Jeroen Dewulf - Jeroen Dewulf is director of the Dutch Studies Program (Queen Beatrix Chair) in the German Department.
Dewulf graduated with a degree in Dutch and German Philology from the University of Ghent in Belgium. He also holds a Master's degree in Comparative Literature from the University of Porto, in Portugal, and a PhD in German Literature from the University of Bern in Switzerland.
Dewulf's areas of specialization are European Studies, particularly related to (multicultural) identity in the Benelux and Switzerland, Postcolonial Studies (in particular Dutch, German, and Portuguese colonial history and literature), as well as issues related to migration, race, and hybridity.
He has also focused on contemporary Swiss literature, and he published a monograph on the Swiss writer Hugo Loetscher (Peter Lang Verlag, 1999) and edited a collection of essays on the same author (Diogenes Verlag, 2005). He recently published a post-colonial study on Brazil (Neue Zărcher Zeitung Verlag, 2007).
Dewulf is member of the MLA Executive Committee of Netherlandic Studies and an affiliated member of the Center for African Studies at UC Berkeley.
For his scholarly service, he was distinguished, in 1999, with the Quality Seal for Innovating Initiatives in the Field of Foreign Language Education by the European Union and he was awarded by the Cultural Foundation of the Swiss UBS-Bank for his research on Swiss-German literature.
Lieve Joris - Lieve Joris, who was born in Belgium, is one of Europe's leading travel writers. She has written an award-winning book on Hungary, De melancholieke revolutie (The Melancholy Revolution, 1990), and has published widely acclaimed reports of her journeys in the Middle East and Africa, notably the Congo.
Her books about the Middle East include De Golf (The Gulf, 1986) and De poorten van Damascus (The Gates of Damascus, 1993). About the Congo, she has written three books: Terug naar Kongo (Back to the Congo, 1987), Dans van de luipaard (The Leopard's Dance, 2001) and Het uur van de rebellen (The Rebels' Hour, 2006).
The account of her travels through Senegal, Mauretania and Mali, Mali Blues (1996), gained Joris the Belgian triennial award for Flemish prose (1999) and the French 'Prix de l'Astrolabe.'
At a time when U.N. Peacekeepers are trying hard to maintain peace in the Congo, Lieve Joris will discuss her work in the region and share the history of the conflict as seen by a Tutsi rebel leader who eventually became a high-ranking general in the Congolese army.
Lieve Joris is one of Europe's leading travel writers with reporting that has spanned the globe — from Hungary to Africa- World Affairs Council of Northern California