My PhD-project examines the rhetoric of empathy in Flemish novels of social criticim (between 1848 and 1980), more specifically novels in which the poor conditions of the factory worker are criticized, in the context of industrialisation. The research is embedded in the field of cognitive literary studies (studies of Theory of Mind by scholars such as Lisa Zunshine), with a focus on narrative empathy (Suzanne Keen, Patrick Colm Hogan, Fritz Brauthaupt, and so on).
