Veerle Fraeters specializes in Middle Dutch literary and cultural history, with a particular focus on mystical literature, the visionary genre, and female authorship. Her research sits at the intersection of philology, literary studies, cultural history, and religious studies. She also conducts research on the circulation and appropriation of medieval literature in modern times.
She studied Ancient History (Lic. 1987) and Dutch Language and Literature (Lic. 1988) at the KU Leuven and obtained her doctorate in 1996 at the UIA (now: University of Antwerp) on an edition and study of a unique Middle Dutch alchemical manuscript. After two postdoctoral positions (FWO-Vlaanderen/UA), she was appointed at the Ruusbroec Institute for the History of Spirituality in the Low Countries (University of Antwerp), first as a senior lecturer and since 2016 as a full professor. From 2015 to 2019, she was director of this institute.
So far, she has supervised seven dissertations on various text genres (mysticism, miracle books, travel literature) and in different disciplines (literature, history, and philosophy). Her most recent research project “Mystical Heritage and Modern Identities” (BOF-UA 2019-2022) dealt with the appropriation of the medieval mystic Hadewijch in the cultural field in modern Belgium. In the fall of 2022, she was Visiting Scholar at Harvard University's Medieval Studies Institute with a project on “Liturgical intertext in thirteenth-century female vernacular visionary mysticism”.
Literature and Religion, ed. V. Fraeters, T. Nuyts, G. Debergh (Lannoo 2020)
Mulieres Religiosae, Shaping Female Spiritual Authority in the Medieval and Early Modern Periods, ed. V. Fraeters & Imke de Gier (Brepols, 2014)
Speaking to the Eye. Sight and Insight through Text and Image (1150-1650), ed. Th. de Hemtpinne, V. Fraeters, M-E. Gongora (Brepols, 2013)
Hadewijch, Liederen [Songs], ed. V. Fraeters, F. Willaert (Historische Uitgeverij Groningen, 2009).
Chair
Middle Dutch Literature and Culture