Research output per year
Research output per year
Personal profile
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Personal information
Berit Brink is an Assistant Professor of American Literature at the Faculty of Humanities, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Her research focuses on the intersections of American and African American literature, history, and spatial theory, with a focus on how place shapes identity and resistance. Through the lens of literary and cultural history, particularly during and after the 1960s, her work explores the ways in which marginalized communities contest spatial boundaries and reimagine belonging, and to what extent writing can be used a tool for change.
Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals
In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):
Academic qualification
American Studies, PhD, Revelatory Lines, Revolutionary Love: Beats, Black Arts and the Poetics of Public Engagement, University of Florida
Award Date: 15 Dec 2016
English Literature and Culture, Master, Searching for a Sense of Self: Language, Liminal Spaces and (Re-)Writing Identity in Gloria Naylor’s Linden Hills and Jewelle Gomez’ The Gilda Stories, VU University Amsterdam
Award Date: 20 Nov 2011
American Studies, Bachelor, University of Groningen
Award Date: 20 Oct 2010
Keywords
- P Language and Literature
- Modern American literature
- African American literature
- American Studies
- Cultural Studies
- social imaginaries
- globalization
- storytelling
- critical thinking
- space and place
- historical fiction
- historicity
- E History America
- 1960s
- 20th-century American history
- 19th-century American history
- social history
- protest movements
- Civil Rights Movement
- spatial theory
- necropolitics
- cultural history
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Confined to the Margins: Necropolitics, American Identity, and Racial Separation in Assata by Assata Shakur
Brink, B., 31 Oct 2025, Narratives of Confinement in American Popular Culture. Berlin: De Gruyter Brill, (Anglia Book Series).Research output: Chapter in Book / Report / Conference proceeding › Chapter › Academic › peer-review
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A Sanctuary for the Past: Narrative Dissonance and Emotional Truth in Jayne Anne Phillips’ Night Watch
Brink, B., 14 Feb 2025, (Unpublished).Research output: Contribution to Conference › Paper › Academic
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Between imagination and reality: Tracing the legacy of childhood as a utopian space in the free schooling and unschooling movements
Brink, B., 2018, In: Strenae. 13Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article › Academic › peer-review
Open Access
Courses
Activities
- 2 Lecture / Presentation
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“Where Gold is a Stranger”: Deconstructing the Californian Imaginary in William Kelly’s An Excursion to California and Beyond
Brink, B. (Speaker)
11 Jan 2023Activity: Lecture / Presentation › Academic
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Practicing Freedom: Creativity and Critical Thinking in Higher Education
Brink, B. (Speaker)
18 Oct 2018Activity: Lecture / Presentation › Academic
Prizes / Grants
Press/Media
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Universiteit en overheid, wees trots op betogende studenten
11/05/24
1 Media contribution
Press/Media: Other
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