Graduate Studies and Postdoctoral Affairs (GSPA)
Needles Hall, second floor, room 2201
Country of origin: Belgium
Academic degrees and Institutions:
The main societal impact of my work relates to its intended attempt at raising broader public awareness of the violence committed on Indigenous communities through settler-colonial fossil fuel extractivism in Canada. To secure long-term societal impact, I will organize a workshop, a public lecture series, produce podcasts and develop several other modes of public engagement, which should help to create and expand such public awareness. Part of my work aims to make and facilitate recommendations regarding (Indigenous) energy policy in settler-colonial nations and beyond.
AMTD Project: "Imperial Extractivist Infrastructures: Petrocultural Violence and Resistance in Contemporary Indigenous Canadian Literature, Art, and Film"
This project focuses on violence related to extractivist practices, with specific attention to fossil fuel extraction, in relation to Canada’s Indigenous communities. My aim in this project is to document the still understudied (and possibly undervalued) cultural and aesthetic responses of Indigenous communities to trauma evoked by the violence of extractivism. Through an examination of contemporary Indigenous Canadian creative practices, this project will contribute a new critical perspective to this crucial discussion, to expand ongoing critical studies of extractivism, settler colonialism, and Indigenous rights and futures.
Side project: "A Cultural History of American Loneliness: From American Transcendentalism to BoJack Horseman" (working title)
The University of Waterloo attracted my attention because of its strong scholarship in my area of expertise, the environmental and energy humanities. I wanted to work with Professor Imre Szeman, the foremost scholar in the latter field and thus applied for the AMTD program in order to do just that!
I'm an avid reader (mainly contemporary Anglophone fiction), and a film aficionado—so you'll often find me in KW's arthouse cinemas. I also write and play music, particularly ambient soundscapes, and write poetry. And when time permits, I enjoy doing some sports as well.
Graduate Studies and Postdoctoral Affairs (GSPA)
Needles Hall, second floor, room 2201
The University of Waterloo acknowledges that much of our work takes place on the traditional territory of the Neutral, Anishinaabeg and Haudenosaunee peoples. Our main campus is situated on the Haldimand Tract, the land granted to the Six Nations that includes six miles on each side of the Grand River. Our active work toward reconciliation takes place across our campuses through research, learning, teaching, and community building, and is co-ordinated within the Office of Indigenous Relations.