Project title

Writing relationships. Towards a relational history of Dutch-language literature from the Avant-Garde until the present

Project description

Contemporary Dutch-language literature is far more diverse than its canonical image suggests, encompassing underrepresented voices and themes including queerness, decolonisation, and ecocriticism. Alexa Stoicescu’s book project, Writing Relationships: Towards a Relational History of Dutch-language Literature from the Avant-Garde to the Present, sets out to capture this diversity through a new theoretical lens.

Drawing on the framework of relationality, the project examines seven themes across the past century, including gender and intersectionality, technology, disability, decolonisation, and conflict. It analyses five novels per theme across distinct historical periods and transnational contexts spanning the Netherlands, Flanders, Suriname, the DR Congo, and Indonesia. This inclusive approach both reinterprets canonical works and revives overlooked voices.

Selected publications

  • ‘Born translated? De transnationale circulatie van twee Nederlandstalige metamoderne millennials’ in: Internationale Neerlandistiek, 2026, Vol. 64, no. 1, p. 1-22 (with Sara Van Meerbergen, University of Stockholm)
  • ‘Hoe snel cript je blik op de werkelijkheid? Over Wrevel van Saou Ichikawa,’ in: Nederlandse Boekengids, 2026, nr. 2.
  • ‘A surprising diversity. How aesthetic principles ruled in communist Romania and Dutch literature could thrive’ chapter in the book Socialist Transnationality Socialist Transnationality in Translation. Dutch-Language Literature in East Central Europe and the Balkans, 1945–1990, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2026, p. 165-192.
  • ‘Leven in gemeenschap met de robot. Posthumanistische verkenningen bij Til Brugman, Gerrit Krol en Adriaan van Dis’ in: Neerlandica Wratislaviensia, XXXV/2025
  • ‘Van ‘schaamteloze onpublicabele’ roman tot internationale bestseller’. Over De thuiswacht van Dola de Jong in: Zij/haar. Een ABC van lesbische literatuur, Uitgeverij Kleine Uil (eds: Minke Douwez, Marie-José Klaver and Laurie Bastemeijer).
  • “Ich gehöre daheim dorthin wo ich nicht bin”. Die unheimliche Heimat in Herta Müllers Literatur. Bucharest: Editura Universității din București. ISBN: 978-606-16-0872-0, ISNN 1843-0058 (2017)