Cornelis van der Haven, Ph.D. (Utrecht University, 2008), is Associate Professor at Ghent University in the field of early modern Dutch literature. He has published widely about Dutch and German literary history of the 17th and 18th centuries, with a strong focus on politics and literature, literature and violence and the role of literature in shaping cultural and social identities. Early modern poetry and theatre are at the core of his research. He is a member of the steering group of GEMS (Group for Early Modern Studies) and he is co-director of Thalia, a cooperation between literary and theatre scholars at UGent and VUB (Brussels).