Niels Niessen

Niels Niessen is an Assistant Professor of Culture Studies at Tilburg University, affiliated with the Tilburg School of Humanities and Digital Sciences (TSHD) and the Department of Culture Studies. His research focuses on everyday life, cinema, streaming media, feminism, queer theory, and literacy in digital contexts. He holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of Minnesota and has held prior positions at the University of Toronto’s Cinema Studies Institute and Radboud University Nijmegen.

Current projects include leading the ERC-funded 'Platform Discourses' project analyzing Big Tech’s societal impact and authoring a book on Big Tech’s colonization of everyday life. His 2020 book *Miraculous Realism: The French-Walloon Cinéma du Nord* examines regional cinema, while essays critique tech giants like Apple and analyze films like *The Matrix* through queer and transhumanist lenses.

Teaching includes collaborative seminars on activism and cultural analysis. He advocates for open-source education, opposes student surveillance, and writes op-eds on digital ethics and academic integrity. His work bridges cultural critique with urgent societal concerns like climate, labor, and digitalization.