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Thanks to her critical global perspective, Mineke Schipper ( minekeschpper.nl) has given an important impulse to the field of literary studies. She is far from being an “ivory tower” scholar, but has succeeded in making her views accessible to both academic and non-academic audiences. She lectures not only at universities and scientific institutes (Berkeley, Beijing, Pretoria. Stockholm), but also to audiences outside the academy, such as policy makers in The Hague or Brussels.

She has also addressed a thousand rural women in the Amsterdam RAI congress centre; Jewish women in a synagogue in Leiden; a Muslim audience in a mosque in Nairobi; Egyptian folklorists in Cairo; Cultural Institutes from Curaçao to Cambodia.

Mineke Schipper studied French and Philosophy at Amsterdam Free University and Literary Theory, followed by Comparative Literature at the University of Utrecht. She started her career teaching French and African Literature at the Université Libre du Congo (between 1964 and 1972). She received her PhD in Amsterdam in 1973, writing the first thesis in the Netherlands on African literature) and dedicated herself to developing the field of intercultural literary studies. In 1988 she became the first Professor of Intercultural Literary Studies in the Netherlands, at the Free University of Amsterdam. In 1993 she moved to Leiden University where she played a dynamic role in building intercultural bridges in researching and lecturing comparative literature in a global context.

In 1999 she received an honorary doctorate from the University of Chengdu (Sichuan Province) in China. Since 2000 she has been regularly invited by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) where she collaborates with colleagues on projects about epics and creation myths. In December 2008 she gave her farewell address at the University of Leiden.

Mineke Schipper lives in Amsterdam.

For her internationally acclaimed book Never Marry a Woman with Big Feet - Women in Proverbs from Around the World (hardback Yale University Press 2004; paperback Amsterdam UP and Chicago UP 2006) she received the Eureka Award 2005 (academic book best accessible to a large audience). The book has been published in a number of languages, among which Chinese,Turkish, Spanish, and Arabic. (Korean and Brazilian translations are being prepared).

See her interactive website www.womeninproverbsworldwide.com

Mineke Schipper is also a fiction writer. Her three novels (in Dutch) are all set in the context of globalisation. Her most recent novel Vogel valt vogel vliegt (Bird Falls Bird Flies Amsterdam: Prometheus 2007), was praised by Nobel Prize winner J.M. Coetzee as “an absorbing story of the growth of adult love, and the letting go of past love, in the shadow of America’s imperial wars.”

Besides novels, essays and academic books in various languages, she also publishes in general Dutch and international newspapers and magazines,including NRC-Handelsblad, The London Times, El Mundo, Los Angeles Times, Ex-Change (Hongkong).

In het begin was er niemand. Hoe het komt dat er mensen zijn. Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Bert Bakker (2010)

Na ons de zondvloed. Mythische verhalen over het einde van de mensheid. Amsterdam:

Uitgeverij Bert Bakker  (2009)

Belle femme, gros ennuis. Paris: Philippe Rey 2008

Vogel valt vogel vliegt (Bird Falls Bird Flies, a novel). Amsterdam: Prometheus 2007

Never Marry a Woman with Big Feet. Women in Proverbs from Around the World.London and New Haven: Yale University Press 2004Translations: Dutch, Spanish (Spain and Latin America), Chinese, German, Hungarian, Portuguese, Arabic. Forthcoming: Brazilian, Korean

Imagining Insiders. Africa and the Question of Belonging. London and New York:Cassell/Continuum 1999

En de boom blijft maar geven. Caribische en Latijns-Amerikaan¬se spreekwoorden en zegswijzen over vrouwen. Amsterdam: Ambo 1998 (with Angélica Dorfman)

De zieleneters (The Soul Eaters, a novel). Amsterdam: Contact 1998

De rib uit zijn lijf. Joodse spreekwoorden en zegswijzen over vrou¬wen. Amsterdam:Ambo 1996 (with Sabine Cohn)

Een wenkbrauw als een wilgenblad. Aziatische spreekwoorden en zegswijzen overVrouwen. Amsterdam: Ambo 1995 (with Sanjukta Gupta)

De boomstam en de krokodil. Kwesties van ras, cultuur en wetenschap. Amsterdam, Van Gennep 1995

Een vrouw is als de aarde. Afrikaanse spreekwoorden en zegswijzen over vrouwen.Amsterdam: Ambo 1994

Conrads rivier (Conrad’s River, a novel). Amsterdam: Contact.

Een goede vrouw is zonder hoofd. Europese spreekwoorden en zegswijzen overvrouwen, Amsterdam: Ambo 1993

German translation: Eine gute Frau hat keinen Kopf. Europäische Sprichwörterüber Frauen. München: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag 1996

Source of All Evil. African Proverbs and Sayings on Women. London: Allison & Busby 1991

Beyond the Boundaries. African Literature and Literary Theory. London: Allison & Busby 1989

Afrikaanse letterkunde. Tradities, genres, auteurs en ontwikkelingen in de literatuur van Afrika ten zuiden van de Sahara. Utrecht/Antwerpen: Het Spectrum 1983. Second revised edition: Amsterdam: Ambo 1990

Realisme. De illusie van werkelijkheid in literatuur. Assen: Van Gorcum 1979

Toneel en maatschappij in Afrika. Assen: Van Gorcum 1977English translation: Theatre and Society in Africa. Johannesburg: Ravan Press 1982 French translation: Théâtre et société en Afrique. Dakar/Abidjan/Lomé: Nouvelles Éditions Africaines 1985

Le Blanc et l'Occident au miroir du roman afri¬cain de langue française. Assen : VanGorcum 1973African edition of the same book: Le blanc vu d'Afri¬que, Série Études et Documents Africains. Yaoundé : Éditi¬ons CLE 1973

Imagining Creation. Leiden and Boston: Brill Publishers 2008 (with Markham J. Geller)

Epics and Heroes in China’s Minority Cultures. Guangxi and Beijing: GuangxiNormal University Press 2004 (with Hubin Yin)

The Poetics of African Art, Special issue of Research in African Literatures. Vol. 31, no. 4, winter 2000, Bloomington: Indiana University Press

Bezweren en betoveren. Magie en literatuur wereldwijd. Amsterdam: Ambo 1995 (with P.H. Schrijvers)

Mijn naam is haas. Dierenverhalen in verschillende culturen. Amsterdam: Ambo 1993 (with W.L. Idema and P.H. Schrijvers)

Ik is anders. Autobiografie in verschillende culturen. Amsterdam: Ambo 1992 (with Peter Schmitz)

Onsterfelijke roem. Het epos in verschillende culturen. Amsterdam: Ambo 1989

Unheard Words. Women and Literature in Africa, the Arab World, Asia, the Caribbean and Latin America. London: Allison & Busby/New York: Schocken Books 1985

Het zwarte paradijs. Afrikaanse scheppingsmythen (collected and translated creation and origin myths from Africa). Maasbree: Corrie Zelen 1980 New edition: Rijswijk, Elmar, 1999.

De tovertam en andere verhalen uit Zaïre (collected and translated Congolese stories. Maasbree: Corrie Zelen 1979

Text and Context in Africa. Methodological Explorations in the Field of African Literature. Leiden: Afrika-Studiecentrum 1977