Projects
The Paradox of Interactive Fiction: A New Approach to Imaginative Participation in Light of Interactive Fiction Experiences. University of Antwerp
Inhibition and action in the aging brain: role of GABA in brain function and network interactions KU Leuven
Studying the neural mechanisms underlying age deficits in movement control is of utmost socioeconomic relevance. Here, we will study inhibitory control mechanisms that shape motor behavior. Using magnetic resonance spectroscopy, we will determine the concentration of gammaaminobutyric acid (GABA), the chief inhibitory neurotransmitter in the brain. In Phase 1, multimodal imaging is used to study interactions between GABA concentration, brain ...
Action recognition in the primate brain: a comparative functional MRI study of the organization and function of the human and non-human primate mirror system. KU Leuven
One of the most intriguing stories to emerge in cognitive neurosciences over the past few decades has been the discovery of the mirror neurons in the monkey brain. These neurons respond both when a monkey performs a particular motor act, and when it observes another individual performing a similar motor act. A similar system appears to exist in the human brain as well, and it has been speculated that it mediates a whole scale of social ...
Conflict, fiction and identity: a multi-method study of the production, content and reception of Kurdish television fiction in a transnational context. University of Antwerp
The Construstion and Experience of Fiction Worlds in Jane Austen Fan Fiction Ghent University
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).
Traveling words and images. A study of tourist fiction and non-fiction of contemporary Spain and Latin America KU Leuven
This project focuses on the impact of tourism on contemporary fiction and non-fiction in the Hispanic world. While both Spain and Latin America can boast a long tradition of travel writing, tourism’s more recent impact on their cultures has gone largely unnoticed. This is due to persisting prejudices concerning tourism as an inferior, more mass-consumerist practice than travelling, as well as to a predominantly sociological approach in ...
Virtuality and the Blurred Boundaries between Reality and Fiction. University of Antwerp
Reader's Digest: The Gastrointestinal in Popular Fiction, 1870s-1930s Ghent University
While the term ‘microbiome’ was not coined until 1952, the discovery of gut microflora can be traced back to the nineteenth century. By the Fin de Siècle, medical professionals were aware of bacteria’s benefits for bodily health, and the influence of digestive disorders on mental health; this became widespread public knowledge in the first decades of the 1900s. This project examines the material and metaphorical role of the digestive system ...
Sabbatical Nadia Lie: Tourist Fiction from Latin America. KU Leuven
This application is part of the FWO project G086819N 'Traveling words and images: A Study of Tourist Fiction and Non-Fiction in the Hispanic World' (2019-2022), which I supervise in collaboration with Dagmar Vandebosch (KULeuven campus Kortrijk) and cultural anthropologist Paolo Favero (University of Antwerp). Within this project I am in charge of the general supervision as well as the implementation of WP3, which amounts to writing an ...