about us

The Ghent Urban Studies Team [GUST] is an interdisciplinary research team studying the contemporary city and its literary and artistic representations in Western Europe and North America. The team was founded in 1995 by Professor Kristiaan Versluys of the English Department and Professor Dirk De Meyer of the Department of Architecture and Urban Planning, both of Ghent University, Belgium. Kristiaan Borret, Bart Eeckhout, Steven Jacobs, and Bart Keunen were its initial members. Later, the team was joined by Jeroen Lievens, Bruno Notteboom, Pieter Uyttenhove, and Bart Verschaffel. From 1995 to 1997 the team was financed by the Research Council of Ghent University. Since 1998 financial support has been provided by the Fund for Scientific Research-Flanders (FWO).

In 1999, [GUST] published a first collective volume, entitled The Urban Condition: Space, Community, and Self in the Contemporary Metropolis (010 Publishers, Rotterdam), which consists of two parts: the first, written by [GUST], offers a synthesizing theoretical description of the contemporary urban condition as it is represented within the various subdisciplines of urban studies, while the second, edited by [GUST], complements the abstract speculations of the first part by a series of international case studies. The Urban Condition was well received: in 2000 it was selected as "Book of the Year" by The Architects' Journal and in 2005 it was translated into Chinese.

In 2002, [GUST] published Post Ex Sub Dis: Urban Fragmentations and Constructions (010 Publishers, Rotterdam), which contains a series of essays by distinguished scholars and practitioners from a variety of disciplines dealing with the fragmentation and mapping of the contemporary urban landscape. Apart from putting together these two collective studies, the various members of [GUST] have published widely in the field of urban studies, both individually and in group.