معرفی
Odile Heynders is a Full Professor of Comparative Literature at the Department of Culture Studies, Tilburg School of Humanities and Digital Sciences, Tilburg University. She has established herself as a leading scholar examining the intersection of literature, digital society, and public intellectualism, with particular expertise in how fiction functions as social knowledge in contemporary culture.
Her research focuses on the transformation of the public sphere due to digitalisation, globalisation, and new strategies of fictionalization, with special attention to literary authors as intervening public intellectuals. Professor Heynders developed the concept of 'fiction literacy' to describe how readers and writers of fiction can navigate the 'post-truth' world and defend democratic practices. Her current research includes two major book projects: Experiences of Migration in Literature (under contract with Cambridge University Press) and The Truth of Fiction in Digital Societies, building on her 2016 monograph Writers as Public Intellectuals, Literature, Celebrity, Democracy published by Palgrave Macmillan.
Professor Heynders has received significant research funding including the 2023 TSHD Seed Money for interdisciplinary research on globalization. She currently serves as Principal Investigator for the ongoing project 'Trolling Attacks and Hate Campaigns: Towards a Healthy Use of Social Media in the Public Sphere' (2020-present) and recently completed 'Decolonizing Globalization: Reading Migration through Environmental Justice' (2023).
- Principal Investigator: 'Trolling Attacks and Hate Campaigns' (2020-present)
- Co-Investigator: 'Decolonizing Globalization' (2023)
- Principal Investigator: 'Countering Cancel Culture' (2021)
- Principal Investigator: 'Free Speech Reconsidered' (2017-2018)
She teaches across multiple programs at Tilburg University, including the Bachelor's program in Online Culture and the Master's track in Art & Media Studies, where she offers specialized courses on Truth of Fiction, Platforms and Persons, and Reading and Writing in Online Culture. Her teaching reflects her research commitment to understanding how digital transformation reshapes cultural production and consumption.
