Mieke Bal papers (Ms.2016.014)

Biographical/Historical note

Mieke Bal is a renown cultural theorist, critic, and video artist. She is Professor Emeritus in Literary Theory at the University of Amsterdam. Previously, she was also Academy Professor of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences and co-founder of the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis at the University of Amsterdam. During her teaching career, Bal taught courses on Theory and Criticism as well as World Memory, Effect and Trauma, and Sound.

Mieke Bal's research interests range from classical and biblical antiquity, 17th century to contemporary art and modern literature, feminism, migratory culture, mental illness, the critique of capitalism, and rationalism. Her book, Narratology, continues to be reprinted. Her many other books include a quartet on political art: In Medias Red: Inside Nalini Malani’s Shadow Plays (2016), Endless Andness (on abstraction, 2013), Thinking in Film (on video installation, 2013), and Of What One Cannot Speak (on sculpture, 2010). "A Mieke Bal Reader" (2006) samples her interdisciplinary work.

Mike Bal's experimental video documentaries on issues of migration and identity have been internationally exhibited. Her video project, Madame B, with Michelle Williams Gamaker, offers an artistic critique of capitalism and neo-liberalism. There was also a five-screen spin-off called Precarity. In April 2016, the premiere of a 5-channel installation and a feature film on the mis-encounter between Rene Descartes and Queen Kristina of Sweden took place in Krakow, Poland.

Mieke Bal lectures widely, including at the Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women at Brown University. She presented a talk and film screening, "Thinking in Film: Doubt as Reason" on December 1, 2016.

(Biography from www.miekebal.org)