Thijs Witty
University Lecturer
- Name
- Dr. T. Witty
- Telephone
- +31 71 527 2727
- t.witty@hum.leidenuniv.nl
Thijs Witty is an assistant professor at the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society.
Fields of interest
- Artistic Research
- Cultural Analysis
- Essayism
- Frankfurt School Critical Theory
- Popular Education
Research
My main scholarly interest is literary essayism. Despite a long and varied history, the essay form gets mostly sidelined in the study of literature. It is nonetheless a ubiquitous genre: from highbrow edited volumes to school assignments, from critical theory writings to newspaper op-eds, from postmodern autofictions to celebrity memoirs, the essay appears in many guises and has considerable readerships to boot.
In my PhD project I attempted to figure out how the essay form can be distinguished from other forms of intellectual expression. I concluded that an appropriate definition can be found in its ability for measurement. Through a comparative analysis of various writers, I demonstrated how the essay form offers precision for parts of human life that resist exact measures, such as traumatic or sublime experiences.
In the course of my research I also became interested in the tradition of the essay film. This has since led to a research project on the relationship between film essayism and so-called popular education. The project mainly compares the film essayism of Third and Fourth Cinema with pedagogies of co-learning and horizontality. Another project, tentatively titled The Essay in the Academy, will explore the mutual entanglement of the essay as a scholarly genre and the disciplinary knowledge that emerged from the modern university. As a side project I am currently working on a long-form essay, titled Unadaptable Screenplays. This research project broadly considers the artistic potential of screenplays written by women in the early Hollywood era. Prominent authors on my list include Alice Guy, Lillian J. Sweetser, Thea von Harbou, Frances Marion, and Frederica Sagor Maas, who all wrote impressive numbers of screenplays, with many of them also produced as motion pictures. By comparing these writers’ lives and screenplays, I want to qualify their responses to a compromised and temporary inclusion in the film industry, before male-dominated professionalisation would exclude them from meaningful participation.
Grants and awards
- ASCA PhD Fellowship (2013-2017)
Curriculum vitae
Thijs Witty is an Education and Research Staff Member at the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS), where he works in the Film and Literary Studies program. He is also a member of the Academy of Creative and Performing Arts (ACPA), where he mainly teaches in the Creative Strategies Minor.
Thijs also works at the Master Education in the Arts at Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam. In the past he has worked as theory tutor and thesis supervisor for DAS Choreography (Academy of Theatre and Dance, Amsterdam) and the Master Artistic Research (Royal Academy of Art, Den Haag).
Thijs completed his PhD in Cultural Analysis at the University of Amsterdam in 2019. In 2021 he also obtained his NT2 certificate (teacher Dutch as a second language).
Lecturer
- Faculty of Humanities
- Academie der Kunsten
University Lecturer
- Faculty of Humanities
- Centre for the Arts in Society
- Literatuurwetenschap
- Davids Y., Watson G. & Witty T. (2023), Class: interviews. In: Davids Y. & Aikens N. (Eds.), I am going to be your last teacher: a workbook. Amsterdam: Roma Publications. 153-157.
- Witty T. (2022), De verbeelding van de catastrofe: Over visualiteit in de rouwliteratuur van Zabel Yesayan, Vooys: tijdschrift voor letteren 40(3): 6-14.
- Witty T. (22 September 2020), In Contact: Education during COVID. Notes of Hapticity Collective. [web essay].
- Witty T. (2020), Towards Radical Praxis: Tiqqun, Form-of-Life and the Ethics of Civil War. In: Kalic S.N. & Foley A.P. (Eds.) Thinking About War and Peace: Past, Present, and Future.: Inter-Disciplinary Press . 83-91.
- Witty T. (2020), Jezelf Buiten de Taal Plaatsen: Interview met Yael Davids, Metropolis M 2020(1): .
- Witty T. (28 June 2019), Essays and Measure: Apprenticeships in Genre (Dissertatie. ASCA, Geesteswetenschappen, Universiteit van Amsterdam). Supervisor(s) and Co-supervisor(s): Rosello M., Baronian M.A.M.B.
- Witty T. (2017), Roland Barthes’ Bathmology. Living Together: European Summer School in Cultural Studies 14 August 2017 - 18 August 2017. Bergen, 14/08/2017-18/08/2017: Living Together: European Summer School in Cultural Studies.
- Witty T. (2016), A Disaster in the Translation Zone: Zabel Yesayan for the Present. ASCA International Workshop 2016: Transparency/Opacity 21 March 2016 - 23 March 2016. Amsterdam, 21/03/2016-23/03/2016: ASCA International Workshop 2016: Transparency/Opacity.
- Witty T. (2016), Opacity of the Outre-Langue: Marc Nichanian on Translation and Testimony. Translating Armenians, Armenians Translated 22 April 2016 - 23 April 2016. Ann Arbor, 22/04/2016-23/04/2016: Translating Armenians, Armenians Translated.
- Witty T. (2015), A Thinker of the Rootstock against the New Accelerationists: Hito Steyerl’s circulationism. The Coils of Politics and Aesthetics, Deleuze Mini-Conference 4 July 2015 - 4 July 2015. Amsterdam, 04/07/2015-04/07/2015: The Coils of Politics and Aesthetics, Deleuze Mini-Conference.
- Witty T. & Tali M. (2015), Wydarzenie w sztuce i polityce, Czas Kultury 186(3): 86-89.
- Witty T. (2015), For the New University, Open! Platform for Art, Culture, and the Public Domain : .
- Witty T. (2014), On the Impatience of Accelerationism, Kunstlicht 35(3): 95-109.
- Witty T. (2013), Questioning Limit-experience: Essayism in Terrence Malick's Badlands. Film-Philosophy Conference: Beyond Film 10 July 2013 - 12 July 2013. Amsterdam, 10/07/2013-12/07/2013: Film-Philosophy Conference: Beyond Film.
- Witty T. (2013), Antinomy and Essayism in Frére Dupont's Species Being and Nihilist Communism. ESSCS 2013 – European Summer School in Cultural Studies on Experiencing Space/ Spacing Experience: Concepts, Practices and Materialities 4 September 2013 - 8 September 2013. Bochum, 04/09/2013-08/09/2013: ESSCS 2013 – European Summer School in Cultural Studies on Experiencing Space/ Spacing Experience: Concepts, Practices and Materialities.
- Witty T. (2012), Virtuosity and Choreography: Contemporary Dance Development as Exodus. Avoir le courage de l’incertitude: Les cultures de la précarité 6 December 2012 - 7 December 2012. Paris, 06/12/2012-07/12/2012: Avoir le courage de l’incertitude: Les cultures de la précarité.
- Witty T. (2011), Can we Think the Image of Catastrophe?. ASCA International Workshop 2011 (Practicing Theory) 2 March 2011 - 4 March 2011. Amsterdam, 02/03/2011-04/03/2011: ASCA International Workshop 2011 (Practicing Theory) .
- Witty T. (2011), Sabotage, Pre-terrorism, Civil War: the Tarnac Affair. War and Peace: Ethics, Evil, Law and the State 19 May 2011 - 21 May 2011. Warsaw, 19/05/2011-21/05/2011: War and Peace: Ethics, Evil, Law and the State.
- Witty T. & Brits B. (2011), Community against Attributes: Derrida, Badiou, and Forms of Universality. Visions of the coming community 30 June 2011 - 1 July 2011. London, 30/06/2011-01/07/2011: Visions of the coming community.
- Witty T., Rosello M., Lierop D. van, Zuurmond A. & Brits B. (2011), Transporting Queer Dust: Housework and Feminization in Merzak Allouache’s 2003 Chouchou. Import–Export–transport: Queer Theory, Queer Critique and Activism in Motion 28 April 2011 - 30 April 2011. Vienna, 28/04/2011-30/04/2011: Import–Export–transport: Queer Theory, Queer Critique and Activism in Motion.