledge networksin Belgian Congo, 1908-1960. 

K.U.Leuven 



• Modernity & Society 1800-2000 


• Yves Segers 

• Helena Van Molle 

Caput Johannis in disco Iconology of the Johannesschüssel (1200-1550): object-function-medium with emphasis on the 

Low Countries. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: The project pursues three research trajectories object, function and medium to interpret the phenomenon of the medieval and earlymodern 

Johannesschüssel. A new type of artefact arose in early-13th-century Western Europe, the three-dimensional representation of John the 

Baptists head on a platter. This Johannesschüssel evoked the words of the Gospel recounting the beheading of the Baptist (textual prototype), 

whileat the same time alluding to the veneration of the Baptists head as a relic, with Amiens as the most important centre in Western Europe (cultic 

prototype). The research project will close the gap in art-historical knowledge of the origins, typology and dissemination of the object (1), of its Sitz 

im Leben, its changing functions and archetypes in the medieval and early-modern periods (2), and finally of its impact on artistic media, from its 

genesis in sculpture around 1200 to its final stage in painting around 1550 (3). The methodology of the project will apply the l 




• Barbara Baert 

Modernisms's Literariness Reconsidered: on the phonograph and gramophone in the literature of the Low Countries, 

1890-1940. 

K.U.Leuven 





• Sascha Bru 

The explanation of qualitative properties in Neoplatonic philosophy of nature and metaphysics in relation to the 

Neoplatonic theory of science. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: The Neoplatonic account of qualitative properties contains a remarkableparadox. On the one hand, Platonists are committed to the 

explanatory model of Platos Timaeus, according to which qualities of material objects derive from properties of geometric structures. They develop 

a hierarchy of material properties and explain how higher-level properties supervene upon more fundamental properties. They thus combine the 

Aristoteliananalysis of qualitative properties with a micro-physicalist supervenience model. On the other hand, the Neoplatonic metaphysical system 

requires that the occurrences of qualitative properties in nature be explained as the effects of intelligible causes, the Platonic Forms, which 

themselves stem from still higher principles. This project will provide the first comprehensive study of the interplay between these two explanatory 

models. It does so against the background of the Neoplatonic theory of science. The latter will be the subject of a PhD that will focus on th 







Political representation and democratic agency. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: Viewed from the ideal of direct democracy, representation is traditionally considered either as an obstacle to or even as downright 

opposed to democratic participation. However, recent philosophical research, partlyrealized within our own research group (RIPPLE), has pointed 

out that politics is intrinsically representational in nature. If that is the case, then participation or, more generally, democratic agency: the 

citizen‟s active engaging in democratic rule, must be reconceived in termsof representation,nbsp;must itself be understood as inherently 

representational in nature if it is to be politically or democratically effective and meaningful. The present research project intends to develop such a 

representational understanding of democratic agency, both on the level of the established representative institutions and on the level of what always 

and inevitably is excluded by such institutions. By inquiring into the representational nature of political and democratic age 




• Antoon Braeckman 

• Timmy Heysse 

• Raf Geenens 

• Matthias Lievens 

Modelling interactive alignment processes. A multimodal and multifocal approach. 

K.U.Leuven 


Organisations:



• Kurt Feyaerts 

• Geert Brône 

The development of nominal and verbat gerunds from Middle to Late Modern English: towards a semantic and discoursefunctional 

analysis. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: Analyses of the English gerund have tended to focus on verbal gerunds, on the formal conditions under which they arose in Middle and 

Early Modern English, and on their peculiar lexicogrammatical status in Present-day English. However, as suggested in Fanego (1996), Heyvaert 

(2008) and De Smet (2008), to come to full grips with the rise of the verbal gerund,we need to include the (changing role of the) nominal gerund into 

our scope and integrate existing formal descriptions into a more encompassinganalysis that includes a semantic and discourse-functional 

perspective.To that end, this project (1) will analyze verbal as well as nominal gerunds; (2) extend the usual descriptive focus by including data from 

Late Modern English; (3) consider the semantics of the situation (types) that nominal and verbal gerunds can designate, and map out 

theirdiscourse-functional behaviour. 




• Hubert Cuyckens 

• Liesbet Heyvaert 

• Hendrik De Smet 

Shakespeare and Irish Romanticism. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: This project will fill gaps in scholarship on Irish Romanticism and on the international reception of Shakespeare by analysing the use made 

of Shakespeare by three key Irish Romantic writers. Shakespearean traces inthe works of Lady Morgan, Charles Robert Maturin and James 

Clarence Mangan will be categorized through applications of intertextual theory. Their significance will then be assessed through comparisons with 

cognate modes of Shakespearean intertextuality that have already been charted: the English Romantic embrace of Shakespearean influence, the 

appropriationof Shakespeares work by Romantic cultural nationalists in Europe, the use of Shakespearean plots in Gothic fiction, postcolonial 

rewritings ofShakespeare, and more recent Irish writers ambivalent attitude towardsthe central icon of the English canon. The project will investigate 

connections between Morgans, Maturins and Mangans uses of Shakespeare and their different ideological positions within Irish society, as well 




• Raphaël Ingelbien 

Valorising Linguistic Diversity in Multiple Contexts of Primary Education. (VALIDIV) 

K.U.Leuven 






Communities meet mobile 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: CoMobile is an e-commerce project within the framework of the IBBT ICONcall. Project partners include ClearPark, Alcatel-Lucent, 

Massive Media(Netlog, Twoo), Mobile Vikings, CardWise, BDMA, COSIC, ICRI, CUO, MICT,SMIT and iLab.o.nbsp; The goal of the project is to 

develop a platform to combine mobile internet with social networking. AMobile Wallet Solution will be developed, offering payment, loyalty 

andcouponing services, to be used by both Netlog and Mobile Vikings. Moreover, Netlog is planning to offer prepaid credit cards to its community. 

Finally BDMA is joining the project, as the solutions developed in CoMobile can bring important added value to their members. The CoMobile 

platform will feature the following components: an open loyalty program, supporting the Netlog and Mobile Vikings loyalty schemes; usage of credit 

cards as a classic payment instrument with this loyalty scheme; aCommunity Service Platform for Group Deals, based on the Mobile Wallet Server. 

CoMobile wants to 




• Joseph Dumortier 

• Peggy Valcke 

Balancing between Philosophy and Theology: Exploring Merold Westphals Pology of Faith for a Contemporary 

Philosophy of Religion and Fundamental theology. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: . 





• William Desmond 

The 'Theological Imaginary' in J.H. Newmans Theology of History: 

K.U.Leuven 






• Terrence Merrigan

Games Online for Basic Language learning (GOBL). 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: This project aims to provide youths and adults wishing to improve theirbasic language skills with access to materials for the development 

of communicative proficiency in French, Dutch and English through web-based minigames that support spoken interaction. Worldwide, and 

especially in Europe, millions of people have to learn foreign languages every year, or a second language which they need to integrate in socioeconomic 

contexts. Still, some groups participate to a lesser extent, or lose interestin formal language education altogether. Moreover, in foreign 

language curricula, it may be argued that speaking practice and grammatical accuracy receive little attention nowadays. Educational mini-games 

are small,self-contained games which focus on well-defined learning topics, whichare highly motivating, reusable, and cost-effective. Mini-games 

are particularly fit for the development of language skills at the lower end ofthe proficiency scale. Moreover, there is evidence that disadvantaged 


• Subfaculty of Arts, Kulak 


• Piet Desmet 

Teaching in the Bed of Procrustes - Effectiveness of gender-sensitive strategies with regard to academic achievement, 

school retardation, unqualified drop-out, the motivation to learn and the aspirations youngsters in secondary education. 

K.U.Leuven 






GENK-BREDE LEER- EN LEEFOMGEVING 

K.U.Leuven 






Training Language policy for primary education in Genk . 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: In the context of the educational policy of the city of Genk, it appeared there is a need for a stronger policy making capacity in the schools 

of Genk. Taking into account the challenges concerning language the schools of Genk are faced with, language policy is considered a good trigger 

to strengthen the policy making capacity of the schools, and to make it concrete.The Centre for Language and Education (CLE) was asked 

todevelop a training program concerning language policy for teachers of primary schools in Genk. It is important that this training connects withthe 

ongoing initiatives resulting in a strengthening of the schools' expertise. The CLE has years of experience with trainings concerning language 

proficiency in general, and organizes the training Expert in language policy for two years in Leuven now. The training Expert in languagepolicy is a 

total package, aimed at training to become expert with respect to language policy (building stones and processes). What is unique 





ITEC-IBBT-Games@school 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: G@S stands for Games at School and responds to the growing commercial and academic interest in using videogames for educational 

purposes. More specifically, G@S focuses on the educational games of Monkey Tales 

((URL:http://monkeytalesgames.com)http://monkeytalesgames.com),developed by game developer Larian Studios and published by Die Keure. 

Monkey Tales is a series of 3D video games that combines mathematics with a high dose of fun and aims at children between 7 and 11 years old. 

The G@S-project aims to develop a platform that allows to easily create and distribute educational games. This platform is intended to beused both 

at schools and at home, and the project aspires to establish this platform as an international point of reference in the field of educational videogaming. 

G@S has innovative goals in four areas: 1/ the creation of authoring tools for educational games; 2/ the development of adaptive and 

player-centered content and feedback; 3/ user-centereddesign and usability r 





ITEC-IBBT-IREAD. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: The iRead+ project aims at developing an intelligent reader based on text, audio and visual materials made available via e-reader or tablet 

PC.iRead+ addresses a broad public ranging from general readers to language learners and struggling readers. The intelligence of the reader 

shouldbe situated mainly on the level of the enrichment of the textual and multimedia material. Three types of annotation techniques will be studied 

to this end: linguistic annotations, socio-collaborative annotations andmultimodal annotations. The purpose of the enrichments are to enhance the 

reading/viewing process and increase the interactivity between the user and the (Dutch and French) content by providing himwith information that 

matches his profile such as extra photos, web links, dictionary definitions, translations, etc. The iRead+ application also provides an exercise 

generator that automatically generates exercisesbased on the texts that have been read. 




• Patrick De Causmaecker 

• Wim Van Den Noortgate 

• Geraldine Clarebout 


Junior College Language. 

K.U.Leuven

Abstract: Junior College is a joint initiative of the KU Leuven and KU Leuven KULAK that is meant to bring scientific research into the secondary 

school classroom and help motivated and talented students find out more about their skills and interests. It includes modules on mathematics, 

history and language. Prof. Dagmar Vandebosch and prof. Liesbet Heyvaert are responsible for the modules on Language which offer material on 

literary sciences, linguistics and communication sciences. 




• Liesbet Heyvaert 


Archiefbank Vlaanderen 2012. 

K.U.Leuven 



• KADOC - Documentation and Research Centr 


• Jan De Maeyer 

Queer sounds: The function and meaning of music in the formation and evolution of an LGBT subculture in the city of 

Antwerp (1960-2010). 


Abstract: This project aims to contribute to a better understanding of the function of music in processes of subcultural identification, focusing on the 

LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) community in Antwerp. It is widely accepted that music plays an important role in the formation 

and self-definition of minorities and subcultures, but its function in the LGBT community has not been extensively investigated yet. Moreover, 

Flemish LGBT culture and its history have hardly come up for academic analysis to date. Our aim is, first, to find out what musical repertoire and 

which musical functions were shared within the LGBT scene, focusing on the largest Flemish urban centre Antwerp, between 1960 (the start of the 

LGBT movement in Antwerp) and 2010. Secondly, we will analyse how this repertoire and its uses operate as subcultural capital and contribute to 

the formation of one or more LGBT subcultures. 


• Media, policy and culture 



• Bart Eeckhout 

• Alexander Dhoest 

Computation Reconsidered. 


Abstract: The goal of this project is to reconsider the notion of computation, especially in its received interpretation as fundamentally inner. It will be 

proposed that computation should be construed primarily as referring to external, or world-involving, person-bound 

activity. This notion of overt computation will be developed, and its explanatory potential will be investigated. The notion of inner computation, as 

allegedly carried out inside the brain, will be questioned. 




• Erik Myin 

Changing conceptions of the good. MacIntyre and Kierkegaard on the virtues and the good life. 


Abstract: The second half of the twentieth century saw, especially through the work of Alasdair MacIntyre, a rehabilitation of classical virtue ethics, 

which is now considered to be one of the most influential ethical paradigms. But because the virtue ethics MacIntyre rehabilitates risks being too 

classical to find proper application in our times, it needs to be confronted with a strongly modern ethics. In this research project the virtue ethics 

MacIntyre rehabilitates is, for that reason, confronted with the ethics of Søren Kierkegaard. This confrontation will focus on their respective 

conceptions of the good, that is to say: it will focus on their views on the nature of virtue, on which virtues are important, and on what the virtuous or 

good life consists of. But because MacIntyre and Kierkegaard share an assumption of the relevance of a Christian conception of the good for 

contemporary virtue ethics – an assumption that is almost naïve in our post-Christian culture – this research project will challenge this assumed 

relevance, by asking whether the classical theological virtues faith, hope and love could in fact have any relevance for a post-Christian culture. 




• Johan Taels 

From Passions to Religion. The Rhetoric and Politics of Hume's account of Superstition. 


Abstract: The project challenges the idea that Hume's account of superstition exemplifies a typical radical enlightenment approach of religion. While 

Hume without doubt defends a profound and major critique of the religious fanaticism that stands forward in monotheism and Christendom, he 

defends at the same time that religion is a product of the passions and imagination and as such forms an ineradicable part of the human condition. 

For Hume, the major question is not how reason could replace superstition, but how a politics of religion could help to alleviate the excesses of 

religious passions, while at the same time fostering the sense of morality. Thus Hume's precutionary conservatism is compaticle with the 

acceptance of a moderate form of superstition as constitutive dimension of human sociability and civil society. This project defends that this 

nuanced and pragmatic position of Hume can be reconstructed on the basis of his essays and the History of England. At the same time this project 

wants to elucidate the relation between Hume's religious scepticism and his practical critique of superstition. 





Legal Normativity: A Meta-Ethical Assessment of the Interpretivist Account. 


Abstract: The proposed research should be regarded as a specific contribution to the general effort of explaining and justifying the normative 

dimension of law. In particular, the focus of the project is provided by a given legal theory aiming at such an explanatory and justificatory account of

the normativity of law, namely, interpretivism. The resources that interpretivism has to account for 

legal normativity will be explored in detail and submitted to thorough criticism, thereby relying on but also contributing to current meta-ethical 

debates. The value of the proposed research is twofold, theoretical and practical. On the one hand, the theoretical significance of the research is 

due to the fact that it addresses a classical philosophical problem whose implications range over 

the disciplines of law and philosophy. On the other hand, the practical significance of the research is demonstrated by its relevance to a host of 

seminal questions surrounding our daily engagement with the legal doctrine: 'What are the roots of legal obligation?' 'To which extent is legal 

obligation confined to the state and to which can it arise independently of states at the 

global level?' 'Is there a hierarchy of norms in international law?' 'Are there universal human rights, and if so on what grounds?' Finally, 'how and to 

what extent are legal obligations connected to obligations arising from justice?' These questions concern us not only as legal theorists, philosophers 

and lawyers, but also as responsible citizens. It follows that a theory of law's normativity is going to impact considerably on our ordinary lives. 




• Georgios Pavlakos 

Abstract rules or statistical learning? The impact of lexical and sublexical homophony in spelling and reading 

homophonous verb forms. 


Abstract: Homophone intrusions in the spelling of regularly inflected Dutch verb forms are used to address a central question in psycholinguistics – 

and cognitive science in general: do people rely on symbolic mental rules or on a knowledge base that captures the co-occurrence probabilities in 

the learning domain (statistical learning)? Earlier findings in our research group indicated an effect of homophone dominance in the pattern of 

intrusion errors when spelling homophonic verb forms: such errors occur more often when the target is the lower-frequency homophone and the 

intruder the higher-frequency homophone. This is compatible with a statistical learning view but cannot reject a rule-based account enriched with a 

frequency-sensitive mechanism. To disentangle the two accounts we will compare error patterns in the lexical and sublexical domains. An effect of 

homophone dominance at the sublexical level cannot be explained by a rule model. Errors in the lexical and sublexical domains will be 

studied in spelling and reading tasks. Finally, we will attempt to simulate the experimental patterns with two types of computational models: a 

symbolic model, 

using morphemes and rules, and a memory-based model, storing whole word forms 

only and using a similarity metric that can 'discover' patterns in its memory store. 

Together, the experimental and simulation data should enable us to formulate an 

answer to the question about mental rules. 




• Walter Daelemans 

• Dominiek Sandra 

Understanding long-run demographic and economic change in the Low Countries: towards a comprehensive database for 

early modern parish registers 


Abstract: What caused the birth of modern economic growth? Historians and economists increasingly refer to the demographic behaviour of 

households in the past to explain big questions. This project contributes to major debates in economic and social history by creating a 

comprehensive database of early modern parish registers. It provides the necessary empirical foundations to analyse demographic and economic 

change in the pre-industrial Low Countries. 




• Jord Hanus 

'Jack The Bear': A comparative analysis of the innovations in jazz bass playing by Jimmie Blanton. 


Abstract: Jimmie Blanton is widely regarded as one of the prime innovators of jazz bass playing. However, to date there has been no attempt to 

precisely and systematically determine in which areas he was innovative. Based on a strong theory-practice nexus, this artistic research aims to 

reach a thorough understanding of the innovative aspects in the jazz bass playing of Blanton, in order to fill the lacunae that still prevail on this 

issue. 


• Media, policy and culture 


• Alexander Dhoest 

Linguistic musicality: experimental research into the bond between musicality and pronunciation proficiency (intonation 

and accentuation) in foreign language acquisition. 


Abstract: Recent research in Second Language Acquisition provides evidence for the existence of a correlation between musical aptitude and 

pronunciation proficiency. Experimental research is necessary to examine to what extent the feeling for rhythm and intonation – the basics of 

musicality – converge with the processes that are responsible for pronunciation proficiency in a foreign language. Corroboration of this hypothesis 

offers obvious perspectives for scientifically founded pronunciation training in Second Language Learning on the basis of musicological insights and 

pedagogical techniques. 


• International Business Communication 


• Veronique Verhoeven 

• Lieve Vangehuchten 

"Tonight, in the Grand Théâtre…": The reconstruction of the calendar of theatrical performances in Antwerp between 1680 

and 1795 


Abstract: This project will result in the creation of an annotated database or calendar of all the secular, mainly commercial theatrical performances 

organised in Antwerp between 1680 and 1795. This database will be supplemented by transcriptions of hitherto unknown letters written by the 

theatre impresarios or directors of the various companies.

This research project supports and is closely linked with the postdoctoral research project "The business of performance: Theatre impresarios and 

the dramatic repertoire in the Southern Netherlands between 1680 and 1795". 




• Timothy De Paepe 

Mapping the landscape of consumption: digitalising nineteenth-century 'adresboeken' of Antwerp and Bruges 


Abstract: The goal of this project resides in securing the necessary funding for a database-structured breakdown of almanacs, and this for three well 

chosen sample years (1837, 1867 and 1897), and for two differing, but complementary nineteenth-century cities, namely Antwerp and Bruges. 

Almanac are unique sources, which provide information on the morphological, social and economic functioning of cities not readily found elsewhere. 

These databases will first be rendered fruitful in the context of my own research on the retail infrastructure and consumption patterns in nineteenthcentury 

cities. Afterwards, the databse will be made public to other researchers as well. 




• Ilja Van Damme 

At the Cradle of the Creative Economy? Following the Fortunes of the Alumni of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in 

Antwerp (1846-1866) 


Abstract: This project aspires two crucial databases of the Antwerp population registers of 1846 and 1866, which offer us unique last snapshots of 

the Antwerp society before the advancing modernisation altered its character forever. Besides the immediate implementations for the promoter's 

research, these databases on nineteenth-century Antwerp would guarantee a direct impact within the Department of History and the Centre for 

Urban History as a whole. 




• Dries Lyna 

Research Tongerlo abbey library. 


Abstract: This research project aims at defining the several subcollections that constitute the general library collection of Tongerlo abbey, and at 

determining their main contents and cultural significance. This feasability study will lead to a report with recommendations regarding the priorities to 

be followed in cataloging the books in an online library system. The results of this survey will also be of use in preparing preservation and 

conservation matters. 


• Book, Library and Information 


• Pierre Delsaerdt 

Genealogies of literature: prehistories of a modern concept (12th-18th century ). 


Abstract: This is a fundamental research project financed by the Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO). The project was subsidized after selection 

by the FWO-expert panel. 





Genealogies of literature: prehistories of a modern concept (12th-18th century ). 







• Veerle Fraeters 

In search of a national (s)cul(p)ture. Belgian sculptors abroad and foreign sculptors in Belgium (c. 1815-1916) 


Abstract: This project researches the social and cultural phenomenon of transnational exchange and nationals 'schools' in the 19th 

century, via the less studied field of sculputre, and with Belgium as a case iimportance is paid to the reciprocity of the exchanges: the presence and 

reception o Belgian sculptors abroad, as well as the sojoums and exhibiting of the foreign sculptors in Belgium. 





The logic of the market. Steiner/Waldorf education in a neoliberal context 


Abstract: This project will 1) study the educational ideas and philosophy of Rudolf Steiner. 2) but also examine in which way these notions were and 

are applied in daily educational practice in Flanders between 1954 and today, and 3 question to what extrent specific implementations of his ideas 

can offer an alternative to the prevailing logic of the market in education. 


• Departement of Pedagogy


• Pieter Dhondt 

Adjunctival secondary predicates in English: A layered structural-funtional model 


Abstract: The aim of this research is to develop a description and explanation (1) of the syntax and semantics of secondary predication in English 

(2) in a structural-functional grammatical model based on layering, and (3) within the framework of a theary of predication. The research focuses on 

participant-oriented adjuncts and their relationship with participants and main predicates in the clausal syntagm. 





Intellectual migration and the sustainability of intellectual networks (1890-1940) 


Abstract: This project focuses on the social conditions of intellectual migration of foreign students to and from Brussels (1891 and 1914) and the 

sustainability of intellectual networks before, during and after the First World War. Cohesive subgroups of students at the Université Nouvelle and 

the Université Libre will be identified, the effect of the presence of these foreign students and scholars will be studied and the evolution of the social 

and cultural infrastucture in which transnational circulation occured will be investigated. 





Intellectual migration and the sustainability of intellectual networks (1890-1940) 


Abstract: This project focuses on the social conditions of intellectual migration of foreign students to and from Brussels (1891 and 1914) and the 

sustainability of intellectual networks before, during and after the First World War. Cohesive subroups of students at the Université Nouvelle and the 

Université Libre will be identified, the effect of the presence of these foreign students and scholars will be studied and the evolution of the social and 

cultural infrastructure in which transnational circulation occurred will be investigated. 





Adjunctival secondary predicates in English: A layered structural-functional model 


Abstract: The aim of this research is to develop a description and explanation (1) of the syntax and semantics of secondary predication in english 

(2) in a structural-functional grammatical model based on layering, and (3) within the framework of a theory of predication. The research focuses on 

participant-oriented adjuncts and their relationship with participants and main predicates in the clausal syntagm. 





The logic of the market. Steiner/Waldorf education in a neoliberal context 


Abstract: This project will 1) study the educational ideas and philosophy of Rudolf Steiner, 2) but also examine in which way these notions were and 

are applied in daily educational practice in Flanders between 1954 and today, and 3) question to what extent specific implementations of his ideas 

can offer an alternative to the prevailing logic of the market in education. 


• Departement of Pedagogy 


• Pieter Dhondt 

China?s Maritime Commerce and Naval Activities in Northeast Asia During the ?Yuan-Ming Rupture? (late 14th century) 


Abstract: The Penglai port (north China) has been used as a strategic commercial and military base for maritime enterprises since ancient times. A 

comparative analysis of written and archaeological sources will shed new light on China?s maritime policy and the interaction of official (naval) 

authorities and private commerce in a much understudied geographical space during a period of a fundamental dynastic shift. 




• Angela Schottenhammer 

Antigone in/as Transition. A Study on the Performing Arts Status Quo in Europe (in its Transcontinental Contexts) 


Abstract: Antigone in/as Transitions will provide a systematic and comparative analysis of six representative Antigone-performances in Europe and 

beyond (Turkey, Latin America). Through these performance analyses, the project will provide an investigation of the state of the art of European 

contemporary performing arts in some of their transcontinental contexts. 




• Katharina Pewny 

Variation and change in constructional semantics 


Abstract: The project is situated at the intersection of 

construction grammar, historical linguistics, and variationist

sociolinguistics On the basis of extensive qualitative and quantitative corpus 

research into the semantic properties of Dutch argument structure 

constructions across regional, stylistic, and diachronic varieties of the 

language, the project aims to identify and analyze patterns of intralingual 

variation and change in constructional semantics. 




• Timothy Colleman 

A Tale of Spain: Historical Novels in English by Spanish Exiles during the 1820s and 1830s 


Abstract: This project focuses on historical novels written in English by Spanish exiles in London from 1822 to 1834. It examines how these writers, 

arriving in Britain during the heyday of Walter Scott, embraced the new form of historical novel he innovated. The project explores how the 

standpoint of exile transforms the genre and its reflection upon history and national identity. 




• Elizabeth Amann 

From private 'folk' to 'Indian/Rajasthani Gypsy' dance on global stages to Intangible Cultural 

Heritage of Humanity (UNESCO): the history of Kalbeliya dance (ca. 1960 to the present) 


Abstract: This project presents a first in-dept study of Kalbeliya dance, focusing on its transformations from a folk dance practised exclusively at 

home, to a folk dance performed in public. The study aims to answer the following questions: What are the historical evolutions that can be 

osbserved from the sixties ('pure dance') to the present ('performing art')? And how is Kalbeliya dance conceptualized 

within the broader context of 'Classical' Indian dance versus 'Folk' dance. 




• Eva De Clercq 

?The Translation, Cultural Mediation, and Reception in Britain of J.-J. Rousseau?s Discours sur les Sciences et les Arts, 

1751-1770: A Study of Translational Poetics, Ideological Adaptation, and Print Cultural Appropriation? 


Abstract: An original contribution to the study of translation, cultural mediation and transfer, print cultural research, and reception aesthetics, the 

project entails an innovative and interdisciplinary study of the translations of a groundbreaking French Enlightenment philosophical work. Not only 

will it contribute to the mapping of the mechanisms of cultural exchange; it will also provide an original scholarly intervention relating the transmedial 

use of the text to reading practices, cultural production, consumption, and the national print cultures of the time. 




• Sandro Jung 

The Luxuriant Dew of the Spring and Autumn Annals: Syncretic Elements on the Art of Rulership 


Abstract: My research concerns the Chunqiu fanlu, an important political treatise of Chinese tradition ascribed to Dong Zhongshu, a pivotal 

Cunfucian scholar from the Han dynasty. It analyses the statecraft theory in the syncretic chapters of the text (ch. 18-23), taking into account the 

historical context in which it emerged. 





Provincial cities at war. Local public spheres in German, Belgian and Dutch towns in the border region compared (1914- 

1919) 


Abstract: The core aim of this doctoral research is to write an international comparative history about local public spheres in a border region during 

the First World War. Public spheres are central spheres of social life. If we want to understand the various changes and its consequences for 

everyday life, it is absolutely necessary to examine the transformation of the public spheresduring wartime.In order to attain significant results, we 

are dealing with three case studies, whose location is absolutely unique in the world. Nowhere else than in todays Euregio Meuse-Rhine can be 

found a border triangle in the composition of a Central power (German Empire), an entete power under occupation (Belgium) and a neutral country 

(the Netherlands). Inspired by the two volumes of Jay Winter's studies about capital cities in wartime, we can regard a town as the meeting 

point between the imagined community of the nation and the experienced community of the neighbourhood. Hence, this study aims at exploring the 

war experience beyond and below national boundaries. 





William Blake, Education, and Eighteenth-Century Print Culture 


Abstract: This project will offer original and innovative research into the ways in which Blake incorporated the eighteenth-century print-cultural 

tradition into the visual rhetoric of his complex compositions. Blake's illuminations will be analayzed in the context of the iconography of 

contemporary prints in order to produce a revaluation of this position in the history of Romanticism, which has for too long separated him off from 

the eighteenth-century foundations of his art. 


• Departement of French


• Sandro Jung 

Possessive patterns in Flemish varieties of Dutch 


Abstract: The research focusses on the expression of possession in Flemish and in particular the availability of what seems to be discontinuous 

possessor patterns with external possessor. The Flemish patterns will be compared with similar patterns of discontinuous possession in other 

languages as well as with other phenomena of discontinuous constituency in Flemish. The research background is that of formal syntax. 





Perception and Performance of Social Identity in the Nascent Urban Societies of the High Middle Ages 


Abstract: This project aims to undertake a cultural historical approach to the perception and performance of social identity in the nascent urban 

societies of Northern France and the Southern Low Countries between the eleventh and early thirteenth centuries. 





The development of the fiscal administration as a manifestation of state capacity and 


Abstract: The French revolution created a new fiscality and tax administration; key elements in the state formation processes and the organization 

of society itself. This research project examines the contrast between the continuity of the former fiscal system and the Belgian economic expansion 

(1795-1852). Which role did the tax administration play in the formation of the modern Belgian ?fiscal state?? 




• Eric Vanhaute 

Intersections of Cultural Memory and Human Rights: The Case of Dave Eggers 


Abstract: This project examines the interrelations between cultural memory and human rights via a comprehensive and systematic analysis of the 

work of the contemporary American author Dave Eggers, which encompasses bestselling novels, collaboratively produced testimonies, publishing 

ventures, and social activism. 




• Stef Craps 

In search of a national (s)cul(p)ture. Belgian sculptors abroad and foreign sculptors in Belgium (c. 1815-1916) 


Abstract: This project researches the social and cultural phenomenon of transnational exchange and 

nationals ?schools? in the 19th century, via the less studied field of sculpture, and with Belgium 

as a case. Importance is paid to the reciprocity of the exchanges: the presence and reception 

of Belgian sculptors abroad, as well as the sojourns and exhibiting of foreign sculptors in 

Belgium. 





Capturing Dance Movements, Intensities and Embodied Experiences: Research into New Possibilities of Digital Media for 

Dance Analaysis and Notation based on Face (1982) by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, ROSAS 


Abstract: In translating dance movements into sign, important information about dance experience and embodied expression tend to be lost. MoCap 

(Motion Capture) is a movement retrieval technology that articulates the interaction between basic gestures and music patterns. This research 

project aims at finding new opportunities and possibilities of digital media for dance analysis and notation based on the dance performance Fase - 

Four Movements to the Music of Steve Reich (1982) by the Flemish choreographer Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker and her dance ensemble 

ROSAS. 




• Katharina Pewny 

• Christel Stalpaert 

• Marc Leman 

Research on the field of tension between heritage and retail in historic cities in Europe. Valorisation for retail and heritage 

sector through case study research. 

Universiteit Hasselt 

Abstract: The goal of this research is to formulate policy guidelines on projects of adaptive reuse into retail functions and to develop a tool for the (apriori) 

evaluation of such projects. Because of the interdisciplinary character of the problem statement, our results aim at valorisation for the retail 

sector as well as the conservation sector. 

The first part of this resarch is a literature study on adaptive reuse, urban regeneration and retail design. The second part contains a casestudy 

analysis in which retail-reuse projects that have been realised are studied.


• Niet onderzoeksgroep gebonden projecten 

• Transportation Research Institute 


• Koenraad VAN CLEEMPOEL 

Living 2012-2016 


Abstract: This agreements states the conditions of the start of a platform on 'Living' as approved by the Flemish Government for a period of 5 years, 

starting on 01.01.2012 til 31.12.2015. Partners in this project are KULeuven, UAntwerpen, Provinciale Hogeschool Limburg, TU Delft en 

Hogeschool voor Wetenschap en Kunst. The project will proceed under the conditions as stipulated in the present contract. 




• Griet VERBEECK 

Construction of a theatre heritage test list within the framework of the Masterpiece Flemish Parliament Act. 


Abstract: This project represents a formal service agreement between UA and on the other hand Kunsten en Erfgoed. UA provides Kunsten en 

Erfgoed research results mentioned in the title of the project under the conditions as stipulated in this contract. 




• Luc Van Den Dries 

Territoriality, a concrete reflection on the origin of politics 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: Territoriality sits uncomfortably with some core liberal principles. Liberal nationalism tries to solve this uncomfortable situation by turningto 

the nation. The question I will ask is whether the nation is a territorial entity and whether it has territorial rights. 




• Helder De Schutter 

No English Title 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: ? 




• Andrew Vande Moere 

L'apport des contes des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles dans la formation des droits de la femme 


Abstract: Joint PhD voor Kirsten Goossens 


• Language and literature 


• Daniel ACKE 

Genre and authorship in the popular romance novel: a theoretical exploration. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: Contemporary popular literature is often conceptualized in predominantly generic terms - we speak of the detective, the popular romance 

novel or the thriller as if one such text or one such author cannot relevantly be distinguished from another. Such a generic conceptualization, which 

is widespread in both the practice and the study of contemporary culture,tends to obscure the individual popular text and/or author. In this project 

this conceptualization of popular literature is problematized on the basis of a mainly theoretical exploration of the relationship genre-authorship in 

the contemporary popular romance genre. This project builds upon an earlier study (2011) of the relation genre-authorship in the oeuvre of 

contemporary popular romance author Nora Roberts. In the current project the results of the earlier study's extensive corpus analyses 

areinterpreted and substantiated on the basis of contemporary literary theories about genre and authorship. In this way the often neglected o 





• An Goris 

The structures of counsciousness. 

K.U.Leuven 





• Ullrich Melle 

Socio-evolutionary theory for microorganisms. 

K.U.Leuven 



• Ecology, Evolution and Biodiversity Cons


• Tom Wenseleers 

• Luc De Meester 

• Jan Michiels 

• Kevin Verstrepen 

The role of miRNA's in induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC) differentiation. 

K.U.Leuven 



• Embryo and Stemcells 


• Catherine Verfaillie 

CONCORT. 

K.U.Leuven 



• Research Centre of Marketing and Consume 


• Siegfried Dewitte 

Die Kreatur: Inter-Religious Dialogue and the Political-Theology of the Creature in the Weimar Republic (1926-1930). 


Abstract: This project represents a formal research agreement between UA and on the other hand Rothschild Foundation. UA provides Rothschild 

Foundation research results mentioned in the title of the project under the conditions as stipulated in this contract. 


• Institute of Jewish Studies 


• Vivian Liska 

Archaeological research in the context of the implementation of the updated Sigma plan. 


Abstract: Scientific advise for the Flemish Community, Department Waterwegen en Zeekanalen with regard to the landscape history of three project 

areas in the Scheldt Region (Bornem-Temse; Bastenakkers (Wetteren); Nete and Kleine Nete (region Lier), in collaboration with Antea Group and 

GATE Archeological Team 




• Tim Soens 

New finance model research: ZAP start credit 2011 


Abstract: Start credit for new ZAP members: 2011 


• Metajuridica 


• Dave DE RUYSSCHER 



Abstract: start credit for new ZAP members : 2011 


• Political Science 


• Karen CELIS 



Abstract: Start credit for new ZAP members: 2011 


• History 


• Frederik BUYLAERT 

New financing model research: ZAP startcredit 2011 


Abstract: Met het in voege treden van het nieuw financieringsmodel onderzoek ontvangen nieuwe ZAP leden die voldoen aan de criteria voor de 

BOF-parameter 'mobiliteit en diversiteit' een startkrediet van EURO 50.000. Deze ZAP startkredietfinanciering wordt retroactief opgestart en 

toegekend aan nieuw ZAP aangesteld in 2010 en later. 


• Philosophy - Moral Sciences 


• Steffen DUCHEYNE 

THE ETHICS OF HUMAN ENHANCEMENT: A CRITICAL ASSESSMENT OF THE PURSUIT OF PERFECTION 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: In this dissertation, we aim to understand, analyse and ethically evaluate the phenomenon of Human Enhancement, which is a relentless 

striving towards perfection, with a view to evolve better people. In the first part of the dissertation we will try to find a good definition of the notion of

Human Enhancement. This is a highly contested subject requiring different types of distinctions. In the second part, we attempt to ethically assess 

Human Enhancement from various perspectives - mainly based on the philosophical theories/thoughts of Julian Savulescu, Michael J. Sandel, 

Jürgen Habermas, Peter Sloterdijk, Nick Bostrom, and Bill McKibben.We will develop utilitarian and #dignity#-arguments and we will have totake a 

stance in the debate about the status of the notion of Human Nature. In the third part, we try to make an intercultural comparison of Western and 

Eastern perspectives on Human Enhancement, as this moral issueis very much connected to one#s religious, social and cultural conte 




• Antoon Vandevelde 

The Ethical Desire of Anti-Philosophy: Between Levinasian Transcendenceand Deleuzian Immanence 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: This proposal attempts to resolve the contemporary ethical divide between transcendence and immanence in the philosophies of 

Emmanuel Levinas and GIlles Deleuze. One of the central issues becomes reconciling the meaning of the human condition in a continually 

fragmented world beset by an ethics of transcendence that is unable to fully detach itself from a milieu which attaches value to the immanently, if 

not always presentable, visible. With respect to today#s seemingly untenable contrarian traditions, the purpose of this proposal becomes twofold: 

To begin with, I will seek to engage the philosophies of transcendence and immanence in a dialogue as to avoid the extremities of an either/or 

situation; I will then argue that to do this one must look to an event that operates beyond the conceptual framework natural to philosophy, namely 

art. I propose to approach this dual incommensurability through the modes of expression that are curiously invoked by both lines of thought by 

analyzing wha 




• Rudi Visker 

Reading Aristotle in Leuven. Continuity and innovation in Peter de Rivos commentaries on «De anima» and «De sensu et 

sensato 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: Starting from the critical edition of Peter de Rivo#s commentaries on Aristotle#s «De anima» and «De sensu et sensato», a study on the 

reception of the soul-body problem in the newly formed University of Leuven, in order to shed light on a rather unknown chapter of the late medieval 

tradition of Aristotelian psychology, and to offer a better understanding of the intellectual climate of fifteenth century Europe. 





Scientific Models, Scientific Representation, and Accuracy. Realism, anti-realism, and truth. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: What I want to investigate in my thesis is if it is possible to developa view on scientific models and scientific representation such that we 

can define the outcomes of these models in terms of accuracy while at the same time account for the relation between this accuracy and the truthof 

the scientific model. One of the uses of abstraction and idealization in scientific modeling and scientific representation might be to function as a 

standard in obtaining results that are accurate for the purposes the model was made in the first place. 

The research question I want to address in my thesis is: 

"Is it possible to give a realist account of scientific modeling and scientific representation that takes into consideration that our epistemic endeavors 

lie in attaining truths tout court, but that these truths are such that in order to count as accuratewill have to conform to certain standards that are 

determined by the non-epistemic interests that form the basis for our inquiry." 

#Wha 




• Filip Buekens 

Reading Aristotle in Leuven. Continuity and innovation in Peter de Rivos commentaries on "De anima" and "De sensu et 

sensato" 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: Starting from the critical edition of Peter de Rivo#s commentaries on Aristotle#s «De anima» and «De sensu et sensato», a study on the 

reception of the soul-body problem in the newly formed University of Leuven, in order to shed light on a rather unknown chapter of the late medieval 

tradition of Aristotelian psychology, and to offer a better understanding of the intellectual climate of fifteenth century Europe. 





From molecule to bioplastic: new catalytic routes to bio-based monomers. 

K.U.Leuven 



• Centre for Surface Chemistry and Catalys 


• Bert Sels 

• Ekaterina Makshina 

Collaborative Planning of Public Space as an Instrument for Community Development 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: Rapid democratization of physical urban environment, combined with extremely democratized access to the all kind of information 

transform historically established forms of relationship between public and private. Asa result the new, yet socially, economically and semantically 

instable types of urban spaces appear which require new skills for professionals who are dealing with spatial production. 

This research proposal aims atdefining the mental models of the different groups of individuals (policy makers, practitioners, academicians, users) 

in common semantic space and investigating its correlations in the process of spatial co-production. It intends to result in developing and verifying 

humanistic, in participation routed methodology for evaluation and creation of human space,investigating processes of urban co-production in 

Latvian and Flemish socio - cultural contexts. 




• André Loeckx 

• Jan Schreurs 

The formal semantics of proportional quantification in Dutch and English 


Abstract: The aim of this project is to properly characterize and formalize the semantics of the Dutch proportional quantifiers “de meeste/{een/de} 

meerderheid/{een/de} minderheid/meer dan de helft” and of their English counterparts “most/{a/the} majority/ {a/the} minority/more than half”. An 

important innovation is that for each of the quantifiers the semantic analysis will be executed on the basis of a detailed study of corpus data and of 

native speaker judgements, a method which is hardly ever applied in formal semantic research. 




• DANNY JASPERS 

The construction of European identity in multimodal texts through translation. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: Roberto Valdeon 




• Luc Van Doorslaer 

GALLO-ROMEINS MUS-VUURSTEENMIJN. 

K.U.Leuven 





• Philip Van Peer 

Van 'Theory of Mind' naar plaatsvervangende waarneming. 


Abstract: This project represents a formal research agreement between UA and on the other hand EU. UA provides EU research results mentioned 

in the title of the project under the conditions as stipulated in this contract. 





PHL-doctoral of Remco Roes with titel : ' The scenography of sublime spaces ' 


Abstract: The main focus of this 'research by design' is the translation of the philosophical concept of 'the sublime' into a spatial form. The spatial 

challenge is approached from two opposite sides. The first entails a philosophical and historical reading of the sublime. The other approach consists 

of the creation of spatial works within the context of an artistic practise with an emphasis on scenography. 

The hybrid nature of the research is supported by a dynamic method that respects the nature of the different disciplines and at the same time 

encourages interaction between them. The separate components and individual disciplines within the PhD are united in one conceptual structure, 

an imaginary interior. The research process consists of a dérive within this enclosed space whereby a simultaneous exploration of both the 

theoretical framework and the possibilities for artistic intervention can take place. 

The final product will be a constellation consisting of visual, spatial and textual components. This collection of coherent fragments will ultimately be 

distilled into a series of practical design tools that can be appropriated by practitioners of interior design. The emphasis in the development of these 

tools is on their usability within re-use assignments. 



• Transportation Research Institute 


• Koenraad VAN CLEEMPOEL 

Development of key package for language exams French ans NT2 for teachers 


Abstract: In November 2011 CTL-UHasselt was assigned the contract by AKOV, the (Flemish) Agency of Quality Assurance in Education and 

Training (Agentschap voor Kwaliteitszorg in Onderwijs en Vorming) to develop language tests of French and Dutch (NT2, Dutch as Foreign 

Language) for personnel and teaching personnel of Flemish primary and secondary schools, centres for student counseling, inspection and centres

for Adult Education (CVO) in Flanders and in Francophone schools on Flemish territory. 

More information regarding the required language skills for an appointment in an educational institution can be found in the circular letters 

PERS/2010/01 (http://www.ond.vlaanderen.be/edulex/database/document/document.asp?docid=14173 ) and PERS/2010/02 (required language 

skills for an appointment in a Francophone school or in a Dutch-speaking school with a Francophone division on Flemish territory 

(http://www.ond.vlaanderen.be/edulex/database/document/document.asp?docid=14174) as well as in the decrees mentioned in the above circular 

letters. 

Starting September 1st, 2009 a new regulation has taken effect regarding the appointment of a personnel member in an educational institution. 

On the one hand, this involves: 

- the knowledge of Dutch as a language of instruction 

- the knowledge of French as a mandatory second language in primary school 

For Francophone schools this involves: 

- the knowledge of French as a language of instruction 

- the knowledge of Dutch as an administrative and official language 

- the knowledge of Dutch as a mandatory second language 

In order to be appointed or to work in an educational institution, a personnel member is required to demonstrate that s/he meets the language 

requirements. In order to check the compliance with the requirements, these language exams can be used. 

The exams will be administered decentrally by a Centre for Adult Education (CVO), one in each province, which has been selected to this end. The 

development of the language tests was outsourced by the Flemish Government, more specifically AKOV, the Agency of Quality Assurance in 

Education and Training (Agentschap voor Kwaliteitszorg in Onderwijs en Vorming). 

The tests are required to comply completely with the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. More specifically, tests for the 

levels A2, B1, B2 and C1 are being developed for the competences reading, listening, speaking and writing. In this regard, consistency is crucial 

and the calibration of the tests to the European Framework needs to be scientifically founded and validated. Special attention will be given to 

parallelism and correspondence between the exam questions for Dutch as a Foreign Language (NT2) and those for French. 

In addition to the development and validation of the language exams for both languages, the assignment also involves providing advice and support 

during the implementation of the developed tests. 


• Communication & Linguistics 

• Centre for Applied Linguistics 


• Martine VERJANS 

• Anouk GELAN 

International research seminar in the series "Antwerp Chapters". 


Abstract: This project represents a formal research agreement between UA and on the other hand a private institution. UA provides the private 

institution research results mentioned in the title of the project under the conditions as stipulated in this contract. 


• Book, Library and Information 


• Pierre Delsaerdt 

Tchansonetes à flamziguer. A Study of Hybridization Forms of Flemish Migrant Culture in Wallonia (1850-1914). 

K.U.Leuven 



• Subfaculty of Arts, Kulak 


• Lieven D'hulst 

• Elien Declercq 

Hegels Concept of Duty: Its Implications for Characterizing the State 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: In this dissertation I will attempt to explicate and defend what I taketo be two central Hegelian concepts: duty and a classical conservative 

view of the state. The first concept also contains Hegel's understandingof duty#s concrete exemplification in patriotism. From the right 

understanding of this topic, I will attempt to make broader claims about Hegel#s system, namely, claims in favor of his arguments for what#on my 

reading of Hegel-#should be understood as a form of classical political conservatism. It is argued that these two concepts of duty and the state are 

closely related. The first part of the dissertation considers the question of the nature and extent of Hegel#s view of duty. It is claimed that an 

adequate understanding of Hegel's conception of duty helps provide a response to several objections to Hegel#s social and political views. 

Specifically, it is asserted that a great deal of these objections are contingent on a rejection of Hegel#s account of patriotism. Hence, a d 




• Ludovicus De Vos 

Naturalism: Its Meaning and Limits 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: Though taking shape in diverse forms of philosophical expression, naturalism functions as a movement of finitazation directed towards 

both thought and being as they were treated in pre-modern Great Chain (GC)ontology. I aim in this dissertation to trace this reductive movement of 

thought from the GC to scientific materialism, subsequently elaborating three attempts within naturalism to respond to the problems stemming from 

SM'sunrelenting reductionism. I conclude with a reflection on the viabilityof naturalism's ontology, even in its alternate forms, by reference to the 

question of transcendence. 




• William Desmond

Nature and Magic: developing a Sartrean anthropology 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: An exegesis of Sartre#s main philosophical works will discover a dynamic between the deterministic (#natural#) and the non-deterministic 

(#magical#) aspects of our being, wherein understanding such an interplay is vital for a proper evaluation of human nature and action. 





Rechtvaardigheid, preventie en volksgezondheid: een onderzoek naar de ethiek van een infectieziektenbeleid 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: Infectieziekten onderscheiden zich van andere ziekten doordat ten eerste een besmet individu niet enkel een slachtoffer is, maar 

eveneens een verspreider van ziekte, en ten tweede doordat een besmetting bovendien vaak perfect voorkombaar is door middel van vaccinatie (of 

door andere voorzorgsmaatregelen). Dit roept een aantal ethische en filosofische vragenop waarop weinig afdoende antwoorden zijn geformuleerd. 

In dit onderzoek wil ik me richten op de volgende drie vragen. (1) Hoeveel voorzorgsmaatregelen moeten mensen vanuit ethisch standpunt nemen, 

om besmettingen bij elkaar te vermijden? (2) Hoe moet de overheid een utilitaristisch geïnspireerd volksgezondheidsbeleid rijmen met daarmee 

conflicterende individuele rechten en vrijheden van burgers? (3) De rechtvaardigheidsvraag: in een context van schaarse middelen, welke ethische 

waarden zijn er danvan tel bij de beslissing om medische zorg al dan niet terug te betalen? 




• Antoon Vandevelde 

Analysis of the disaster problematique from a political ecology perspective 

K.U.Leuven 





• Frank Moulaert 

Sociability in media architecture 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: This research aims to investigate the social relevance and social qualities of media architecture, which has the ability to interact with 

people and places. The investigation will be geared towards analyzing the functional parameters that casually influence its success, and developing 

new architectural interfaces through temporal programming of spatial quality as buildable elements. Ultimately, this research will lead to new 

knowledge to allow architects and urban planners to understand the full potential of interactive systems. 





Tectonic landscapes of Minoan Crete: a geoarchaeological investigation. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: This research project intends to examine the relationship between the tectonically active landscapes of Crete (Greece) and their Minoan 

inhabitants during the Late Bronze Age. First, the patterns of archaeologicalsite destructions recorded during the Late Minoan IIIB (LM IIIB, ca. 

1300-1200 BC) will be studied. Their value as paleoearthquake indicator will be examined. Scaling up the field of research, the spatial relationship 

between Minoan archaeological sites and tectonic geomorphology (e.g. fault scarps, gorges, cliffs) will be investigated.

• Jan Wouters 

• Helder De Schutter 

• Haye Hazenberg 

Peter de Rivo, the controversy over future contingents, and the University of Leuven in the fifteenth century. 

K.U.Leuven 






The Explanation of Qualitative Properties in Neoplatonic Philosophy of Nature and Metaphysics. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: This research project constitutes the first comprehensive study of the explanation and function of qualitative properties in later Greek 

Neoplatonism. It consists of three components:1. The study of the classification of material properties and the application of the supervenience 

model in the philosophy of nature.2. The analysis of the causal role of intelligible qualities; of their place in the structure of the intelligible world; and 

of the role this structure plays in the metaphysical explanation of qualitative properties.3. The interplay between these two explanatory models. 






The Impact of Family and School Characteristics on the Political Socialization of Adolescents. A Comprehensive 

Investigation of Political Attitudes and Political Behavior among Adolescents, Parents and Teachers. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: Dr. Ellen Quintelier is sinds 01.10.2010 postdoctoraal onderzoeker van hVlaanderen, verbonden aan onze onderzoekseenheid. Zij was 

verantwoordeli de eerdere OT over dit onderwerp (2005-2009), die met goed gevolgwerd gd. Zij wil haar onderzoek verder uitbouwen in de richting 

van politiekeisatie van adolescenten. Gelet op het belang van wetenschappelijkeoutpue evaluatie van FWO-mandaten, is het belangrijk dat dr. 

Quintelierzo nalijk bij dit project betrokken wordt. De afgelopen jaren is ook duidelijden dat zij in elk geval over de nodige organisatiecapaciteiten 

beschikt tot een goed einde te brengen. Tegelijk is het project zo uitgeschre, mocht het mandaat van dr. Quintelier in 2013 onverhoopt niet verlengd 

het eventuele OT-project toch op de best mogelijke manier kan beëindigd, met dan enkel nog prof. M. Hooghe als promotor. Daardoor zijn alle 

garaanwezig voor een succesvolle voltooiing van dit project. 


• Centre for Political Research 


• Marc Hooghe 

• Ellen Quintelier 

The Classical Cadence. Physiognomy, Typology and the Creation of Form. 

K.U.Leuven 






Parts With(out) Wholes: Individual, Community and Nation in The Short Story Cycle in Ireland. 

K.U.Leuven 






Customs officers or smugglers? the mediating role of intercultural actors within Belgium and between Belgium and 

France (1850-1930). 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: The purpose of this project is to conduct interdisciplinary (literary-sociological, discursive-translational and historical-cultural) research into 

the strategic transfer roles played by a representative selection of some 20 belgian intercultural actors during the successive phases of cultural 

nation building and international spread of Belgian culture (1850 and 1920). 







Language origins, linguistic change, and language functionality in early Christian Latin authors. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: Dr. Toon Van Hal's onderzoek over de taalopvattingen van Renaissance-autv.m. taaloorsprong en taalvergelijking is van methodologisch 

belang voororetische onderbouw van dit project. 




• Pierre Swiggers 

Fighting ethnic minority students' underachievement in education through language support: inside or outside the 

school?

K.U.Leuven 






From lexical to semantic sociolectometry: New methods for the corpus-based analysis of variation in lexical 

categorization. 

K.U.Leuven 



• Quantitative Lexicology and Variational 


• Dirk Geeraerts 

• Dirk Speelman 

A developmental study of deductive, inductive and abductive reasoning: working memory, executive functions, and eye 

tracking. 

K.U.Leuven 



• Experimental Psychology 


• Walter Schaeken 

Tackling cybercrime: digital forensics for embedded computer systems and computing applications 

K.U.Leuven 





• Bart Preneel 

• Stefan Bogaerts 

• Wouter Joosen 

• Joseph Dumortier 

• Frank Verbruggen 

• Eva Lievens 

Leuven Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study (LeuvenCILS) 

K.U.Leuven 



• Social and Cultural Psychology 


• Karine Verschueren 

• Jacques Billiet 

• Ides Nicaise 

• Marc Swyngedouw 

• Karen Phalet 

• Bart Meuleman 

• Batja Gomes de Mesquita 

Approaching patterns of social and sustainable regional development. Aninterdisciplinary dialogue between past and 

present on the region of Sagalassos. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: The proposed project wishes to initiate an innovative dialogue between archaeology, geography and planning studies in the region of 

Sagalassos (SW Turkey) in order to deepen our knowledge of diachronic co-evolution of society and nature and tie the Sagalassos project to a 

parcours of sustainable regional development.As far as the study of the past is concerned, the project wishes to contribute to debates in social 

archaeology, applying an interdisciplinary research strategy already characteristic of the Sagalassos team. In geographical terms, the research is 

situated in Sagalassos and its adjoining valleys. In chronological terms, the most logical scale of analysis is proposed, spanning from the Iron Age 

(10/8th c. BC) to Ottoman times (until 1922), representing a Braudelian longue durée. The intention is to investigate the diachronical pattern 

ofoccupation and social evolution in the research area, and evaluate how the carrying capacity and natural assets of the environment affected a 





• Frank Moulaert 

• Bart Muys 

• Maarten Loopmans 

Literature and its 'multiple identities' (1900-1950). 

K.U.Leuven 






• Dirk De Geest 

• Bart Van Den Bossche 

• Sascha Bru


The Multiple Functional Load of grammatical signs in text construction and processes of language change. 

K.U.Leuven 





• Jean-Christophe Verstraete 

• Bert Cornillie 

• Kristin Davidse 

• An Van linden 

Neuroplastic mechanisms that underlie the involvement of prefrontal cortex and hippocampus in extinction, reversal and 

category learning. 

K.U.Leuven 



• Biological Psychology 


• Lutgarde Arckens 

• Hans Op de Beeck 

• Rudi D'Hooge 

• Detlef Balschun 

Studying the Transition to Adolescence: Testing Genes, Interactions, and Environments (STRATEGIES). 

K.U.Leuven 



• School Psychology and Child and Adolesce 


• Karine Verschueren 

• Luc Goossens 

• Wim Van Den Noortgate 

• Stephan Claes 

• Hilde Colpin 

• Karla Van Leeuwen 

The transition from bounded to (partly) unbounded event construal in Middle English. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: In this postdoctoral project Peter Petré investigates how a drastic shift in the structuring of narrative in English was the consequence of 

multiple changes in grammar. Old English grammatical structure (like Dutch)was conducive to narratives in serial fashion, as if seen through the 

eyes of a protagonist experiencing events as bounded (one after another).This type of construal typically has adverbs meaning then at the headof a 

clause, often with inversion of the subject (Then looked they for Henrys killer. Then found they him, and then bade he them to surrender). By 

contrast, Present-Day English grammar provides more room for unbounded narrative, a type of narrative which is similar to a camera overlooking 

the whole scene, and seeing events as (partly) overlapping (Waterwas dripping down. The man started digging and the sand is caving in). Until 

now, it has been assumed that the critical turnover from exclusively bounded to partly unbounded construal occurred in the sixteenth centu 




• Hubert Cuyckens 

• Peter Petré 

The documentary paradigma in modern descriptive poetry (1900-1950). 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: The objective of my research project on the documentary paradigm in poetry (1900-1950) is the elaboration of an authentic theory of 

modern descriptive poetry. It is a continuation of my doctoral work on the photographic imaginary, which is one of models or interprétants (Ortel, 

2008) of modernist poetry.nbsp;I shall be examining a francophone corpus of descriptive poetry whose epistemological status and/or aesthetic has 

a documentary purpose. The goal of the project is to gain an understanding of the debt descriptive poetry owes to the realm of the document when 

it refers to models that are extra-poetical (novels, essays, newspapers, etc.) and extra-literary (painting, cinema, photography, radio, etc.). What is it 

that it is seeking to record, to document, and toshow? What are the functions of the self-defining metaphors that poetryborrows from other 

domains? This documentary paradigm defines a new regime of poeticality and thus reorganises a major part of the poetry of the first h 






• Anne Reverseau 

The essays of Carlos Fuentes: a rhetorical-discursive approach. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: This project aims to offer the first systematic study of the essays written by Carlos Fuentes, a major contemporary Mexican author mainly 

studied for his fictional work. The goal of the project is to describe the rhetoric of the essay as practiced by Fuentes, with attention to its discursive 

embeddedness and internal diversity. Instead of examining Fuentess essays as secondary to his novels, I will consider them as a corpus with a 

relative autonomy. From a rhetorical point of view, the project intends to map the specificity of Fuentess essayistic discourse, which integrates 

numerous fictional devices. By analyzing the narrative techniques and stylistic features that the essayistic and the fictional form havein common, the 

project seeks, from a more literary-theoretical perspective, to contribute to the understanding of the relation between the essay and the fictional as 

two genres or modes. Furthermore, the essays provide important material to examine Fuentess self-representatio 


• Literary Relations and Post/national Ide



• Reindert Dhondt 

Why Belgian poets became Flemish. Origins, forms and legitimizing strategies of poetical ethos in Belgium (1850-1880). 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: Why did the Belgian poets become Flemish? Strangely enough, this question seems to apply to both the Flemish and Belgianfrancophone 

poets ofthe nineteenth century. By closely analyzing Flemish and Belgian-francophone periodicals published between 1850 and 1880, 

I aim to come to a better understanding of why Belgian-francophone poets profiled themselves more and more as Flemings, and disclose the role 

the Dutch-speaking Flemings played in this. More precisely, I will examine book reviews and essays as well as poems so as to discover, on the one 

hand, how critics contributed to establishing the image of the Flemish poet, both on the francophone and Dutch-speaking side, and, on the other 

hand, which image the poets created of themselves. By doing so, I want to call attention tothose poets who paved the road for the great icons of the 

last decades of the nineteenth century (Georges Rodenbach, Emile Verhaeren and Maurice Maeterlinck on the one hand; Willem Kloos, Herman 

Gorter and Fred 





• Karen Vandemeulebroucke 

Speakers, stutterers and singers: changing vocal practices in nineteenth-century Western Europe. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: The project intends to offer a socio-cultural history of the voice in the nineteenth century. Focussing mainly on practices of voice formation 

and improvement, I will analyse how voices of children and adults were consciously formed by medically and musically trained professionals. The 

writings of internationally acclaimed teachers of canto might seem to befar removed from the practices of countryside doctors dabbling in 

laryngology, but the work of both contributed to the construction and spread of discourses on ideal, beautiful and ugly or pathological voices. 

Moreover, the worlds of the singer and the throat-doctor frequently met, as discoveries of the mechanics of the voice opened new possibilities for 

vocalists - and for numerous quacks and self-appointed specialists on problems such as stuttering or hoarseness. While addressing individuals 

vocal possibilities and problems, the work of this heterogeneous group of voice-specialists also reflected and helped to create acoustic idea 





• Josephine Hoegaerts 

How barbarian were the barbarians? The image of the other in Hellenistic historiography. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: The Greeks considered all non-Greek speaking peoples barbarians. This dichotomy defined Greek ethnicity by opposition with the other 

and asserted their own superiority; the trauma of the Persian Wars was an important moment in the development of this opposition. The 

representation of the barbarian in Greek historiography of the fifth and fourth centuries BC, as well as by Roman historians has often been studied. 

My study aimsto remedy the scholarly neglect of the issue in Hellenistic historiography (late fourth - first century BC). History writing greatly 

flourishedin Hellenistic period, the contacts between Greeks and others increasedand the Greeks were now the master of their traditional Persian 

enemy due to Alexander the Greats conquest of the East. It is therefore highlyrelevant to ask how Hellenistic historians presented the barbarian and 

how strict the dividing line was between Greeks and barbarians. I will also analyze how this representation was influenced by the changed soc 




• Alexander Meeus 

• Stefan Schorn 

Divergent pathways to early food production and early complex societies. Archaeozoological data from northeastern 

Africa. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: Food production was probably the most important development in human history, appearing first about 10,000 years ago. It launched a 

whole chainof other developments, beginning with the emergence of complex societies, displaying new features, such as social inequality. The 

developments finally resulted in our present-day, global and industrialized society. Many of its problems, such as the environmental ones, have very 

early roots.Because the Fertile Crescent is Europe's cradle of food production, many researchers are rusted in the models valid there, for example 

that stock keeping and farming were usually spread as one package. Research in other areas, like northern Africa, shows that the possible 

pathways are in fact very diverse and are determined largely by the natural environment.At the basis of the proposed project is the analysis of 

faunal remains from archaeological sites in the Egyptian and Sudanese Nile Valley. Four very specific themes, crucial in the framework of early food 


• Ecology, Evolution and Biodiversity Cons 


• Willem Van Neer 

• Veerle Linseele 

The many faces of the Pentateuch: comparing the characterisations of the priestly redaction of the Pentateuch and of 

Jubiliees' Rewriting of Genesis-Exodus. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: Against the backdrop of new perspectives in the field of redaction criticism of the biblical texts, and in the study of ancient Hebrew 

literature, the present project aims to investigate the scholarly models appliedto interpret the compositional activities of the ancient authors who 

rewrote the texts they were transmitting. More specifically, it will compare the characterisations of the literary strategies applied by the Priestly 

redactor(s) the only layer in the formation of the Pentateuch on which scholars are basically in agreement and of the rewriting of Genesis-Exodus 

evidenced in the book of Jubilees, which is commonly accepted as a prime example of rewritten Scripture. As a test-case, an in-depthanalysis of 

their respective stories of the Flood, which play a pivotalrole in both literary undertakings, will be presented. Through a critical assessment of these 

two models of literary analysis, with their respective methods and distinctive terminology, the proposed project inte 





• Hans Debel 

The syntactical approach to knowledge, the predicate approach to knowledge, an quantification. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: My research project focuses on questions such as:nbsp;When we are modelingnbsp;knowledge, can we steer be-tween representing 

epistemic agents as logically omniscient (i.e., knowing all logical truths and all logical consequences of what one knows already) on the one hand 

and logically incompetent (i.e., not being able to make any logical inference or knowing any logical truth) on the other hand? Can we make model 

situations in which someone knows that there exists a prime larger than the largest known prime, but does not know what that number is? Can we 

develop a theory in which one quantiﬁWhen we are modelingnbsp;knowledge, can we steer be-tween representing epistemic agents as 

logically omniscient (i.e., knowing all logical truths and all logical consequences of what one knows already) on the one hand and logically 

incompetent (i.e., not being able to make any logical inference or knowing any logical truth) on the other hand? Can we make model situations in 

which someone k 




• Roger Vergauwen 

• Jan Heylen 

European identity and exclusion: the discursive construction of the 'Judeo-Christian' tradition. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: While the EU Parliament did not endorse the reference to Europes Judeo-Christian roots in its the constitution, the motion nonetheless 

provoked an on-going debate concerning Europes identity. On the one side arethose who cite the Judeo-Christian commandment to care for the 

stranger as central to European civilization, on the other are those who arguefor the exclusion of Islam from Europe in the name of the Judeo- 

Christian tradition. While the media claims that Islamophobia is caused by a European identity crisis, these claims lack academic validation. To do 

so, I will (1) investigate the identity facet of nationalism in the 20th century with its concurrent rise of anti-Semitism (2) examine whether the current 

identity based rhetoric of Judeo-Christianity veils a violent past while producing a new enemy, and (3) apply these results in the analysis of Europes 

current situation with regard to Islam. Aware of thedifferences between Europes two forms of anti-Semitism, one Judaic 




• Antoon Braeckman 

• Anne Topolski 

Paul's Prophetic reconfiguration of his Diakonia in 2 Corinthans: reassessing the evidence in light of Second Temple 

Jewish perspectives on prophecy. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: My project proposes to build upon an already existing research tradition of biblical studies on Pauls Corinthian correspondence at 

K.U.Leuven.In the First Letter to the Corinthians Paul was writing to a community divided by internal conflicts. However, within a relatively short 

periodof time, between one and two years (sometime in the 50s of the Common Era), Paul had himself become implicated in a conflict with 

members of the Corinthian community. The Second Letter to the Corinthians displays Paul on the defensive, polemically and apologetically 

defending his apostolic ministry and seeking to win back the Corinthian community onto his side from opponents who were critical of Paul. My 

proposal delves into the question of how Paul understood his apostolic ministry. The high incidence of reference to terms like ministers and ministry 

in the epistle indicates that Paul was in debate with rivals on precisely this issue. My research project proposes to break new and original ground by 

a 





• Emmanuel Nathan 

The reception of Plato's khôra in the Early Modern Period (1400-1650). 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: If you strip down the material universe to its basic constituent, what is left? From the very outset, philosophy has faced the difficulty of 

conceiving this puzzling substrate. Since this substrate should by its very nature be indeterminate, it cannot be properly conceptualized. Hence, the 

acceptance of this underlying nature confronts philosophy with its own limits: right in the centre of the philosophical system there is something that 

cannot be grasped by discursive reasoning. This problem underlies a long tradition, initiated by Plato and continued by his pupil Aristotle. 

Seemingly, this incomprehensible element was only banned in the seventeenth century, due to a different approach to matter. This projectwishes to 

discuss this problem by means of the reception history of an emblematic concept put forward by Plato. The latter refers to the above-mentioned 

substrate as a receptacle of Ideas. According to Plato, this third kind is invisible, unshaped and only apprehensible by a 





• Guy Claessens 

On a Par with Paris? Towards a Multipolar History of Nineteenth-CenturyBelgian¨Art, ca 1850-1890. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: This project aims to rethink the research field of nineteenth-century Belgian art along a new geographical and methodological model. 

Traditionally, Belgiums nineteenth-century art production is approached from a centre/periphery perspective that conceives of its object principally in 

its relation to French art. The construction of art historical narrativesalong this model, however, distorts reality. First, it ignores the factthat 

encounters between what we see now as peripheries (Belgium and most other regions) were as productive as encounters with the leading artistic 

centre (Paris). Second, the centre/periphery model deals with art in the purportedly universal categories of the centre and thus ignores the 

importance of location, identity and transfer for art as well as the local social, cultural and economic conditions behind them. This project aims to 

reconsider Belgian art outside the traditional French categories and proposes a more dynamic model to approach it as at the intersec 





• Jan Baetens

Virtual rurality in the contested countryside. A transnational and comparative history of open-air museums in Western 

Europe (1945-1991). 

K.U.Leuven 





• Yves Segers 


Relocating and representing the English novel in the 18th century: a comparative study on French pseudo-translations in 

a transnational perspective. 

K.U.Leuven 





• Jan Herman 

• Beatrijs Vanacker 

Patterns and alternant structures for future time reference in Gallo-Romance: functional-systemic challenges for a 

grammaticalization account. 

K.U.Leuven 





• Béatrice Lamiroy 


• Claire Meul 

Exploring flexibility in human concept representation 

K.U.Leuven 



• Experimental Psychology 


• Gerrit Storms 

Asthma symptom perception and the identification of ashtma triggers 

K.U.Leuven 





• Geert Verleden 

• Omer Van den Bergh 

• Ilse Van Diest 

• Thomas Janssens 

Pathological fear learning to interoceptive cues in panic disorder patients 

K.U.Leuven 





• Omer Van den Bergh 

• Ilse Van Diest 

• Meike Pappens 

Antecedents and benefits of formal and informal learning within professional organisations. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: Lifelong learning has gained more and more importance in our continuously changing society. Both employees and professional 

organisations experience the need to be able to develop continuously. In this research project we will therefore investigate the antecedents and 

benefits of formaland informal learning within professional organisations. The goal of this research is to contribute to the development of scientific 

knowledge and theory on professional learning in a field where much is known but aneed for research based diagnostic tools and theory exists. A 

theoretical model on the role of formal and informal learning within organisations, derived from literature is proposed and will be tested empirically. 

Amixed method research will be applied. Qualitative methods will be usedto verify and refine the benefits that can result from learning within 

organisations and to develop an instrument to measure informal learning. Quantitative methods will be used to validate this instrument and te 




• Filip Dochy 

• Eva Kyndt 

Inter-Religious Peace Education for Development in Northern Ghana: Youth as Agents 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: In this research work, we focus on the Northern part of Ghana that is known to suffer pain, loss, poor educational standards, poor health 

services and hunger, due to severe interreligious and intercultural violence and conflicts that characterise the area. If development is to be fuelled,

there is first the need to work towards peace. Therefore, we need people who are able to tolerate, respect, dialogue, appreciate one another,and 

thereby unite and cooperate to work for the common good of all. On the basis of this, we argue that educating for peace from an inter-religious 

perspective aimed at preventing the reoccurrence of religious conflicts and guiding the people on the value of peace, which can also bring an end to 

other inter-ethnic conflicts, is necessary. Specific to our approach is the attention to the youth both as a crucial agent to initiateand strengthen 

conflicts and as an agent to enhance peace processes. 




• Didier Pollefeyt 


Bien commun et biens publics globaux: pour une justice globale et un futur équitable face à l'impact du changement 

climatique 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: Based on the analysis of David Hollenbach, Mathias Nebel and Matthiew Kempshall our moral theological research will focus on a 

reinterpretationof the common good from the perspective of global public goods within the context of climate change. Firstly, we confront ourselves 

with scientific data about climate change (GIEC) and try to define if it is caused by moral evil (anthropogenic origins) or ontic evil (natural variations 

in temperatures). Secondly, we shall introduce the concept of global public goods within the traditional Christian understanding of the notion of 

common good ('bonum commune'). Thirdly, we shall develop the idea of global justice and of a fair future by describing the moral obligations of 

present generations towards future generations. Fourthly, the notion of ecological debt will be examined in order to define human responsibility visà-vis 

climate conditions. The negative effects of the climate change on future generations and their environment require that diffe 





Pastoral accompaniment for persons with an intellectual disability 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: The research project aims to develop a theological framework grounding pastoral accompaniment for persons with an intellectual 

disability. Thisresearch is important for two reasons: the need for adequate pastoral accompaniment to enhance the quality of life of persons with 

intellectualdisability, and the necessity of a person centred and a contextual framework for this pastoral accompaniment. The research uses two 

sources of knowledge and methodologies. First, a qualitative empirical research explores the current practices of pastoral accompaniment by an 

analysis andcomparison of structured interviews with persons with intellectual disability and pastoral companions. Secondly, a thorough theological 

study of literature provides ideas, key concepts, nuances, pitfalls and criticism towards a view on pastoral accompaniment for persons with 

intellectual disability. Consequently, a theologically open and adequate framework will be designed, based on the discussion of the outcome of both 

emp 




• Axel Liegeois 

L'apport d'une penseé du tragique au discernement moral. Approche philosophique et théologique 

K.U.Leuven 






Reclaiming Faith: Exploring Merold Westphal's Phenomenology of Faith inView of its Consequenses for a Contemporary 

Philosophy of Religion and Fundamental-Theology 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: The current response to onto-theo-logy has created tension between theologians and philosophers on how exactly one can conceive of 

God beyond being the grounding of existence, how such a God encounters existence andwhether or not these attempts at overcoming onto-theology 

create more problems than they solve. Merold Westphal#s phenomenology of faith postulates that faith, as a mode of understanding that is 

intellectually equal to scientific-calculative reasoning, can articulate the relationship between humanity and God better. The goal of the proposed 

research project is to investigate this phenomenology of faith, determining if it can redefine the relationship between faith and reason while 

overcoming onto-theo-logy. The notion of a lived, phenomenology of faith as an intellectual and ethical discourse could recalibrate the role of 

reason, intuition and belief within contemporary culture. The implications of this, on fundamental theology as well as on culture as a whole, need to 

be t 





Incarnation and Religious Epistemology. Transcendental versus Hermeneutical Approaches to Religious Truth Claims 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: The research proposed here aims to explore whether it is possible to conceive of religious truth in a way that holds in balance both its 

universal and the particular dimension of truth and thereby avoids the pitfalls of either universalism or particularism. This investigation will be 

conducted by way of a critical comparison of the transcendental (Karl Rahner) and the hermeneutical approach (David Tracy, Francis Schüssler- 

Fiorenza, Lieven Boeve) to theological epistemology with a specific focus on the role of the concept of incarnation. The main question is which of 

these two theological approaches provide the better theological epistemology capable of balancing particularity and universality in religious truth 

claims. The research project aims to contribute to the development of a theological epistemology that is viable in face of the plurality of religious 

truth claims in a postmodern context 




• Lieven Boeve

"A Light to the Nations": Light Metaphors in Isaiah 40-66 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: The notion of #light# has played a central role across centuries of philosophical thinking and theological conceptions. In the Hebrew Bible, 

light is a very important theological concept that signifies not only a work of creation but also a mode of God?s appearance (theophany). Moreover, 

the concept of light became a strong image of God?s salvation. The primary purpose of the proposed research is to study the metaphor of light in 

the book of Isaiah. Even though the research will investigate all aspects of the metaphor, special attention will be paid to its use in Isaiah 40-66 in 

the description of salvation, both for Israel and for the other nations. Given the context of exile in which the text was written, the call of Israel to be a 

light to the nations is of paramount importancein the theology of the book. By analyzing the Isaianic metaphor of light, we therefore try to 

understand the role and relevance of the servant?s mission both to Israel and to its neighbours: Is the servant cal 





Pesher ha-Davar: Commentary Texts in Qumran and the Greek and Hellenistic-Jewish Traditions. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: The Pesher commentaries from the 2nd century B.C.E. through the 1st century C.E. are the earliest formal commentaries on the Bible. 

Within Qumran scholarship, these text are considered to stand on their own and exhibit little ties with other commentary traditions. Likewise, general 

studies on commentary writing in Antiquity have up to now entirely neglectedthe evidence from the Qumran commentaries. This research project is 

thefirst to bring together these two scholarly disciplines. Our research investigates shared features between the Pesher commentaries from Qumran 

and contemporary Greek and Hellenistic-Jewish commentary texts. It does so by focusing on two aspects of the Qumran Pesharim and 

contemporary commentaries, namely (1) the attitude of these commentary texts towards their source texts and (2) the exegetical techniques 

employed in these commentary texts. By investigating these shared features, this project explores whether and to what extent the Qumran 

commentaries have been a 




• Eibert Tigchelaar 

From Exclusion to Inclusion: An Exegetical Investigation of hen sooma and sooma christou in 1 Cor 12:12-27 as an 

Emerging Paradigm of Dalit Inclusion in Indian Christian Thinking and Living 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: This thesis is firstly an exegetical investigation of sooma christou in1 Cor 12:12-27 and secondly an attempt to create a paradigm of 

inclusion in the Dalit context of India. In this project we explore the history in the text and history of the text by examining 1 Cor 12:12-27, using the 

historical-critical methodology in view of describing the situation that gave way to this text. Then we explicate the theological nuances of this 

pericope and thereafter we identify the elements of the future orientation of the text and articulate the vision projected by the text, identifying the 

ethical claims for the present that flow from the eschatological vision. A new focus on life in community, the body of Christ will be brought out by 

interpreting the text (1 Cor 12:12-27) through the lens of the Normativity of the Future approach. It will bring a paradigm ofDalit inclusion in the 

Church removing all the existing #exclusions.# Then we study the Dalit Christian context by examining the historica 





• Dominika Kurek-Chomycz 

Fostering Children's Dignity through Pastoral Care in Hospitals: Childhood Studies and their Theological Implications for 

Hospital Chaplaincy in Malawi 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: This research,critically appreciates the context of children in Malawi in dialogue with literature that discusses pastoral care practices for 

children in hospitals and in other contexts. We aim to develop ways to improve pastoral care for/with children in hospitals, with a special focuson 

Malawi.Recent childhood studies indicate a shift in the theology about children, we argue that children should not be considered as passive 

receivers in societies but as active givers. Despite being confronted with many forms of abuse and vulnerability, many Malawian children are seen 

to possess an inner strength that shows itself in their resilience andsurvival. This study will show how theological reflection on the givingchild, 

benefits hospital chaplaincy with children. This exercise is in tandem with the establishment of a newly passed law #Child Protection Law 2010# 

that opens up possibilities for childhood in Malawi. Theology should not be left out in this development, as theology both stimulate 




• Annemie Dillen 

The Relationship between Power and Violence in the Corinthian correspondence: A Confrontation of the Work of 

Exegetes and Recent Philosophers 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: Our project represents an attempt to address the relationship between power and violence in the Corinthian correspondence. To this aim, 

we shall bring into discussion the image of these concepts employed by both exegetes and contemporary philosophers. It is our hypothesis that 

power is never unconditionally good, but it is a sine qua non condition of the good. Power can only be perceived as good when it functions as the 

empowerment of good. The threefold structure of our project intends: a) to provide an exhaustive exegetical study of the noun dunamis and its 

cognates from the letters to the Corinthians; b) to bring forward the eschatological dunamis of the possibility and its implication for the 

understandingof power and violence; c) to explore the challenging relationship between power and violence in concert with political readings of Paul 

and contemporary philosophical inferences about violence. 





Leadership Spirituality: Mapping the Discussion. With a Critical Evaluation of References to Christian Spirituality. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: Spirituality has become one of the most striking new focal points in contemporary leadership theory and literature. While some authors 

argue onthe basis of empirical research that spirituality excludes or makes abstraction from practices and insights related to institutionalised

eligions, others present more nuanced conclusions from empirical research andthey make room for religious spirituality in general and Christian 

spirituality in particular. We intend to map this discussion as well as the specific contributions of Christian spirituality. Many leadership writers agree 

to the conclusion that leadership is inescapably #value laden# and as such a moral act. Understanding the implication of this can be enhanced by 

understanding the meaning and place of spirituality in leadership. But to effectively do this, there is the need to examine the different positions on 

the meaning and place of spirituality in leadership. 





Les deux récents synodes pour l'Afrique. Etude comparative et critique du processus synodal pour une éthique de 

reconstruction du tissu social Africain 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: An ethics of reconstruction of the African social network is both an ambitious and demanding project that needs to learn from the past to 

better plan for the future. The first two phases of the evangelization of Africa have been unsuccessful mainly because of lack of appropriate pastoral 

action plan. One of the main concerns of the two recent Synods for Africa was to address this challenge. Yet, their approach has not been always 

able to take into account the real problems of the continent and the aspirations of its people. Very little credit was given to the ancient African 

synodal tradition. Relying on the statistics (quantity) at the expense of the quality, it considers that the present exceptional growth of the Church is a 

sign of the success, a view point which is questionable in the eyes of a good number of theologians. However, despite of its shortcomings, the 

message resulting from the two African Synods constitutes a first step contributing to the restoration of the African so 





John Henry Newmans Theology of History: The 

Theological Imaginary 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: This dissertation seeks to critically evaluate John Henry Newman#s theology of (church) history. Newman#s interest 

in the history of the church (and its importance for his personal religious development and his theology) is well 

known. However, to date there is no comprehensive study of Newman#s views regarding the place that the study of 

church history should take in theology#i.e. the role that the discipline of church history could/should play in the 

development of a sound theological #Weltanschauung#. 

This project has four objectives: (i) an analysis of Newman#s practice of church history with particular attention to 

his approach to the Church Fathers, (ii) an analysis of Newman#s theory of doctrinal development, with particular 

attention to the role played by the religious imagination, (iii) an analysis of the manner in which Newman#s practice 

of church history influenced his interpretation of scripture and the significance of this for his hermeneutics, (iv) a 

critical cor 


• Faculty of Theology and Religious Studie 




Recovering a Neglected Critical Tradition: The Victorian and Modernist Critique of Newman's Religious Apologetic and its 

Contemporary Significance. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: This doctoral project analyses Newman's religious apologetic by systematically connecting its Victorian, Modernist and contemporary 

interpreters. It uncovers a tradition of extensive liberal Protestant and agnostic Victorian critiques of Newman's apologetic, which in turn, is 

appropriated, elaborated and critiqued by Newman's Catholic Modernist interpreters. This tradition is systematically neglected in much 

contemporary Newmanresearch, which is predicated on the conviction that Newman successfully redefined the rationality of religious belief. This 

project brings theearly, neglected interpretations of Newman's defence of religious belief - which question this premise - into dialogue with a variety 

of contemporary interpretations of Newman's apologetic, to yield a comprehensive and original interpretation of Newman's defence of the rationality 

of religious belief and its contemporary significance. 





• Gerard Jan Zuijdwegt 

Disciples and Discipleship: A Methodological Discussion on Relating Scripture and Theological Ethics against the 

Background of Christian Community. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: The use of Scripture in theological ethics is the point of departure ofour study. Our focus here is to study different models of linking 

scripture and moral theology. By way of illustration attention will be given to the use of the scriptural notion of discipleship in recent theological 

ethics and its implications for the moral life and discernment processes withing the Christian community as a community of disciples. Therefore, we 

will study what moral theologicans are saying about the impact of the moral life of the early Christian communities on Christian communities today, 

in particular their identities and mission. We will investigate into new forms of understanding discipleship and utilise the nuances of anamnesis 

(remembering) and sacramental reading of Scripture in order to construct a new Christian life style. Just like the moral living of the early 

communities of Christians was the outflow of their identity as people of God and disciples of Jesus, the question is what is our





Character Development and Virtuous Life: Rehabilitating Virtues in Catholic Church's View on Moral Education 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: Character development and virtuous living are two essentials of moral education. In the ancient past, both the Catholic Church and the 

Indian tradition have emphasised these aspects. But neither Gravissimum Educationis (1965) nor later documents of the Congregation for Catholic 

Education mention explicitly virtues. Since the seventies of the 20th century moral education became value education. In an attempt to reverse 

moral erosion the Indian Report of Parliamentary Standing Committee on Value Education (S.B. Chavan Report, 1999) suggests to introduce more 

value education in the schools. The Report considers virtues and values as synonyms,which in effect, questions the very foundation not only of 

Christian ethics but also of the ancient Indian Gurukul educational system. In such context, a detailed evaluative study of the Wirkungsgeschichte of 

Gravissimum Educationis and later documents of the Congregation for Catholic Education becomes imminent in order to see whether or not Church 

is 





Resituating the Role of Emotions in Theological Ethics. Reading Aquinas Treatise on the Passions in Dialogue with 

Martha Nussbaum 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: The project shall examine the role of emotions in ethical deliberation.First of all, we shall draw from the insights of moral psychology to 

show the link between emotion and morality. Second, we shall present and give a critical assessment of the writings of Thomas Aquinas on 

passions,namely, Questions 22-48 of the 1a2ae of the Summa theologiae, to the so-called Treatise on the Passions. Consequently, we shall 

represent and evaluate the recent reception of Aquinas# account on emotions in the realm of theological ethics. We shall represent two groups of 

thinkers, namely, theologians who perceive theological ethics as a rational exercise and, thus, attribute a negative connotation to the role of 

emotions in ethical inquiry and theologians who perceive ethics as an existential exercise and consequently try to reassess the role of emotions in 

ethical deliberation. The project shall confront those perspectives with the ideasof philosopher Martha C. Nussbaum who gives a significant account 

o 





Between Mystery and Mastery: A Theological and Ethical Reflection on Transhumanism. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: Transhumanists believe that these technologies, by being applied to transform the nature of human nature # through the overcoming, as a 

matter of priority, disabilities, suffering, diseases, poor-sightedness, dementia, and involuntary death will solve much more problems than they will 

create. Moreover, transhumanism is linguistically revealing through meta-narratives about technological promises a new metaphysical order of 

thinking about the person. While analysing the dynamics embedded in a postmodern #telos of techne#, the process of deconstruction will be 

employed on the transhumanistic aims and practices. In such context, the theological and ethical reflection concerning the dignity of the human 

person imperatively demands a critical reconstruction of the traditional Imago Deiand cocreator theological concepts. Critically open dialogue 

between the scientific and technological evolutions expressed in transhumanism andthe Christianly distinctive narratives on human person in 

relation 





Lukes Attitude toward the Law: An Exegetical Study of Luke 16:1-31 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: This project will test the hypothesis that statements on the Law in Lk 16, in particular the seemingly contradictory sayings which are 

juxtaposed in vv 16-18, and the recommendation to listen to Moses and the prophets (vv 29, 31), are polemics against Jewish leaders as 

personified in the characters of the Pharisees who are accused of neither following the Law nor the message of Jesus. It aims to determine Luke#s 

attitude towardthe Law by taking Lk 16:1-31 as a unit. Working from historical-critical perspective using literary-critical and social-scientific method, 

we shall explore Luke#s attitude toward the Law found in the text and context of the whole of Luke 16. Next our investigation will determine how this 

attitude functions in polemics, and how it is connected to the Christian message like proclaiming the kingdom and promoting a message of caring 

for the poor. Then we shall compare this attitude with other significant passages on the Law in Luke-Acts especially with passages where 





An Analysis of the Meaning of the Noun 'kosmos' in 

John: A Cognitive Linguistic Approach 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: Occurring 78 times in the Fourth Gospel, kosmos is considered by most scholars to be an important but difficult 

lexeme because of its sometimes ambivalent and plurivalent meaning. It has been subjected to some exegetical 

analyses using the traditional and the newer methods of biblicalanalysis. However, these analyses are 

fragmented and the resulting interpretations are often intuitive. We would like to make a significant contribution to 

the analysis of the different meanings of kosmos in John by analyzing the word from the perspective of cognitive

linguistics using the method called frame semantics. The method involves an analysis ofwords that are related to 

kosmos. With the help of other texts, namely, Plato#s Timaeus, Philo#s De Opificio Mundi and the Book of Wisdom, 

weintend to identify the prototype meaning of kosmos where the Evangelistcould have based his varied uses 

from. We believe our method will leadtowards finding interrelations in the varied uses of kosmos, thus res 





Dying for Our Sins: An Investigation of the Meaning of 1 Cor 15:3b 

K.U.Leuven 






A Liturgico-Theological Investigation of the Rites of Ordination of theChristian Churches with Particular Reference to 

South-India 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: Divisions among the Churches and their isolated existence for centuries have, in fact, caused fragmentation among all the Churches in 

India, though in different proportions. The most insidious aspect of it is that the communities have kept a considerable distance from each other for 

a very long time, and that they even have gradually developed violence. Paradoxically, there is at the same time a growing apathy and 

indifferencewith regard to the ecumenical movement, and even a manifest opposition to it on the part of some Churches. In fact, the historical tragic 

divisions among the Thomas Christians occurred as a result of centralization,an insistence on uniformity, and the tendency to condemn all diversity 

in doctrinal and liturgical formulations. To a certain extent, this was due to misunderstandings, but it is in no way an irreversible evolution.A climate 

of mutual mistrust, rivalry, and unhealthy competition can adversely affect the effective communication of the message of the Gosp 





The theology on the Sacrament of Penance during the second part of the XVIth and the first part of the XVIIth centuries: 

the case of the Texts of Trebnyk of Peter Mohyla 

K.U.Leuven 






Towards a discourse-functional analysis of the expression of epistemic stance in Court in Cordoba Spanish. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: The research goal is to explore aspects of the grammar of the Cordoba variety of oral Spanish proceeding on the premise that their 

realization and effective use in a natural context are conditioned by the development of the interaction and the attainment of specific communicative 

goals.The data will consist of interactional speech production in the institutional context of the court room. The phenomenon identified as the best 

candidate to focus on is the expression of epistemic assessment. Reasons for the choice include the abundance of indicators of epistemicityin the 

kind of institutional discourse that will serve as data source and the richness of the implications that such study can offer to the modelling of 

grammar.Functionalist perspectives conceive of language asa context-sensitive system: specifically, the cognitive-functional approach with its 

strengths in the treatment of semantic phenomena is apt tothrow new light into the range of manifestations of stance in situated discou 




• Nicole Delbecque 


The Greek Rendering of Hebrew Wordplay in the Specific Literary Contextof the Janus Parallelism Within the Book of Job, 

as a content related criterion in the characterisation of the Septuagint's translation technique. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: Being part of the research project #The Development of Content-RelatedCriteria in the Characterisation of the Septuagint#s Translation 

Technique. A Text-Critical Study of the Greek Rendering of Hebrew Wordplays# (OT 09/001; promoter: B. Lemmelijn), the present doctoral project 

aims ata text-critical study of the Greek rendering of Hebrew wordply in the specific literary context of the so-called janus parallellism in the bookof 

Job. It is situated within the broader framework of the development of content-related criteria with regard to the characterisation of the Septuagint#s 

(LXX) translation technique, complementing the results of so-called quantitative and qualitative approaches. 





Duration and Life: An Inquiry into Biological Time. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: In this project, I will investigate how Henri Bergson's concept of duration can found a philosophical-biological account of the temporal 

relationships between non-living and living systems. Duration is for Bergson atemporal field characterized by irreversibility, creative becoming, 

andirreducible plurality. This concept is shared in many respects by the contemorary theory of biological complexity, which draws on recent 

thermodynamics in order to study life as one type of dynamic and complex process. In the twilight of Newtonian science, both approaches turn from 

static classical notions of time in order to restore to time its character of dynamism and real becoming. Accordingly, together they hold great

promise for overcoming many of the traditional problems still haunting the problem of life because they positively re-think the idea of time that 

makes these problems irresolvable. My research will show how approaching life through duration can yield important theoretical contributions 





• James DiFrisco 

Rethinking Bergsons Naturalistic Approach in Contemporary Philosophy of Religion. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: In contemporary approaches to religion, religion tends either to be reduced to natural mechanistic processes, or to be thought of as 

independent of these processes. Overlooked in this debate is the position of HenriBergson (1859-1941), who in his work Les deux sources de la 

morale et de la religion proposes a non reductionistic naturalistic account of religion in terms of #appeal# and #obligation#. This work has 

beenneglected in English-speaking Bergson scholarship, and in Francophone scholarship few if any attempts have been made to re-actualize 

Bergson inthis way. In this research project I propose to rethink Bergson#s position in light of what I call the phenomenological, cognitivist and 

symbolic approaches to religion. This would first entail showing the advantages of Bergson#s naturalistic approach, the main one being that it 

provides, in contrast to the three other approaches, a unifying framework to make sense of the complexity of religion. Secondly, since naturalism is 

not an e 




• Paul Moyaert 

• Hugh Desmond 

Cooperation and noncooperation in economic decision making 

K.U.Leuven 



• Department of Economics 


• Laurens Cherchye 

Een onderzoek naar aspecten van de vroeg-christelijke antropologie in relatie met heidense filosofische theorieën over 

lichaam en ziel 

K.U.Leuven 






• Caroline Macé 

Fighting educational underachievement through language support: inside AND outside the school? 

K.U.Leuven 







The Novels of Michael Chabon and the Politics and Poetics of Postmodernism 

K.U.Leuven 





• Theodoor D'haen 

Douaniers ou contrebandiers? - Le rôle médiateur des acteurs interculturels en Belgique et entre la Belgique et la France 

(1850-1920) 

K.U.Leuven 








Language origins and language classification in the writings of early christian latin authors 

K.U.Leuven 






• Gert Partoens

Causatiefconstructies in het Nederlands en het Duits 

K.U.Leuven 





• Luk Draye 

"As German as Kafka". A comparative Analysis of the Articulation of National Identity in German-Jewish Literature in the 

early 20th Century andGerman Literature of Migration in the early 21st Century. 

K.U.Leuven 





• Anke Gilleir 

Technology acceptance and a teacher's interactional self-narrative 

K.U.Leuven 







Expiring rhetoric: expression theory in the Anglo-American academy and its discursive context, 1880s-1920s. 

K.U.Leuven 





• Luc Van der Stockt 


• Matthias Somers 

Ruimte en mobiliteit in het werk van Sergio Chejfec. Een analyse van vijf van zijn boeken. 

K.U.Leuven 





• Nadia Lie 

• Liesbeth François 

The Modernist Soundscape: Towards a Theory of the Representation and Perception of Sound in Narrative 

K.U.Leuven 






Hugo Grotius and the Gotic Myth. A critical study of the ideological dimension and methodological foundation of the 

'Historia Gotthorum' (1655)and 'De Origine Gentium Americanarum'(1642-1643) 

K.U.Leuven 



• Latin Literature and Seminarium Philolog 


• Toon Van Houdt 

• Gert Partoens 

The multiple functional load of Spanish 'que. Work Package 5 of the GOAon The multiple functional load of grammatical 

signs in text construction and processes of language change (GOA/12/007) 

K.U.Leuven 






• Hendrik De Smet 

"Have you forgotten yet?": The evolution of trauma from the Boer War toWorld War One. 

K.U.Leuven 



• Text and Interpretation


• Ortwijn de Graef 

Insubordination in complement clauses: a typological study 

K.U.Leuven 





• Jean-Christophe Verstraete 

• An Van linden 

Mood Swings in European Portuguese: the Indicative vs. the Subjunctive.A corpus-based analysis. 

K.U.Leuven 






The Cartographic Undertaking of the French Jesuits in China during the Early 18th Century: Shaped by Interactions with 

Qing China and Europe. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: In 1687, a group of French Jesuits reached China. Unlike earlier missionaries, these Jesuits were sent by Louis XIV to study a wide range 

of aspects concerning Chinese society and sciences. Throughout their mission, they promoted the early modern European sciences and 

contributed to their development by reporting back to Europe on their findings. This explicitly scientific aspect meant a change in Sino-European 

relations and lead to the establishment of an influential intercontinental network of communication and circulation.Some of these missionaries 

impressed the emperor with their (European) cartographic skills and were given the assignment to supervise the mapping of the entire empire. For 

surveying purposes, these missionaries were for the first time given accessto even the most remote of provinces. Thus establishing contacts with 

local populations and elites, they further enlarged the existing network of Sino-European contacts.I will argue that these mapmakers were central fi 


• Sinology 


• Nicolas Standaert 

• Mario Cams 

Translating for the Minorities: Linguistic Diversity and Integration inEurope 

K.U.Leuven 






Complement raising and cluster formation in Dutch. A Treebank-supportedinvestigation. 

K.U.Leuven 





• Frank Van Eynde 

• Hans Smessaert 

The development and decline of prepositional adverbials with here and there: a diachronic corpus-based study. 

K.U.Leuven 





• Kristin Davidse 

Italian Catholicism and international relations, 1963-75 

K.U.Leuven 





• Theodoor D'haen 

Vergelijkende studie tussen pre-christelijke religie van West-Europa ende Japanse religie 

K.U.Leuven 



• Japanese Studies 


• Dimitri Vanoverbeke 

Integrity in the Belgian federal government. A survey-research (second wave).

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: This project is the second wave of the research project integrity in the Belgian federal government. The study will be done in three federal 

ministries. The research project has two objectives: policy improvement and scientific research. A first objective is to gather relevant information to 

improve the integrity policy of the participating organisations of the Belgian federal government. Recent years have seen an increasing interest in 

public sector ethics management in Belgium. A largenumber of public sector organisations have taken the first steps towards a modern integrity 

policy. A number of new measures and policy instruments were developed. However, there is a risk that these instruments areused arbitrarily, not 

as part of a coordinated integrity policy and notadjusted to the specific needs of the organisations. To make use of thedeveloped policy instruments 

in an optimal way, it is important to haveinformation on the situation and integrity needs of the organisation. In this 




• Jeroen Van Craenenbroeck 

• Guido Vanden Wyngaerd 

Torquato Tasso as a model in works of heroic poetry on contemporary historical events between the end of the Sixteenth 

and the beginning of theSeventeenth Century 

K.U.Leuven 





• Bart Van Den Bossche 

Parts With(out) Wholes: Individual, Community and Nation in the Short Story Cycle in Ireland 

K.U.Leuven 






The shape of the paper book to come. Navigeren in een gedrukt boek in een digitaal tijdperk 

K.U.Leuven 






Two Faces of One Divine Law? A Text- and Redaction-Critical Approach tothe so-called Decalogue in Exodus 20 and 

Deuteronomy 5. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: For a long time, redactional criticism pertaining to the literary development of the text on the one hand and textual criticism referring to the 

textual transmission on the other, have been considered as reflecting two separate stages in the origin of the text and therefore also a two distinct 

subdisciplines in the study of the Old Testament. Recently, however, and especially under the impulse of the text-critical study of the Dead Sea 

scrolls, it has become increasingly clear that the textual transmission has gone hand in hand with the literary and theological development of the 

text in the redactional stage. 

Against this background, thepresent doctoral research project aims at investigating whether the literary and theological differences present in both 

Massoretic versions ofthe decalogue, viz. Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5, are already reflected in the other extant textual witnesses (LXX, SamP 

and the extant manuscripts of the Dead Sea) and to which extent the latter's textual situa 





Talent en excellentie in Wetenschap en Techniek. Een interventiestudie in het kader van het project TalentenKracht. 

K.U.Leuven 



• Experiental Education 



Adolescenten met ADHD: van executief functioneren en motivationele pathways tot behandelingsuitkomsten 

K.U.Leuven 



• Clinical Psychology 


• Marina Danckaerts 

• Saskia Van der Oord 

Spiritual experience of patients in a multicultural society: Empirical analysis of the demand-supply alignment 

K.U.Leuven 



• Research Unit Pastoral Theology


• Annemie Dillen 

Facing the mirror. An investigation into the function and meaning of the metaphor of the mirror in 1 Cor 13:12 and 2 Cor 

3:18 against the backdrop of Pauls revelation theology 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: This project investigates 1 Cor 13:12 and 2 Cor 3:18 in the light of the Pauline understanding of revelation. According to us, the Pauline 

metaphor of the mirror symbolises both the more passive aspect of the reception and the more active aspect of the manifestation of revelation. 

Neither this double meaning of the metaphor, nor the connection with the Pauline revelation theology has not yet been investigated. We apply the 

historical-critical method because we are of the opinion that the content ofthe Pauline epistles originated through the interaction between Paul#s 

own thoughts and the ideas that circulated in Paul#s historical and cultural context. We therefore examine the historical backdrop of revelationand 

of the mirror as well as their function in the Pauline corpus. The study of the historical setting is completed with a detailed exegesis of1 Cor 13:8-13 

and 2 Cor 3:3,7-4,6 and of other relevant passages. The purpose of our research is to investigate how the Pauline understandi 





L'épiscopat de l'Inde du Sud: Une étude théologique d'un point de vue catholique 

K.U.Leuven 





• Peter De Mey 

Fighting educational underachievement trough language support: inside and outside the school? 

K.U.Leuven 






• Koenraad Van Gorp 

Identity and Interaction in the Neolithic Island Aegean. The Production, circulation and Consumption of Ceramic Vessels 

on Chios. 

K.U.Leuven 





• Ilse Schoep 

• Brecht Lambrechts 

• Peter Tomkins 

Een iconografie van de uitzonderingstoestand. De politieke relevantie van kunst in een hedendaagse context 

K.U.Leuven 





• Hilde Van Gelder 

• Stéphane Symons 

Essays in housing economics. 

K.U.Leuven 



• Research Centre of Economic History 


• Frank Verboven 

Politiek engagement in hedendaagse Belgische video essays 

K.U.Leuven 





• Hilde Van Gelder 

The "Alamire" Choirbooks and the Creation of a Sixteenth-Century Core Musical Repertory 

K.U.Leuven 





• David Burn

'Proper to our Genius': A musico-poetic analysis of English opera (c. 1650- c. 1700) 

K.U.Leuven 






• Katherina Lindekens 

"Cadences in the instrumental music between 1750 and 1800: a music analytical and theoretical study of a thoroughly 

changing compositional phenomenon" 

K.U.Leuven 






On the role of sustainability reporting and sustainability indicators in the process of integrating sustainability into 

institutions of higher education. 

K.U.Leuven 



• Centre for Economics and Ethics 


• Luc Van Liedekerke 

The Organisation of Tapestry Production and Trade in France (1600-1670) 

K.U.Leuven 






Vocabulary development in CLIL. The case of Czech pupils learning subject matter in English. 

K.U.Leuven 





• Lies Sercu 

(Im) Perfect Design 

A research that aims to develop an innovative design method to unite the design strategies of the prototypical craftsman 

and industrial designer in contemporary jewellery design 

K.U.Leuven 



• Surface and Interface Engineered Materia 


• Ludo Froyen 

New Perspectivers on Polyphony: Alamire's musical legacy revealed through high-technology research tools. 

K.U.Leuven 





• David Burn 

Number sense: Analysis and improvement 

K.U.Leuven 





• Lieven Verschaffel 

IWT-TBM-DYSL-X. 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: DYSL-X: A game based tool for early risk detection of dyslexia in preschoolers. 


• Parenting and Special Education 


• Pol Ghesquière 

• Ann Goeleven

• Jan Wouters 

IWT-LBO-BACTERIËLE PATHOGENEN. 

K.U.Leuven 



• Division of Gene Technology 


• Rob Lavigne 

Mediating factors in the education of foreign language skills: the impact of student and teacher cognitions and 

interactional behaviour on listening comprehension 

K.U.Leuven 






Taboo and Euphemism in the city of Madrid 

K.U.Leuven 






An analysis of Regional Lexical Variation in California English using site-restricted web searches 

K.U.Leuven 






Bara'a in Surat al-Tawba: The Moral Distinction between Muslims and Nonbelievers 

K.U.Leuven 





• John Nawas 

The translation of the English Gothic novel in nineteenth-century Portugal 

K.U.Leuven 






Agency en de rol van onderhandeling in design. 

Over Ubiquitous computing, een netwerk van mensen en dingen, zorg en reflectie. 

K.U.Leuven 





• Erik Duval 


Loyaliteitsconflicten aan de basis? 

Kerkelijke litigiositeit voor de Raad van Brabant in de 18de eeuw. 

K.U.Leuven 



• Early Modern History (15th-18th Centurie 


• Eddy Put 

Shakespeare and Irish Romanticism 

K.U.Leuven 






The formal semantics of proportional quantification in Dutch and English 

K.U.Leuven 





• Hans Smessaert 

• Daniel Jaspers 

SBO project application "VALIDIV". 

Valorising Linguistic Diversity in multiple contexts of primary education. 

K.U.Leuven 






• Koenraad Van Gorp 

Unreliable narration as a result of traumatic experiences of the narrator 

K.U.Leuven 





• Hedwig Schwall 

Sculpting Media - The role of art in visualising media 

K.U.Leuven 






From lexical to semantic sociolectometry: New methods for the corpus-based analysis of variation in lexical 

categorization. 

K.U.Leuven 







Hoe krachtig is Validiv? Een empirische studie naar de impact van interventies ter bevordering van een positieve 

benadering van meertaligheid in het Vlaams onderwijs. 

K.U.Leuven 







Legal translation: a comparison of concept systems. Arabophone Morocco versus francophone Belgium. 

K.U.Leuven 





• Helge Daniëls 

• Hendrik Kockaert 

Rubens' portretten naar bestaande prototypes 

K.U.Leuven 





• Katlijne Van der Stighelen 

Ethiek en de historische conditie 

K.U.Leuven 

Abstract: Dit project gaat vanuit een ontologische analyse van de geschiedfilosofie van Paul Ricoeur op zoek naar een ethische dimensie van ons 

omgaan met het of een verleden, onze historische conditie.




• Bart Raymaekers 

Théologie d'une pastorale des petites communautés chrétiennes rurales en Afrique: cas du Diocèse de Matadi (RD 

Congo) 

K.U.Leuven 





• Marc Steen 

Lost (and Found). A Critical Study and Analysis of the History of Research on Lost Documents and Hypothetical Sources 

of Early Christianity 

K.U.Leuven 






L'image difforme dans l'Art clunisien; Ses racines théologiques. Un regard sur Dieu à travers le Cosmos 

K.U.Leuven 





• Hans Geybels 

Understanding the propensity to export: firm characteristics and government policies. 

K.U.Leuven 





• Johannes Van Biesebroeck 

Multiple selves and revealed preferences. 

K.U.Leuven 





• Laurens Cherchye 

Ethics in nursing education 

K.U.Leuven 



• Centre for Health Services and Nursing R 


• Chris Gastmans 

• Bernadette Dierckx de Casterlé 

The cross pressures of morality. Friedrich Nietzsche and Charles Taylor on meaning, morals and post-modernity. 


Abstract: This project provides, for the first time, a confrontation between Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), the herald of nihilism who claimed that 

all previous foundations of morality have been undermined, and Charles Taylor (*1931), the advocate of strong evaluation and the inevitability of 

meaning. The basic thought, however, is not the clash between Nietzsche and Taylor, but rather the idea that, despite several differences, there is 

an important level of agreement between both thinkers as well. Central to this discussion is the morally pluralistic context of post-modern Western 

society. How do Nietzsche and Taylor understand and evaluate the post-modern moral context, and in what respects does the dialogue between 

them allow for a normative account on how to move among the cross pressures of morality? Can Nietzsche's and Taylor's positive moral views be 

viewed as adopting a 'third' position between fundamentalism and moral relativism? This question is explored by focussing on one of the most 

important moral ideals of post-modernity: authenticity. 





• Guido Vanheeswijck 

• Michiel Meijer 

Where are we? Towards a phenomenological topology. 


Abstract: Where are we? This is the main question that my research project wants to investigate and answer, through a phenomenological 

approach of the place and spatiality of man. Taking the phenomenologies of Husserl and especially Heidegger as its starting point, it aims at 

formulating a phenomenological topology that can offer an alternative for the scientific and objective treatment of space and place, since this 

perspective is not capable of grasping the essential charateristics of our spatiality and situatedness.


• Centre for Philosophy of Culture 


• Geert Van Eekert 

• Jasper Van de Vijver 

The diachrony of tenses in French. 


Abstract: The project deals with the evolution and grammaticalization of the conditional tense in French. The objective is three-fold. It first seeks to 

trace the principal changes affecting the usages of this verb form, notably with respect to its contexts of use and the related interpretations. The 

second aim is to determine the (grammaticalization) processes accounting for these changes, with a focus on the mechanisms triggering the 

emergence of new uses. Finally the path(s) of grammaticalization will be synthesized by means of a semantic map. 





• Adeline Patard 

The Disordered Self: Madness, Religion and Society in early modern Brabant. 









• Sonja Deschrijver 

Sollen, wollen and the present subjunctive. Towards a unified description of the relation between evidentiality, modality 

and indirect speech. 


Abstract: The deictic analysis of sollen, wollen and the present subjunctive, as markers of indirect verbal information, unearths a number of 

differences in the relation of the speaker and the information source in each of these elements. These differences are taken to be indicative of a 

gradual continuum that holds between the categories of 'evidentiality' and 'indirect speech', which seem to be more strongly associated than 

previously assumed. Moreover, the deictic analysis raises questions as to the categorial status of sollen, wollen and the present subjunctive as 

modal or evidential elements. 




• Tanja Mortelmans 

• Jeroen Vanderbiesen 

Theodore Van Ryswyck (1811-1849) and Literary Romanticism in Antwerp. 


Abstract: This project focuses on the function of literature in the modern nation-building process from a literary perspective. The subject of research 

is the poetry of Theodoor Van Ryswyck: an important figure in the romantic school of Antwerp and a transition figure of a Belgian to a Flemish 

cultural nationalism. He's the author of a various and, with respect to the content, predominantly political oeuvre. The methodological approach of 

this research is twofold: the corpus is textually analysed and is also situated in his historical, political, cultural and socio-institutional context. The 

hypothesis is that the poetry of Van Ryswyck contributed to the process of Flemish (sub)nation-building and identity-creation, e.g. by linking political 

issues to ethical and moral questions. 




• Piet Couttenier 

• Adelheid Ceulemans 

Yes we canon! A discursive analysis of canon debates in post-war Flemish theatre (1945-2010). 


Abstract: This project investigates repeated debates over what is to be called a theatre classic in Flanders between 1945 to the present. It does so 

not only because such debates have never been seriously investigated although they have occurred at regular intervals in 

post-war Flemish history; but also because such debates are revealing of a broader, fundamental uncertainty of the place and meaning of theatre 

(subsidies) in society: should theatre strive for social relevance, or should it only be 'art as art'? Similar 

questions are now on the table in various European countries experiencing an outburst of public discussion on how national identity, shared values 

and artistic heritage (should) speak to each other. A recent Flemish illustration of this is the 'repertoire 

debate' that kicked up dust during the last theatre season. Through a discursive analysis of these debates in Flemish history and on the basis of a 

digital archive of journal articles and cultural policy documents, the present project will attempt to sketch evolving conceptions of theatre classics, 

their impact on subsidy decisions and theatrical practice, and the ways in which the resulting theatrical canon interacted with the construction of a 

Flemish identity in Belgium. 




• Luc Van Den Dries 

• Ciska Hoet 

Metafiction and the writing process. A genetic approach to 'autography' in Samuel Beckett's Molloy, Malone meurt, and 

L'Innommable. 


Abstract: The aim of this project is to offer a new perspective on Abbott's theory by linking Beckett's autography to his manuscripts, thus returning to 

the term's original definition of 'signature'. As such this project aims to determine why Beckett incorporated the author's writing process into his

works, and what this can tell us about his poetics. Moreover, by clearly separating the author's writing 

process from the narrator's, the project aims to delineate the distinction between autography and autobiography. 




• Dirk Van Hulle 

• Wout Dillen 

Diplomatic Encounters : A Cultural History of the Belgian Legation in Ottoman Istanbul (1865-1909). 


Abstract: This research investigates Belgium's diplomatic representation in Istanbul during the second half of the nineteenth century. Its primary 

concern lies with diplomatic 'practices', rather than (only) with the institutional, political and economic dimensions of Belgian diplomacy. The socalled 

'soft' elements of diplomacy – (court)protocol, etiquette, diplomatic culture – will be studied in correlation with processes of identity formation. 

One of the analytical tools for this research is the concept of 'cultural encounter'. As for the sources, a wide variety of materials will be utilized, 

ranging from diplomatic dispatches, over private correspondence and memoirs, to travel journals and newspapers. By analyzing actual diplomatic 

encounters in their historical specific setting, this project aims (1) to enrich our knowledge of the history of Belgian-Ottoman relations from a new 

perspective, (2) to offer some insights into the 'culture of diplomacy' in late Ottoman Istanbul, and (3) to contribute to the revision and dedramatization 

of some of the findings in grand meta-narratives (like 'Orientalism' and the 'Clash of Civilizations'), that distort and essentialize East- 

West relations. . 





• Houssine Alloul 

The Middle Low German 'Flos unde Blankeflos'. Text, codex and context. 


Abstract: The aim of this reception research is to find out in what ways the textual composition of the five manuscripts containing the Middle Low 

German Flos unde Blankeflos influences the reception of this text and how the codices correspond and differ in this. First the tradition history of the 

work is regarded. Finally both text and codex are discussed with regard to the Middle Low German literature and the European Floire et 

Blanchefleur tradition. 





• Elisabeth de Bruijn 

Between tekhné and technics. Hannah Arendt, Günther Anders, Herbert Marcuse, and Hans Jonas. 


Abstract: Recently, a large number of studies have been devoted to the influence of Martin Heidegger's thought on his Jewish students, given his 

brief allegiance to national-socialism. Most of these studies however seem to neglect the importance of a phenomenon that he himself has pointed 

out as being an important ground on which he based his decision to support this political movement, i.e. the emergence of modern technics. This 

research will therefore try to establish that the philosophical writings of some of the most prominent of these students -Hannah Arendt, Günther 

Anders, Herbert Marcuse, and Hans Jonas- should be understood as a critical interpretation and re-appropriation of Heidegger's early writings on 

the division between technique and technology. 


• Institute of Jewish Studies 


• Vivian Liska 


• Nathan Van Camp 

Interactive topic initiation in patient-doctor interaction. Case study of Polish institutional talk against the backdrop of 

Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis. 








• Matylda Weidner 

The "business of performance": Theatre impresarios and the dramatic repertoire in the Southern Netherlands between 

1680 and 1795. 


Abstract: For the first time in a study of the late seventeenth- and eighteenth-century theatre and opera life in Brussels, Ghent and Antwerp, 

emphasis will be placed on the role of the impresario and on the effects of the "business of performance" (i.e. the way theatres were run and drama 

was produced and performed) on the repertoire. 

By doing so I will answer such questions as: What motivated impresarios to run a theatre? What aesthetic/literary aspirations did they hope to 

realize and how did financial motivations influence artistic decisions? What can the role of the impresarios tell us about the alleged cultural (literary) 

crisis experienced by the Southern Netherlands? What was the status of the surprisingly significant number of female impresarios? What kind of 

plays and librettos did these impresarios commission? How was foreign repertoire adapted to appeal to a local audience and local authorities? How 

did local playwrights react? And finally, how did satirical plays portray the impresarios? 




• Hubert Meeus 

• Timothy De Paepe

Knowledge creation and knowledge circulation in the Austrian Netherlands: the rinderpest epizootic of 1769 - 1785 in the 

duchy of Brabant and the county of Flanders. 


Abstract: From the 1960s and 1970s onwards, historians have seen science and knowledge as social constructions, inextractably linked to politics 

and power relations. For the 17th and 18th centuries, this was exemplified by the close link between top-down circulation of new forms of 'scientific' 

knowledge based on experiment and observation of nature and the articulation of state power in that same period. More recent historiography 

however substantially reappraised traditions, hands-on skills and trial and error processes of subaltern groups such as artisans and artists. 

Surprisingly though, the countryside is totally neglected in this debate, despite the importance of experiment, trial and error and the observation of 

nature in the economic survival of farmers. The rinderpest epizootic of 1769 – 1785 provides an ideal case-study to examine how knowledge was 

created, imposed and legitimised in a rural context, and the role experiment played in this. To answer these questions, I will investigate two aspects 

of this epizootic. The first aspect is the formulation of government policy, which was exceptionally intrusive and characterised by the mandatory 

slaughter of all suspicious animals. The second aspects involves the reception and execution: how did the mass-slaughter theory became 

hegemonic and how did the state persuade other actors to go along with this policy? Adopting a local, comparative approach, my research will 

provide the 'missing link' between rural history and the history of science. 





• Tim Soens 

• Filip Van Roosbroeck 

Brusseling language, bustling friction. An ethnographic analysis of linguistic hybridity and purity at a Brussels secondary 

school. 


Abstract: This project sets out to describe ethnographically (meta-)linguistic practices in a mixed-ethnicity classroom at a Brussels secondary Dutchmedium 

school. 

Goals: 

1. Documenting and analyzing linguistic hybridity and purity in a metropolitan school. 

2. Relating linguistic practices to social categorization processes in a multilingual environment. 

3. Identifying how and to what extent local practices relate to larger-scale social and linguistic dynamics. 





• Jürgen Jaspers 

Female networking in early modern Aalst: 'hidden' social capital? 


Abstract: The project aims to examine the (development of) networks of women (and men) in a small early modern city during the 17th and 18th 

century. We aim to examine economic as well as non-economic networks (e.g. guilds and confraternities) and formal as well as informal relations 

(neighborhood relations, family relations, bonds of friendship). These developments will be contextualized by taking into consideration the possible 

influences of changes in women's position in the household economy on the broader social and economic networks of female actors and vice 

versa. During this research we will also pay attention to the networks of male actors in order to get grip on the differences and or similarities in 

networking according to gender . By integrating a cultural as well as an economic and social approach towards the social relations of unmarried and 

married women (and men) we will take a necessary and refreshing step towards a better understanding of women's social and economic agency at 

the intersection of social and domestic life. 






• Ellen Decraene 

Reinventing the Past. Re-enactment in Contemporary Dance and Performance Art. 








• Timmy De Laet 

(Re)Writing history in early modern Mechelen: genesis of text and gradations of authorship in an urban chronicle 

tradition. 


Abstract: In medieval and early modern times, chronicles were the way of choice to remember the days gone by. The proposed research focuses 

on a Mechelen city chronicle that is especially interesting because of two aspects. 1) It does not provides merely short events listed in chronological 

order, but also a comprehensive history of Mechelen drawn from literary sources (among which chivalric epic, lyric etc.). 2) The text has been 

preserved in distinctly different versions containing additions, alterations and deletions. Three of these heavily altered manuscripts are autographs, 

which allow the reader a rare look in the mind of an early modern author. This research will shed light on how the author and the subsequent 

altering scribes dealt with the text, and how each version can be read within the historical context of early modern Mechelen. 




• Hubert Meeus 


• Bram Caers

Dynamics of visionary lay devotion. The representation of visions, dreams and apparitions in late medieval and early 

modern miracle collections in the Low Countries (1350-1750). 


Abstract: This project will provide insight into the nature and development of the visionary experience of ordinary lay people in the later Middle Ages 

and Early Modern period, a phenomenon yet to be explored. To achieve this objective, reported visions in vernacular miracle books originated in 

cult centres in the Low Countries from 1300 to 1700 books will be assembled. The combination of textual, contextual and comparative analysis of 

this corpus, will (1) shed light on the characteristics of the experience of the visionary protagonists and of cult centre register practices, (2) map 

chronological shifts and regional fluctuations in the nature of reported lay visions and the intensity of their occurrence. Subsequently, (3) the findings 

will be interpreted by correlating them with specific cult-related developments, as well as with developments in the official Church norms and 

regulation of lay visions. The analysis will be informed by concepts from various fields such as historical 

anthropology, religious philosophy and historical psychology. The project will lead to a differentiated view of the nature and role of lay visions in late 

medieval and early modern devotion and pilgrimage culture and will significantly contribute to our understanding of the dynamics of lay piety and 

popular religion. 






• Jonas Van Mulder 

Travel narrative truth: the construction of trustworthiness in Tvoyage van Mher Joos van Ghistele (ca. 1490). 


Abstract: This research aims at identifying the stylistic, rhetorical and narrative techniques used to construct trustworthiness in Tvoyage van Mher 

Joos van Ghistele, the Middle Dutch report of Ghent nobleman Joos van Ghistele's (†1516) four-year journey to the Orient (1481-1485). 

Comparison with other European travel narratives reporting journeys to the East (ca. 1450-1510) will reveal the position Tvoyage takes in this 

respect to its contemporaries. 






• Alexia Nikita Marina Lagast 

Gilliams and Signs: An investigation into the repercussion of a significantly increasing autonomy of the literary field on 

the critical representation of reality in (Flemish) narrative prose. 


Abstract: This case-study aims to cast new light on the complex evolution of Flemish literature during the interwar period. This project will nuance 

the more recent thesis put forward by Missinne, Dorleijn, De Geest e.a. that during the 1930s the Flemish literary field knew a significant 

development: on the one hand this is a period of cultural pillarization, on the other, literature dissociates itself from so-called non-literary institutions 

(church, state, political parties) and develops yet more in accordance with its own rules and conventions. 




• Kristiaan Humbeeck 

• Filip De Ceuster 

Information structuring by multilingual speakers: Code-switching as a marker of topiccomment or focus-background. 


Abstract: The project starts from concrete multilingual data, compiled from four sample corpora in the LIDES database: two corpora with 

typologically divergent language pairs (Dutch-Turkish and English-Punjabi) and two corpora with typologically more related language pairs (Dutch- 

French and English-Spanish). I primarily adopt the IS framework proposed by Lambrecht (1994), in combination with interactional viewpoints on CS 

(Auer & Di Luzio 1992), and Role and Reference Grammar (RRG (Van Valin 2005)). 





• Bram Vertommen 

What masked words can do: Preactivation or Retrospective recruitment? 


Abstract: The purpose of the present research proposal is to find out whether Bodner & Masson's view can be upheld. The general rationale that 

will guide all experiments is the question whether masked priming effects activate episodic memory traces when access to lexical memory (the 

mental lexicon) is sufficient for performing the experimental task. This general question will be approached in two ways: (i) can masked primes 

access episodic traces that were created in a training phase prior to the experiment and (ii) do masked primes themselves leave episodic traces? 




• Dominiek Sandra 

• Lien Van Abbenyen 

Law under the Guise of the Good: An Aristotelian Conception of Legal Authority. 


Abstract: The research is an attempt to answer the question 'How can the active selves of the citizens of a State be engaged in the action of rulefollowing 

when legal rules are externally imposed on them?'. In the paradigmatic case it is argued that in order to be able to follow and be guided by 

legal rules agents need to avow the grounding reasons as good-making characteristics of legal 

rules. Consequently, the authoritative character of law can only be understood in a 'ethicalpolitical' way. Thus, legal rules make salient the reasons 

for actions as good-making characteristics and in doing so citizens are able to engage with the grounding reasons of legal rules. The 'guise of the 

good' model of legal rules, therefore, is compatible with the idea that law provides a service to its citizens and can make a practical difference to our 

lives and plans.




• Georgios Pavlakos 

Culture of Civility: Bringing Together Justice and Stability in Divided Societies. 


Abstract: This project investigates from the perspective of political philosophy and ethics the possibilities to reconcile religiously divided societies. In 

such societies, pluralism can hardly be framed into a framework of reasonableness. However, this project argues that an agreement among people 

is possible even in these societies. It defends that a culture of civility can provide a non-institutional consensus that enables citizens to reciprocate 

on the basis of some fundamental liberal values. 





Research of the modifications of silver nano particles by degradation and conservation treatments of photographs. 


Abstract: Silver present in photographic materials oxidizes, migrates and reduces in the emulsion causing degradation of the image. This PhD 

project investigates these modifications of silver by means of electron microscopy and compares the degradation process before and after different 

treatment methods, e.g. local atmospheric plasma cleaning. As a result the most appropriate treatment method for silver oxidation in photographic 

materials will be suggested after quantitative analyses. 


• Electron microscopy for materials research (EMAT) 


• Dominique Schryvers 

Translating the news: an ethnographically supported linguistic pragmatic study of the role and nature of translation in the 

Flemish newsroom. 


Abstract: Journalists often say that they do not 'translate' foreign news; they produce new(s) stories. Research has shown that they actually do 

translate sometimes, rather than simply base their own writing on sources in other languages. By analyzing the correspondences and differences 

between a set of news articles (newspapers, news websites) and a set of (foreign language) press releases and news wires on which these articles 

are based, by conducting interviews with journalists and by means of participant observation in Flemish newsrooms, we want to shed light on the 

role and the nature of translation within the newsroom. 





Antwerp and the dawn of a consumer society, 15th-18th centuries. 


Abstract: This project represents a research contract awarded by the University of Antwerp. The supervisor provides the Antwerp University 

research mentioned in the title of the project under the conditions stipulated by the university. 





Perception, Action and What's in between? 


Abstract: The aim of this research project is to argue that the vast majority of what goes on in our mind is very similar to the simple mental 

processes of animals. Our complex, sophisticated, rational and linguistic abilities could be described as the icing on the cake. The right 

methodology for philosophy of mind is to understand those simple mental capacities that we share with animals fust and then explain those uniquely 

human, highly intellectual mental capacities that make the human mind so remarkable. 





Study "Rural Heritage". 


Abstract: This project represents a formal research agreement between UA and on the other hand Technum Tractebel Eng. UA provides Technum 

Tractebel Eng research results on the landscape history and landscape development of the Waasland Polder area. Furthermore, UA supports 

research on the monumental, landscape and archeological heritage of this area, which encompasses parts of the historical polders Prosperpolder, 

Doelpolder, Nieuw and Oud Arenbergpolder and Koningskieldrechtpolder 




• Tim Soens 

'It's Some Kind Of Magic': Exploring the usefulness of the term 'Magical Realism' for 

contemporary arabic literature 


Abstract: By a close reading of six Arabophone novels that originate from diverse geographical, cultural and religious settings, this project 

investigates to what extent magical realism's genre theory, mainly based on Latin-American examples, offers a fruitful framework for 

analyzing Arabic novels that are considered magical realist, and whether this framework needs to be adapted to the specific local context. 

Organisations:

• Departement of Languages and cultures of the Near East and North Africa 


• Caroline Janssen 

Forms of address in Chilean Spanish: diastratic and diatopic variation and pregmatic use 


Abstract: The project studies the address system in Chilean Spanish, characteristic of its threefoldness (tú, usted, vos + own verb conjugations), the 

increasing use of the hybrid 'tú + vos-verb conjugation' and the high frequency of strategic politeness alternations between the three 

forms. The investigation analyses social, geographical of strategic politeness alternations between the three forms. The investigation analyses 

social, geographical and contextually-specific influences on the phenomenon based on an enquiry and audiorecordings in the speech community. 




• Renata Enghels 

• Eugeen Roegiest 

Aspects of the diachronic Morphsyntax of the Germanic Nominal Domain: From Proto-Germanic to its daughters 


Abstract: The project investigates two main aspects of the diachronic development of the Germanic noun phrase. The first concerns the NP/DP 

parameter and how the determiner system influences clausal syntax. The second concerns the nanosyntax of the proximal demonstrative 

('this' < 'that' + 'see'). Empirical data is drawn from the runic inscriptions, Old Norse, Old English, Old High 

German, and Gothic. 





Reparations for African Americans? A metahistorical investigation into the ways in chisch Americans relate to the history 

of slavery 


Abstract: My research will examine the ways history has been used in recent debates that have taken place in the United States about the idea of 

paying reparations to African Americans for the historical injustice of slavery. This examination will involve a discussion of the way modern societies 

perceive the past, and the relationship between the past and the present day. 




• Gita Deneckere 

Metalepsis in six selected prose works by Günter Grass (1961-2010) 


Abstract: This project aims to analyze the narrative phenomenon 'metalepsis' in six prose works by Günter Grass. The project will 

investigate the relation of metalepsis to time, space and intertextuality. It will chart the functions of metalepsis in the narrative structure and attempt 

to clarify this structure. It will be shown that the metalepsis supports the poetics the prose works convey. 






Fromal characterizations of defaesible reasoning forms: the capacities ans limits of the standard format for adaptive 

logics 


Abstract: The general aim of this research project is to ecplicate formally defeasible reasoning forms (DRFs) by means of Adaptive logics (ALs). 

Despite the fact that the standard format for ALs proved to be very useful for the formak characterization of many DRFs, it is suboptimal for some 

application contexts. the more specific aim of my research is hence to investigate the capacities and limits of the standard format and to generalize 

it if and where recessary. An efficient way to scrutinize this aim is to consider the many DRFs that developed independently of the AL program (only 

some of them were integrated thus far). 




• Joke Meheus 

Exchange Networks and Ecological Change in Early Holocene Northwest Europe 


Abstract: The log-distance exchange of Tienen and Wommersom quartzites is examined by geo-chemical sourching, geographic information 

system (GIS) database construction and statistical analyses, lithic technological organization, stone knapping experimentaion, ant lithic use-wear 

analyses. This project investigates the role of exchange networks in the adaptations of hunter-gatherers to ecological change along the southern 

North Sea basin during the onset of the post-glacial environment of the Early Holocene. 


• Departement of Archeology 


• Philippe Crombé 

Cleft constructions Romance and Germanic (non-standard) linguistic varieties 


Abstract: In this research I will contribute to one of the major issues in the Gnerative approach, namely how much the interpretive component 

syntactically encoded. In order to do this, I will analyze the cleft structures of some Romance and Germanci languages with different main 

characteristics, with special attention for non-standard varieties of French, Dutch and European Portuguese.





Scientific understanding in medicine 


Abstract: I will analyze how medical science tries to achieve scientific understanding of health problems by investigating (1) the characteristics, 

necessity and peculiarities of scientific understanding in medicine, and (2) how medical scientists try to make sense of disease states for which (part 

of) the causal information is missing. 




• Erik Weber 

Apoikia and metropolis: research into the earliest Greek colonization (2010-2011) 


Abstract: Research of the mother cities Chalkis (on Euboia) and Cycladic Naxos of the earliest Greek colony of Sicily, Naxos: to what extend did the 

colony influence the construction of identity in the mother cities? Did she help to crystallize an identity? Was the creation of (imaginary) ties 

dependant of certain opportunities e.g. the political situation? Or did the colony serve only practical purposes? 




• Roald Docter 

From natural philosophy to science: Euler's inquiry of nature viewed through his optics 


Abstract: This project investigates the relationship between natural philosophy and philosophical developments of scientific criteria in the optics of 

Leonhard Euler (1707-1783). The central questions are: (i) Did Euler's account of optics, as well as his mathematisation of nature, lead to 

changes in the role of natural philosophy? (ii) Was the modern seperation of natural philosophy and science a consequence of this? 





The Construstion and Experience of Fiction Worlds in Jane Austen Fan Fiction 


Abstract: This project studies a corpus of Pride and Prejudice fan fiction (i.e. stories which are based on Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice) 

and reader responses to refine postclassical narrative theories on the construction of fictional worlds and the experience of immersion (a reading 

experience during which the fictional world feels as real as a text-independent reality). 




• Bart Keunen 

Bilingual language comprehension during sentence reading 


Abstract: Only a few studies have examined eye movements in bilinguals and none of those was set up with the intention of investigating bilingual 

sentence processing. The proposed project means to bridge this theoretical gap by gathering a large amount of eye movement data in different 

groups of bilingual participants (Dutch-English and Dutch-French bilinguals with L2 proficiency and acquisition age varied). 


• Departement of Experimental psychology 


• Wouter Duyck 

The body in the renewel of the Dutch novel on the borders of modernism and postmodernism (1960-1970) 


Abstract: This project aims to examine the presentation of the body, and its innovative function in the renewal of the Dutch novel 1960-1970. On the 

basis of nine novels, which represent the different innovative tendencies, I first analyze the thematic description of the body by way of metonymy 

and metaphor, and the narratology of the body. Secondly, I investigate how innovative this thematical and narratological body has been. 




• Bart Vervaeck 

The Latin 'Fairy Tale': A Literary-Functionalist Approach 


Abstract: This project aims to gain insight into the functioning of a number of Latin texts within their surrounding literary fields and in relation to the 

vernacular fairy tale tradition. It will result in a literary-historical analysis of how these texts have self-consciously positioned themselves within 

certain tensions in the field between modernist/innovative and classicist/conservative tendencies. 




• Wilhelmus Verbaal 

Female genital cutting as a religious identity marker among Coptic and Muslim women in Egypt. 


Abstract: This proposal wants to contribute to our understanding of female religious agency concerning female genital cutting through analysis of 

religious discourse and ethnographic research among Coptic and Muslim women in Egypt. It focuses on women's negotiation with both

internal societal religious and Westernized forces. The project wants to contribute to theorizing of the interplay of gender, religion and agency. 


• Departement of Comparative sciences of culture 


• Chia Longman 

Encloistered and Profane Masculinities: Comparative Research into the Evolution and Perception of High Medieval Ideals 

of Manhood (Late Eleventh-Early Fourteenth Centuries) 


Abstract: This project proposes a diachronic comparative research, based on a varied corpus of narratives and treatises, into the establishment, 

evolution and effectiveness of medieval ideals of masculinity in monastic and profane circles in the Low Countries. It takes into consideration the 

period between the second half of the 11th and the beginning of the 14th centuries. 





A clear modelling of the fuzzy geometric and semantic data of the Ferraris map in a historical GIS 


Abstract: The Carte de Cabinet of count Joseph de Ferraris (1770-1780) is the oldest, large-scale topographical map of our regions. To allow the 

map to realize its full potential in different research disciplines a GIS-model will be developed to deal with the map's vague geometry and 

semantics (the occurrence of globel and local geometric deformations and the absence of parish bouncaries respectively). 


• Departement of Geography 


• Philippe De Maeyer 

Sociolinguistic project on the Greek private letters on papyri and ostraca 


Abstract: The project will investigate (1) the various formulas in letters lexically and syntactically, and will so examinate the epistolary usade 

diachronically. (2) Private letters are the best source of information for the everyday language (koinè); the standard formulas are the starting point 

for an investigation of the lexical adn syntactic variation in everyday koinè with special attention for sociolects, registers and bilingualism in archives. 




• Marc De Groote 

Model as Sculpture. Architectural representations in the realm of the visual arts: 1970-2000 


Abstract: This research project explores the status and meaning of the architectural model within the realm of the visual arts (1970-2000). The aim 

is to define its modus operandi as a type of sculpture and to describe its complex position within the inter-related yet fundamentally shifting domains 

of art and architecture in the last three decades of the twentieth century. 


• Departement of Architecture and urban planning 


• Maarten Delbeke 

Alter ipse sigillum. Old Babylonian Sippar Seals as Markers of Identity 


Abstract: This project aims at studying in which was Old Babylonian Sippar seals may be considered as expressions of (parts of) their users' 

identity. Both the textual and iconographical data will be examined on the basis of the unique seal database of the Assyriological department 

(UGent). The research methodology is centered around families and professional groups which will be reconstructed for the first time in 4,000 

years. 


• Departement of Languages and cultures of the Near East and North Africa 


• Michel Tanret 

Gender in the Ugandan Secondary School Classroom: Textbook Representation, Teacher Discourse and Implications for 

Practice 


Abstract: The study is a mixed methods investigation of gender in the Ugandan classroom through curriculum materials and pedagogy. The focus is 

on gender representation in four popular English textbooks recommended by the Ministery of Education for teaching English to senior three 

students in Ugandan schools. I will also establish how teachers mediate these texts and the factors that influence this mediation. 


• Departement of Comparative sciences of culture 


• Chia Longman 

In defense of the Russian langauge. Discussions on linguistic experimentation in literature in the Russian émigré 

community (1917-1939) 


Abstract: The proposed research project seeks to examine why during the interwar period linguistic experiments in Russian literature were 

perceived negatively by the Russian émigré communities in Europe and were replaced by a general preference for the normative language of the 

Russian classics of the 19th century. Interdisciplinary in scope, the project builds on literary history, literary linguistics, and philosophy of language. 


• Departement of Slavonic and East-European studies 


• Thomas Langerak 

Person marking and aligment in the Kashmiri languages. A typological study of referential hierarchies 


Abstract: This project is a contribution to the ongoing typological debate on how referential hierarchies are associated with alignment patterns. The 

project will provide a comprehensive analysis of the complex person marking system of Kashmiri and its dialects. This statistical analysis will be 

conducted from a typological perspective, and genetic and areal influences on person marking will be measured against universal tendencies in a 

cross-linguistic fashion. 




• Klaas Willems 

A critical analysis of the methodology of evolutionary explanations for the emergence and possible functions of art 


Abstract: Since the last couple of decades, cultural and social phenomena such as art, religion, language and morality, are increasingly studied 

from an evolutionary point of view. However, a number of difficulties arise when a biological theory is applied to this subject matter. The goal of this 

research, with art as a case study, is to map pitfalls and opportunities, in order to contribute to the study of these phenomena, as well as to the 

expansion of evolutionary theory's framework of research. 




• Wilfried Van Damme 

Tasting Flanders-Tasting Britain? The Flemish migrant painter in 16th century Great Britain: interaction between heimat 

and isle 


Abstract: Important issues in recent art historical research are the phenomena of migration and artistic exchange. Little attention has been paid to 

the exchange between Flemish and British painters and to the contribution of Flemish painters to 16th century British art. This research embodies 

the establishment of the oeuvre of seven Anglo-Flemish portraitists and the identification of styles and painting techniques. 




• Maximiliaan Martens 

Method in madness 


Abstract: In the Enlightenment tradition, the faculty of reason was viewed as a defining characteristic of man, and irrationality was put in stark 

opposition to reason. This project goes beyond this traditional dualistic conception and aims to integrate irrationality in the framework of naturalized 

epistemology, which recognizes human reason as a biological faculty acquired over a long process of evolution. 




• Johan Braeckman 

The global rise of modern borders and irregular maritime migration networks (1882-1938): comparing Atlantic with Pacific 

migration systems 


Abstract: The project analyzes the establishment of global racial barriers on migration, the formation of irregular migration networks, the attempts by 

states to regulate migration transnationally and the central role of shipping companies in this process during the first period of accelerated 

globalization (1882-1938). It compares this for Pacific and Atlantic migration to the US and how this affected migration policies in the Americas. 





The collective memory of collaborators in Belgium's post-war society: a socio-political history (1944-1970) 


Abstract: Collaborators in Flanders have succeeded in depicting the post-war purge as an anti-Flemish, harsh and never-ending operation. This 

research aims to demonstrate the genesis and success of this collective memory through a structural and empirical analysis of sources that reveal 

the functioning of their organisations and the ways in which other milieus connected and sympathised. 




• Bruno De Wever 

Neurological turn 


Abstract: This project within ideology critique and political philosophy assesses the impact of the ?neurological turn? in the fields of politics and 

culture. The central hypothesis is that the neurological turn re-confirms the psychological paradigm as it in a close analogy to psychologisation 

entails a neurologisation. The three research domains are: psychology as a science, culture (especially cyberculture) and politics (psychobiopolitics). 




• Gertrudis Van de Vijver 

The interactional dynamics of multilingualism and translanguaging in the Belgian asylum procedure


Abstract: This project investigates the ways in which linguistic diversity, multilingualism and translanguaging are institutionally managed in the 

Belgian asylum procedure. Drawing on linguistic-ethnographic data, this study (a) analyses language ideological issues related to competing forms 

of multilingualism, with a particular focus on interpreting practice and LADO applications and (b) explores how the observed interactional dynamics 

may affect the legal-institutional construction of evidence and identity in asylum cases. 




• Stefaan Slembrouck 

Male feminism: the participation of men in women?s emancipation movements in Belgium, France and the Netherlands 

(1960-1990). 


Abstract: The present study aims to investigate if Belgian, French and Dutch feminist groups of the 1960s, 70s and 80s set up coalitions with men 

with regard to mobilization for the legalisation of abortion and contraception, the critique of power relations and labor divisions within marriage and 

the prevention of violence against women. Both oral and written sources will be used (interviews, archives, feminist press and literature). 




• Gita Deneckere 

The Latin verb phrase: delimitation, internal structure and diachronic evolution 


Abstract: The project is concerned with the syntax of the Latin Verb Phrase and Tense Phrase, and in with particular the distribution of the verb, its 

arguments and functional elements like adverbs and negation. The research is based on a corpus of over 3.500.000 words, ranging from 350 BC to 

550 AD. The theoretical background is that of generative syntax. 





"This is my body broken for thee". Early modern sacralization of literature, the case of Vondel's 

'Altaergeheimenissen' and Huygens' 'Avondmaalsgedichten' 


Abstract: This project aims to trace the intrusion of concepts of the sacral within early modern poetics as it relates to the development of growing 

autonomy within the literary system. It will do so by means of an analysis of the intricate poetics of two instances of devotional poetry, namely: Joost 

van den Vondel?s Altaergeheimenissen and Constantijn Huygens? Avondmaalsgedichten. 




• Jurgen Pieters 

The impact of land system on the urban-rural gap in Chin, 1949-2009. An economic-historical reconstruction (Anhui, 

Jiangsu, Shanghai, Zhejiang) 


Abstract: The main focus in this research is the relationship between the land system and the urban-rural gap in China, in order to understand (a) 

what the historical dynamics in this relationship are and (b) what improvements can be suggested made to the current land system in order to 

narrow the gap. 





Burial practices in iran from the achaemenid to the sassanian period (550 BC - 651 AD) 


Abstract: The burial history of Iran in the time span between the Achaemenid and Sassanian periods has experienced three major transition phases 

and the succession of one empire by another has resulted in many substantional changes in the burial practices. This study intends to demonstrate 

the responsible factors for these changes in the societies' spiritual beliefs and to prove that burial practices are more a cultural phenomena 

rather than being only a religious ritual. Therefore, burials play an important role in reconstruction of the ancient societies during Achamenid, 

Parthian and Sassanian period. 




• Ernie Haerinck 

Belgium 1933 - 1945: A multi-medial image construction in the Third Reich 


Abstract: This project aims to analyse the image construction of Belgium (resp. Flanders and Wallonia) in Nazi Germany. Starting from the 

assumption that Nazi propaganda institutions used different media in a complementary way, i.e. with different functions and goals, the study will 

draw on a representative corpus of diverse media (newspapers, periodicals, books and films). 




• Bruno De Wever 

Erasmus Belgica 2011-2012 : mobility SMS -SMP 


Abstract: Erasmus Belgica is a collaboration project between the Flemish Community, French Community and German-speaking Community to 

promote the mobility of students in higher education between the Communities of Belgium. It offers university students or college students the

opportunity to receive part of their education at a university or college in another Community. Students have the opportunity through their studies to 

effectively integrate into the language and culture of another Community of Belgium. It offers the opportunity to learn to adapt to a different 

environment and a different mentality. 




• Luc DE SCHEPPER 

• Lia VAN HOEF 

Eramsus Belgica 2011-2012 : mobility SMS - SMP 


Abstract: Erasmus Belgica is a collaboration project between the Flemish Community, French Community and German-speaking Community to 

promote the mobility of students in higher education between the Communities of Belgium. It offers university students or college students the 

opportunity to receive part of their education at a university or college in another Community. Students have the opportunity through their studies to 

effectively integrate into the language and culture of another Community of Belgium. It offers the opportunity to learn to adapt to a different 

environment and a different mentality. 




• Luc DE SCHEPPER 

• Lia VAN HOEF 

Incubator Network (t) 


Abstract: For researchers at universities there is a clear need for guidance and support of entrepreneurial activities. Researchers often have a 

technology available that provides a valuable valorization potential, but they are in the first place researcher. The transition from researcher to 

entrepreneur is not always obvious, because the technical knowledge of the researcher must be supplemented with a variety of business aspects. 

There is often only a limited (or nonexistent) budget available. Therefore represents this project a significant contribution to researchers and 

research institutions, which translates into a support for quality enhancement technology valorization, the creation and growth of new, healthy 

businesses and ultimately the growth of regional economy. 

This project provides a strong completion to the regular operation of the partners involved. This project makes it possible for the partner institutions 

to work out both institution-and cross-border projects. In addition, the partners share best practices to scout and guide potential spin-offs. 

The international dimension in this project offers a great value to both the partners and participants of this project. The partners learn from each 

others experiences in setting up and help grow business spin-offs from research institutes, researchers from these institutes learn from each other 

and learn from experienced coaches important aspects of setting up and managing technology-based businesses. The international context 

provides on one hand a scale advantage: thanks to the involvement of six partners a critical mass of entrepreneurial researchers together. On the 

other hand, the coaches and participants come in contact with the entrepreneurial culture in other countries, which also offers a fascinating source 

of inspiration to learn from each other. 




• Ann BIJNENS 

Sabbatical Leave 2011: A philosophy of Strict Finitism : Historical and Systematical Overview. 


Abstract: In this project 28 years of research on strict finitism will be brought together in a global framework thus representing a state of affairs 


• Centre for Logic and Science-Philosophy 


• JEAN VAN BENDEGEM 

OZR backup mandate 'finishing doctoral project 


Abstract: Between land and sea. Economy and identity of the early-medieval Flemish coastal regio in a North Sea Context. (500 - 1000 A.C.) 

Analysis of the social and economic identity of the inhabitants of the Flemish coastal region in the early medieval period. 


• Art Sciences and Archaeology 


• Dries TYS 

In terms of language”: the articulation between intention, action and 

language in the work of G.E.M. Anscombe' 


Abstract: This project is an attempt to provide an integrative system of various approaches in psychology and to analyse which epistemological 

constraints should apply to psychology as a 'special' science. Its purpose is to shed light on new 

understandings of mental causation that would be appropriate to e.g. what happens in the psychotherapeutic cure. 


• Centre Leo Apostel 

• Mathematics 


• Valérie AUCOUTURIER 

• Diederik AERTS 

Legitimizing public service broadcasting in the 21st century: in search of a new theoretical basis 


Abstract: The aim of the proposed research is, firstly, to investigate which theoretical arguments have been made for and against public service 

broadcasting. It will do so from a multidisciplinary theoretical and historical angle, interpreting the dynamic interpretations of the public service remit 

over time. Secondly, moving to the study's empirical part, the research seeks to find out which means (i.e. rhetorics and policy instruments) national 

governments employ to legitimize public service broadcasting. The cases selected are the United Kingdom, Germany, Netherlands and Flanders.

Finally, the research answers whether a'grand theory' for public service broadcasting is still possible in the 21st century and, in case of a positive 

answer, develops the core elements of such a theory. 


• Studies on Media Information & Telecommunication 

• International and European Law 

• Communication Sciences 


• Sebastian OBERTHUR 

• CAROLINE PAUWELS 

• Karen DONDERS 

Access to justice. Urban legal procedures and the usage of the pro bono procedure in civil adjudication in the Low 

Countries, 16th to 18th century. 


Abstract: This research will assess the extent to which householders among the urban population really could access the court system by assessing 

the relative social inclusiveness of the urban litigation community. In doing so, it will substantially improve our understanding of social relations in 

the early modern urban contex 


• History 


• Anne WINTER 

• Griet VERMEESCH 

Developmental patterns and mechanisms in the acquisition of receptive grammar knowledge in a second language 


Abstract: The primary objective of the proposed research project is to broaden the scope of SLA research by investigating the dynamics of receptive 

grammar development. As a second objective, I will test the hypothesis that the pattern of receptive L2 grammar development, like productive L2 

grammar development, is unaffected by first language (L1) background. Finally, by using cross-sectional and longitudinal data, I avoid the peril of 

drawing unjustifiable conclusions concerning grammar development on the basis of cross-sectional data alone. Thus, the proposed research project 

is innovative in that it studies, cross-sectionally and longitudinally (rather than just cross-sectionally), aspects of receptive (rather than productive) 

L2 grammar acquisition by very young (rather than older) L2 learners from two (rather than one) typologically different L1 backgrounds. 


• Language and literature 


• Alexis HOUSEN 

Death and political culture: funerary practices of political elites in Belgium 1850-1940 


Abstract: This project discusses the relationship between 'political culture(s)' and the practices surrounding the death of 100 leading public figures in 

Belgium during the years 1850 to 1940, which is examined at three institutional levels. 

The first level of analysis is devoted to ten royal funerals. The second level focuses on funerals of leaders of government, speakers of the Houses 

of Parliament and prominent persons who received the honour of a state funeral. The third level investigates the funerary culture manifested around 

the death of the mayors of Ghent, Brussels, Antwerp and Liège in order to reconstruct an urban liberal political culture. 


• History 


• JEFFREY TYSSENS

Research projects (1 - 500 of 2917)

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