Frans-Willem Korsten holds the chair of ‘Literature and Society’ at the Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication and works with the department of Literary studies at Leiden University. He is the author of Lessen in literatuur (Vantilt 2002, 2005, 2009); widely used as a handbook at several universities. Korsten has translated and rewritten his study in Dutch on Vondel and sovereignty as Sovereignty as Inviolability (Verloren, 2009). In 2011 Vondel, Dutch Playwright in the Golden Age is published by Brill, with contributions by more than twenty-five scholars from the Low Countries. Together with Joost de Bloois and Monica Jansen he is currently working on an international project concerning ‘precarity’. He is member of three editorial boards and is an advisor for several cultural organizations.