MDRN

About the organization

MDRN is a research lab based at the University of Leuven in Belgium. MDRN studies the literature of a key period in European cultural history: the first half of the twentieth century. Studying this process of unbroken change in literature, all MDRN research initiatives share a double aim. On the one hand, they wish to add to our understanding of European writing from the first half of the twentieth century, highlighting its ever-shifting conceptions, functions and complex medial make-up. On the other hand, MDRN research more generally seeks to reflect on the practice of modern literary historiography. For how can we best write the history of modern European literature? How do we adequately capture its incessant process of becoming? One thing is certain: an agile object of study requires flexible methods, giving rise not to the one history, but to the multiple histories it deserves.