Bart Keunen, PhD, is professor in Comparative Literature at Ghent University, Belgium. He teaches graduate and postgraduate courses in European Literary History, Sociology of Literature and Comparative Literature. He studied philosophy in Louvain and literary criticism in Ghent, Berlin and Klagenfurt. He obtained his Ph.D. degree with a dissertation on Representing the Metropolis: A Culture-Sociological Approach to City Images, Chronotopes and Artistic Projects in Literary Prose between 1850 and 1930 (Ghent, 1997). He is president of the Belgian Society for General and Comparative Literature (since September 2000) and co-director of the interdisciplinary Ghent Urban Studies Team (GUST; since January 2002).
He published articles on topics concerning urban studies, genre criticism, literary historiography and literary sociology in international journals and books. Book publications include: Verhaal en Verbeelding. Chronotopen in de westerse verhaalcultuur (Gent: Academia Press, 2007), Tijd voor een verhaal. Mens- en Wereldbeelden in de populaire verhaalcultuur (Gent: Academia Press, 2005); (with GUST) Post-ex-sub-dis: Fragmentations of the City (Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 2002); (with Bart Eeckhout) Literature and Society. The Function of Literary Sociology in Comparative Literature (Brussels/Bern: Peter Lang/PIE, 2001); De verbeelding van de grootstad. Stads- en wereldbeelden in het proza van de moderniteit (Brussels: VUBpress, 2000); (with GUST) The Urban Condition: Space, Community, and Self in the Contemporary Metropolis (Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 1999).