Research team

Expertise

- Middle Dutch literature: mystical texts, women authors, Hadewijch; alchemical texts - Mysticism: vernacular mysticism, 'mystique courtoise', 'beguine authors' Hadewijch, Mechtild of Magdeburg, Marguerite Porete - Premodern visionary culture and literature - Modern literature and culture: circulation and appropriation of medieval mysticism (esp. Hadewijch and her work) in modern and contemporary literature and culture, both in the Low Countries and internationally - Approaches: hermeneutics, intertextuality, reception and transferstudie

Spiritual Role-Play as a Tool for Inner Transformation: A Pioneer Study of a Devotional Practice from the Late Medieval Low Countries. 01/10/2021 - 30/09/2024

Abstract

How can art and literature contribute to inner transformation? What creative tools did medieval people use for self-development? This study breaks new ground by exploring a popular, yet understudied, self-development tool from the late medieval Low Countries: the phenomenon of spiritual role-play. In this form of private devotion, God and the human soul were each assigned complementary social roles (e.g. bridegroom and bride, physician and patient) which engaged in meditational interactions, sometimes even involving physical movements and objects. The aim of the proposed project is to understand the transformative potential of spiritual role-play, and its effective use as a tool for self-development, within the context of late medieval Christian meditation practices. This will be achieved through analysis of texts and material objects used in spiritual role-play employing an interdisciplinary approach which combines proven methods from art history and literary history with relevant insights from cognitive psychology. This novel investigation will offer a new understanding of the effects of spiritual role-play on the mind, and of the important roles of art and literature in facilitating and reflecting inner transformation.

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  • Research Project

FWO sabbatical 2021-2022 (Prof. V. Fraeters). 01/02/2022 - 31/01/2023

Abstract

The first part of my sabbatical leave will be devoted to finalizing, in close collaboration with co-editor Patricia Dailey (Columbia University NY), the volume 'A Companion to Hadewijch' (Leiden: Brill). To this end, I've been invited as Visiting Scholar at the Comparative Literature Department of Columbia University, NY in the Spring of 2022. The volume integrates my previous and current research on the oeuvre of the Middle Dutch mystic Hadewijch, and it is, as the international, interdisciplinary list of contributors testifies, the culmination of my past efforts to (co-)generate an international academic Hadewijch studies at the intersection of Literature, Medieval Studies, Vernacular Theology, Female Mysticism and History of Spirituality. The volume will provide future international Hadewijch studies with an innovative state of the arts which, for the first time, critically integrates research of the 'old' philological Dutch Hadewijch studies with 'new' interdisciplinary approaches (a.o. Gender, Emotion Studies, History of the Body). During the second part of my sabbatical leave I will conduct new research on the formative impact of the liturgy on the Visions of Hadewijch, with the aim to integrate the findings of this research in the critical edition with commentary of this work (Hadewijch, Verzamelde Werken II/ Visioenen, Groningen: Historische Uitgeverij), which I co-edit with Frank Willaert. A Visiting Scholarship at Harvard in the Fall of 2022 will allow me to study paraliturgical manuscripts in the Medieval Collections of the University Libraries of Harvard and Yale, and the Morgan Library New York, and to discuss possible models of detecting liturgical intertext in vernacular women's visionary mysticism in critical dialogue with top experts at the intersection of Liturgy Studies and other fields: Medieval Art History, Literature and Theology.

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  • Research Project

BOF Sabbatical 2022-2023 - Veerle Fraeters. 01/02/2022 - 31/01/2023

Abstract

The first part of my sabbatical leave will be devoted to finalizing, in close collaboration with co-editor Patricia Dailey (Columbia University NY), the book project A Companion to Hadewijch (Leiden: Brill). To this end, I've been invited as Visiting Scholar at the Comparative Literature Department of Columbia University NY in the Spring of 2022. The volume integrates my previous and current research on the oeuvre of the Middle Dutch mystic Hadewijch, and it is, as the international, interdisciplinary list of contributors testifies, the culmination of my past efforts to (co-)generate an international academic Hadewijch studies at the intersection of Literature Studies, Medieval studies, Vernacular Theology, Women Mysticism and History of Spirituality. The volume will provide future international Hadewijch studies with an innovative state of the arts which, for the first time, critically integrates research of the 'old' philological Dutch Hadewijch studies with 'new' interdisciplinary approaches (a.o. Gender, Emotion Studies, History of the Body). During the second part of my sabbatical leave I will conduct new research on the formative impact of the liturgy on the Visions of Hadewijch, with the aim to integrate the findings of this research in the critical edition with commentary of this work (Hadewijch, Verzamelde Werken II: Visioenen, Groningen, forthcoming), which I co-edit with Frank Willaert. A Visiting Scholarship at Harvard University in the Fall of 2022 will allow me to study paraliturgical manuscripts in the Medieval Collections of the University Libraries of Harvard and Yale, and the Morgan Library New York, and to discuss possible models of detecting liturgical intertext in vernacular women's visionary mysticism in critical dialogue with top experts at the intersection of Liturgy Studies and other subfields (Medieval Art History, Literature, Theology).

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Project website

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  • Research Project

Spiritual Role-Play as Technology of Self: An Interdisciplinary Pioneer Study of a Devotional Practice from the Late Medieval Low Countries (SRP). 01/05/2021 - 30/04/2022

Abstract

This study breaks new ground by mapping the late medieval phenomenon of spiritual role-play for the first time. This practice, popular in the late medieval Low Countries, was a form of private devotion in which Christ and the human soul were each assigned a social role, and engaged in imaginary interactions, sometimes including physical props such as dolls. Having not been studied as of yet, the many texts and objects that were used in this practice cannot be properly contextualized, and important aspects of the history of technologies of self remain unstudied. The action nuances existing views on the historical development of technologies of self by showing that in the late Middle Ages not only in high mysticism, but also in the devotional culture of everyday life, elements of personal discovery were present. In this action spiritual role-play is studied through texts and material objects from the late medieval Low Countries. The aim is to contextualize the practice of role-play within late medieval Christian meditation practices, and to arrive at an understanding of the transformative potential of the practice. Combining methods from art an literary history, such as iconological and discourse analysis, my project contributes to the study of medieval devotion by integrating a text-centred, cognitive with an embodied, object-based approach. Moreover, I will incorporate insights from cognitive psychology to the study of medieval literary and material culture, opening up new perspectives on premodern spiritual culture. The project will broaden the scope of previous studies on scripted devotion by exploring how role-taking could incite inner transformations, looking not only at the emotions that are incited, but at a broader spectrum of experience involving sensory perception, empathy and religious knowledge and understanding.

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  • Research Project

Transferring female mysticism from the Low Countries to England. 15/02/2018 - 15/05/2018

Abstract

The project will examine the transmission to late medieval England of new models of female piety that emerged in the thirteenth century in the Low Countries and the Rhineland. An analysis of translated texts both by and about female mystics, will reveal whether, and if so, how, the English translators brought the central concepts of this new mysticism, such as 'union with God' and 'deification', into line with the English anchoritic tradition. The project will expand and deepen our knowledge of the transregional circulation of mystical texts and ideas from the Low Countries within Europe.

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  • Research Project

Mystical Heritage and Modern Identities. Reception and Appropriation of the Medieval 'Flemish' Mystic Hadewijch in Interwar Belgium. 01/10/2017 - 30/09/2021

Abstract

This project offers an in-depth study of the polymorphic reception of the Middle Dutch or 'Flemish' mystical author Hadewijch (ca. 1240) within the intellectual field and the wider socio-cultural field in Interwar Flanders (including Brussels), a society characterized by acute 'pillarization'. The enthusiast appropriation of the hitherto hardly known oeuvre of Hadewijch by a remarkably broad range of intellectuals belonging to very different circles – traditional Catholics, francophone modernists, avant-garde artists - challenges us to rethink the common frame of an all-pervasive polarization between Catholic and 'liberal' ideologies and between the traditional and the modern(ist), and will enable us to detect diverse forms of Flemish identification which remained largely unexplored until now. A combined approach will be used that draws on methods and concepts of reception studies, discourse analysis and imagology. Firstly, a material and contextual analysis of the Hadewijch publications published in Belgium in the Interwar Period, will lead to a list of Hadewijch transmitters; a view of the networks between them, and an understanding of their ideologies The results will be complemented by archival research. Secondly, a discursive and narrative analysis of a selection of texts will be carried out in order to study the symbolic production of a national figure. An 'indexical' reading of the Hadewijch-texts will allow us to create a nuanced typology of the constructed Hadewijch images, and to uncover the motives underlying the dissemination of her work. Thirdly, the correlation of the findings of steps one and two will reveal differences and/or similarities between types of appropriation processes at work, and will uncover unexpected crossings between the ideologies and networks of the key mediators within the different sites of Hadewijch appropriation. This will allow us to draw nuanced conclusions about the cultural and political significance of Hadewijch's reception in Interwar Flanders The study will result in an innovative cultural history of Interwar Flanders, as the unique perspective of the multifocal circulation and appropriation of a female medieval poet, mystic and visionary, will compel us to depart from fixed divisions. Moreover, the study significantly contributes to Dutch literary history as it writes an important and as yet unkown chapter in the reception history of Hadewijch, who today is considered to be one of the major authors of Dutch literature and of Western mysticism. On a more general level, the project will deepen our understanding of the uses of literary heritage in the complex processes of identity formation.

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  • Research Project

Travel narrative truth: the construction of trustworthiness in Tvoyage van Mher Joos van Ghistele (ca. 1490). 01/10/2013 - 30/09/2016

Abstract

This research aims at identifying the stylistic, rhetorical and narrative techniques used to construct dependability 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). Through comparison to other European travel narratives reporting journeys to the East (ca. 1450-1510), this project will reveal the position Tvoyage takes in this respect to its contemporaries.

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  • Research Project

Miracles of the Mind. Evolutions in the representation of religious behaviour and the perception of the sacred in the Low Countries (1350-1750). 01/10/2013 - 30/09/2015

Abstract

I wish to strengthen the theoretical component that was only germinally present in the original project outline. It is my opinion that a more elaborated theoretical framework will toughen the original research question, even though it obliges me to reformulate the research question. The initial intention to investigate evolutions in the visionary perception of the supernatural by lay people can be drawn open to a broader inquiry for evolutions in perceptions of the supernatural and the sacred and in the representation of religious behavior.

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  • Research Project

(In) Hadewijch's Footsteps. Inventorying the academic, literary and artistic reception of Hadewijch's work, from 1838 to today 01/02/2013 - 31/12/2013

Abstract

This heuristic project aims to inventorise the academic as well as the literary and artistic reception of Hadewijch's oeuvre, from its discovery in 1838 till today. The inventory will support three projects: (1) an exhibition in the Letterenhuis Museum in 2015, (2) the edition of a 'Brill Companion to Hadewijch' (in preparation), and (3) the development of a new line of research on the interplay between the academic Hadewijch study on the one hand, and the reception of Hadewijch in literary and artistics contexts on the other with special attention to interplay between both fields.

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  • Research Project

Genealogies of literature: prehistories of a modern concept (12th-18th century ). 01/01/2012 - 31/12/2016

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.

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  • Research Project

Travel narrative truth: literary techniques for authentication in Tvoyage van Mher Joos van Ghistele (ca. 1490). 01/10/2011 - 01/01/2014

Abstract

This research aims at identifying the stylistic, rhetorical and narrative techniques used to construct dependability 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). Through comparison to other European travel narratives reporting journeys to the East (ca. 1450-1510), this project will reveal the position Tvoyage takes in this respect to its contemporaries.

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  • Research Project

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). 01/10/2011 - 30/09/2013

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.

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  • Research Project

They have travelled farther and more extensively in spirit and personally": the position of the late Middle Dutch travel narrative Tvoyage van Mher Joos van Ghistele (ca. 1490) in medieval etnography. 01/10/2010 - 30/09/2011

Abstract

This research focuses on Tvoyage van Mher Joos van Ghistele (ca. 1490), the elaborate late Middle Dutch travel narrative on the equally extensive journey of Flemish nobleman Joos Van Ghistele (¿1516) to the Near East (1481-1485), handed down to us in manuscripts as well as in print, and recently published (Gaspar 1998). The dissolution of the text in the print and reprints (1557, 1563, 1572) shows evidence of its encyclopedic reception. Through comparative analysis with a lateral corpus of late medieval and early modern printed western travel narratives and by examining Tvoyage's narrative techniques in this lateral corpus, I will verify which characteristics have enabled the text to be used for its encyclopedic value far into the sixteenth century. Conclusively Tvoyage will be situated in the development of the ethnographic (e.i. empirical-describing) genre.

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  • Research Project

The dynamics of visionary lay devotion. Visions and apparitions in late medieval and early modern miracle books from the Low Countries (1300-1700). 01/10/2010 - 30/09/2011

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.

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  • Research Project

Hadewijch: Brill Companion, and English Translation of her Complete Works. 05/05/2010 - 04/08/2010

Abstract

The realisation of two bookprojects in which the latest developments of both Dutch and Anglo-Saxon Hadewijch studies will, for the first time, be integrated and offered to the scholarly community worldwide. A Companion to Hadewijch (Brill), co-edited by Patricia Dailey and Veerle Fraeters, will provide a handbook to which all important Hadewijch specialists will contribute. Both authors will also prepare an English translation of Hadewijch's Complete Works. The publication of both volumes will undoubtedly galvanise international Hadewijch studies.

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  • Research Project

Hollandus's tracks. The alchemical textual body of Hollandus and it reception in the Low Countries and in Europe up to 1600. 01/01/2008 - 31/12/2011

Abstract

Among the fascinating and up till now neglected alchemical texts that were produced in our regions in the 16th century, the so-called 'Hollandus-corpus' stands out the most. In spite of its obvious relevance for European alchemical and cultural history, this influential body of texts under the name of Isaac and/or Johannes Isaaci Hollandus has hardly been studied because of its obscure origin and its complex transmission. Because of the vastness of the material and its longlasting popularity the present research is focussed on textual material earlier than ca. 1600. The study of the origins (sources, date, authorship) and transmission (copyists, translations, collectors, possessors, editors, publishers) of these manuscripts and books will shed more light on the (so far unidentified) author(s) of the Hollandus texts and the way in which these texts travelled and multiplied throughout Europe.

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  • Research Project

Write into annihilation. The performative power of "Le Miroir des simples âmes anéanties" of Marguerite Porete as mystatogic tool. 01/07/2007 - 31/12/2011

Abstract

The project aims to gain insight into the performative power (agency) of Marguerite Porete's (d. 1310) mystical text Le Miroir des simples âmes anéanties, which was condemned as heretical by the Inquisition. Three research questions inform the analysis of the text: the representation of the 'I', the intertextual network, and the rhetorical dynamic of the composition. The analytic tools employed will include, on the one hand, contemporary discourse analysis (Bakhtin, Certeau), and on the other, medieval rhetoric. This study will contribute to a better understanding of the 'heterodoxy' of the literary tools employed by late-medieval vernacular mystical authors.

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  • Research Project

The book Lumen Luminum by Jan van der Donck. Content, sources and cultural-historical backgrounds of a Dutch alchemical prose treatise. 01/01/2004 - 31/12/2007

Abstract

Study of the structure, content and sources of the alchemical prose treatise The book Lumen Luminum that is the light of lights by Jan van der Donck (one ms. copy of 1597); analysis of the religious, ethical and (natural) philosophical ideas in this text in the perspective of its sources and their treatment; closer determination of its cultural context, origin and date; critical text with translaton, introduction and commentary.

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  • Research Project

Speaking to the Eye : Text, Image and Gender in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times. 01/01/2004 - 31/12/2005

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  • Research Project

On twelve virtues: a bridge between Echert, Ruusbroec and the Devotio Moderna. Study of text and context. 01/10/1998 - 30/06/2002

Abstract

The project aims at a better understanding of text and context of pseudo-Ruusbroec's On Twelve Virtues (late 14th century), a Middel Dutch tract which offers insights in the transfer of the spirituality of the Groenendaal Monastry in Berabant to the Northern Devotio Moderna. Research will prograss along two lindes: (1) a terminological and structural analysis of the text and (2) research on authorship, function and influence of the tract. The project will fill a lacuna in the study of Middle Dutch spiritual literature and will result in a monograph.

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    • Research Project