Maureen Hosay

• Doctoral defence: 30 October 2025 at 3 p.m.
• UAntwerp Stadscampus, room A.202
• Supervisors: Vanessa Joosen and Francis Mus
• ​Register by email​

Abstract

“What does a Gruffalo taste like?” “What sound does grass make?” “What do you see when you hear?” These are questions that a child might ask about their favourite picturebook. They also happen to be questions that a scholar in the field of children’s literature with an interest in intermediality might ask themselves.

Such questions highlight the rich and varied production of stories for children. If picturebooks are characterised by the creative interplays between text and illustrations, they are inscribed in a broader network of multimodal products of children’s literature, that is to say of products that make meaning through the combination of two or more semiotic resources (or “modes”). For instance, audiobooks for children tend to feature sound effects and music in addition to voice(s), eBook publishers endeavour to create interactive audiovisual works to appeal to a younger audience, popular franchises offer their fans plenty of merchandise items to reenact their favourite stories or signal their interest in it (e.g. costumes, toys, plushes). Within this network, each version of the story is the story yet is also distinct and unique in terms of modal combinations, material features, medial affordances, generic conventions, sensory experiences, cultural contexts, and situated audiences.

In light of this wealth of material, there is a need for an all-encompassing framework to study how multimodal products of children’s literature make meaning, and how it is translated from one version to another. In this thesis, I analyse the transfers between different versions of a children’s story through a multimodal translation framework, which relies on three pillars: mode, medium, and genre (Kaindl 2013, 2020). I apply this framework to two famous children’s stories: We’re Going on a Bear Hunt (Rosen and Oxenbury 1989) and The Gruffalo (Donaldson and Sheffler 1999). More specifically, I discuss picturebooks, audiobooks, films, TV commercials, cookbooks, audience performances, and leisure activities. The result of this exploration is perfectly encapsulated in Riita Oittinen’s statement, that “[t]ranslating picture books” – and I would argue children’s literature in the broad sense – “is a many-splendored thing” (Oittinen 2003, 128).

Varsha Aravind Paleri

• Doctoral defence: 17 November 2025 at 1 p.m.
• UAntwerpen Stadscampus, promotiezaal Grauwzusters
• Supervisor: Kristien Hens
• ​Register by email

Abstract

This thesis examines the ethical dimensions of synthetic biology (SynBio), a rapidly developing field situated at the intersection of biology and engineering. Extending beyond traditional biotechnological interventions, SynBio introduces novel forms of manipulation that enable the editing of existing life forms and even the creation of new ones, thereby challenging the boundaries between the natural and the artificial, life and technology. The first part of the thesis surveys the principal ethical concerns raised by SynBio and investigates how these concerns reshape our understanding of fundamental concepts such as life, nature, and technology. The second part presents the perspectives of SynBio scientists themselves, drawing on their reflections about the ethical challenges encountered in their daily laboratory practices. The third part offers an alternative framework for addressing these concerns by introducing a non-dualistic philosophical perspective, which reinterprets dualities such as natural/artificial and life/machine through a more integrative lens. Finally, the thesis proposes both a standard operating procedure (SOP) and an ethics-by-design toolbox to embed ethical reflection into scientific research practically and continuously. It argues for the early and sustained collaboration between ethicists and scientists, beginning at the conception of a project, to ensure that ethical inquiry becomes an integral part of the design and development of synthetic biology.

Giulia Di Rienzo

• Doctoraatsverdediging: 18 november 2025 om 13 uur
• UAntwerpen Stadscampus, lokaal KS.203
• Promotoren: Erik Myin (UAntwerpen) en Ludger van Dijk (Wageningen University)
• ​Inschrijven via mail

Abstract

This thesis begins with the observation that traditional cognitive science often fails to adequately account for our direct sensitivity to what real-world situations demand of us. In response, it builds on a different ontological attitude to foreground this responsiveness and argues that genuinely attending to the concrete and the particular requires a reconsideration of philosophical methodologies. Specifically, it proposes an alliance with ethnographic methods, enabling inquiry to begin from the ground of real-world practices rather than from abstract descriptions.

Chapters 1 and 2 address how practical problems in interdisciplinary coordination can be reframed — not as “cognitivist” gaps in knowledge — but as challenges of coordination within practices. Chapter 2 further expands on the limitations of traditional approaches in capturing practical contexts. I argue that this failure stems from the assumption of a separation between mind and world, or organism and environment, and the perceived need to bridge that gap.

Chapter 3 explores an alternative by developing the concept of organism-environment mutualism. I argue that to truly move beyond the dichotomy between organism and environment, we must examine how interaction is conceptualized — whether through an atemporal interactionist lens or a transactional one. The thesis contends that transactional mutuality offers the ontological grounding necessary to introduce ecological psychology.

Chapter 4 delves deeper into ecological psychology, emphasizing that while its foundational tenets are rooted in mutualism, the interpretation of that mutualism varies across traditions. The strand most aligned with the transactional view I advocate is the socio-historical understanding of ecological psychology.

Chapter 5 builds on recent developments that foreground the social dimensions of perception. In this view, affordances are not confined to the immediate moment. We must move beyond abstract, linear conceptions of time and toward an expanded, dynamic temporality — one that sees the present as entangled within the unfolding flow of practical involvement. This is what van Dijk and Withagen (2015) refer to as the ecological present: a dynamic field in which actions and possibilities are reciprocally interdependent across multiple timescales.

Chapter 6 turns to methodology, arguing that we must seriously engage with the implications of this ontological perspective for philosophical inquiry. I propose that a similar shift is needed in philosophical psychology and philosophy of mind. If we take the ontological worldview outlined above seriously, returning to the rough ground of practices is not merely a methodological choice but a philosophical necessity for theory development. Taken together, these three moves — foregrounding indeterminacy, prioritizing situated practices, and attending to phenomena as they emerge and unfold —lay the foundation for a genuinely world-involving ecological psychology.

Chapters 7 and 8 present the empirical foundation of the thesis, consisting of one published paper and one submitted manuscript. These chapters draw on ethnographic data, demonstrating how the theoretical insights developed throughout the thesis emerged from and are grounded in real-world scientific practices.