Dr. Birger Vanwesenbeeck

Contributor homepage at Los Angeles Review of Books

A native of Belgium, Birger Vanwesenbeeck has taught at Fredonia since 2007. Previously he taught at Université Laval in Québec City, at the University at Buffalo, and at a high school in Belgium. English is his third language. He also speaks Flemish (a dialect of Dutch), French and Turkish and he reads German and Latin. He publishes in both English and Dutch.

Teaching Interests

World Literature, Literary Theory, American literature

Research Interests

Literary theory, Stefan Zweig, American literature, world literature

Awards and Honors

• Botstiber Visiting Professorship of Austrian-American Studies, University of Salzburg (2026).
• Fulbright Senior Lecturer, Department of State (2018).
• Convocation event Award (2017).
• William T. and Charlotte N. Hagan Award, State University of New York at Fredonia (2017).
• 10th Magliocco Lecture, Western Illinois University (2017).
• Scaliger Fellowship, Leiden University (2015).
• Summer Institute for Literary Studies Stipend, National Humanities Center (2013).
• Travel Award, Northeast Modern Language Association (2009).
• Summer Stipend, National Endowment of the Humanities (2019).

License/Certification

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Professional Membership

• Modern Language Association, Austrian Studies Association, American Comparative Literature Association

Intellectual Contributions

• "Mourning After Freud: Hypertranslation, Theory, Literature," SUNY Press (2026).
• "Plath Translates Rilke," Twentieth-Century Literature (2023).
• "Paul de Man's Flemish," Comparative Literature (2022).
• "Stefan Zweig: A Guide to Research and Reading," University at Buffalo (2021).
• "The Eternal Huizinga," Los Angeles Review of Books (2021).
• "Charts of Childhood, Maps of Family," Los Angeles Review of Books (2018).
• "Jewish Sensibility in Stefan Zweig’s “Die Wunder des Lebens," N/A (2018).
• "Dulce et Decorum," Los Angeles Review of Books (2018).

Media Contributions

• "Inside Higher Ed" (2018).
• "Fredonia Radio station" (2017).

Presentations

• "“Fanatisch und Phantastisch: Stefan Zweig’s Mary Baker Eddy and American Culture”," Austrian Studies Association annual convention, University of Salzburg, May 2026 (2026).
• "Linguistic Witnessing: Beyond the Invisibility Paradigm in Afro-American Studies," Northeast Modern Language Association (2023).
• "On Linguistic Witnessing: Beyond the Invisibility Paradigm in Afro-American Studies," Utrecht University (2023).
• "The Correspondence of Stefan Zweig and Léon Spilliaert," Stefan Zweig in Belgium (2022).
• "The Great Epic that Wasn’t: Land and Language in Willa Cather’s My Ántonia," Annual ACLA Conference (2021).
• "“Translating Baudelaire: Zweig vs. Benjamin”," Modern Language Association annual convention, Toronto (2026).