Centre For Manuscript Genetics

The Centre for Manuscript Genetics is part of the University of Antwerp Literature Department’s research group ACDC (Antwerp Centre for Digital humanities and literary Criticism). Its research focus is the study of modern manuscripts and writing processes, especially comparative genetic criticism, digital scholarly editing and the analysis of manuscripts by authors such as Samuel Beckett, James Joyce, Thomas Mann, Marcel Proust, Charles Darwin, Willem Elsschot.

Centre members: 

   - Professor Dirk Van Hulle, Director of the CMG.

        Dirk Van Hulle is Professor of English literature at the University of Antwerp and director of the Centre for Manuscript Genetics. He is appointed as Professor of Bibliography and Modern Book History at the University of Oxford (Jesus College). With Mark Nixon, he is co-director of the Beckett Digital Manuscript Project, series editor of the Cambridge UP series ‘Elements in Beckett Studies’ and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Beckett Studies. His publications include Textual Awareness (2004), Modern Manuscripts (2014), Samuel Beckett’s Library (2013, with Mark Nixon), The New Cambridge Companion to Samuel Beckett (2015), James Joyce’s Work in Progress (2016), several volumes in the ‘Making of’ series (Bloomsbury) and genetic editions in the Beckett Digital Manuscript Project, including the Beckett Digital Library.

   - Dr Olga Beloborodova

        Olga Beloborodova has completed her PhD at the University of Antwerp in 2018 and is currently working at its Centre for Manuscript Genetics as a postdoctoral researcher and teaching assistant. Her PhD research involved the study of Samuel Beckett’s writing process by means of genetic manuscript analysis, as well as the evocations of fictional minds in his prose and drama, both according to the paradigm of extended cognition. Her postdoctoral project – CATCH 2020 – involves a development of a digital infrastructure for editors of modern manuscripts who work with Handwritten Text Recognition software. Her monograph The Making of Samuel Beckett’s ‘Play’ / ‘Film’ is forthcoming with UPA/Bloomsbury (2019). Her second book, Postcognitivist Beckett, is due to appear in the Elements in Beckett Studies series with Cambridge University Press later this year.

   - Dr Emma-Louise Silva

         Emma-Louise Silva is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Antwerp, focusing on age studies, cognitive narratology, genetic criticism and philosophy of mind. She combines this role with a lecturing postition at the University of Antwerp, where she teaches the 'Joyce Seminar'. As a member of the Centre for Manuscript Genetics, Emma-Louise defended her doctoral dissertation on James Joyce and cognition in 2019. She co-edited James Joyce and the Arts (2020) and Modernism (2021), and she has published in the James Joyce Literary Supplement (2018), the James Joyce Quartely (2019), Genetic Joyce Studies (20220) and Joyce Without Borders (2022). 

   - Dr Vanessa Joosen

         Vanessa Joosen is associate professor of English literature and children's literature at the University of Antwerp. She has studied the construction of age and the rewriting of fairy tales in the works of Irish(-born) authors such as Emma Donoghue and Siobhan Parkinson. 

   - Dr Pim Verhulst

         Pim Verhulst is a Postdoctoral Researcher and Assistant Professor of English Literature at the University of Antwerp’s Centre for Manuscript Genetics. His research combines genetic criticism, audionarratology and theories of intermediality and adaptation to study the work of 20th-century authors, including Irish writers such as James Joyce, Samuel Beckett and Elizabeth Bowen. Pim is an assistant editor of the Journal of Beckett Studies and an editorial board member of the Beckett Digital Manuscript Project, for which he has co-authored and edited various modules (Molloy, Malone meurt / Malone Dies, En attendant Godot / Waiting for Godot and the Radio Plays).