Cathelein Aaftink (1979) works in Literary Studies and the Graduate School of Teaching and Literary Studies at the Department of Languages, Literature and Communication and at the 木瓜福利影视 College Utrecht. Her research focuses on the use of contemplative methods in academic and secondary education, as well as the interrelationships between (reading) Young Adult Literature (YAL) and meaning in life experiences. Another project that is of much importance to her pertains to self-transcendence in and through works of verbal art. She is also endlessly fascinated by Etty Hillesum's writing.
In her teaching, she weaves contemplative methods together with knowledge transfer and experiential learning. She offers meditations and contemplative reading sessions that align with the course content, giving students the opportunity to engage with the ideas discussed in a different, often deepening and insightful way.
She supervises BA and MA theses on 20th and 21st century literary prose, specifically Virginia Woolf, James Baldwin, and Marilynne Robinson, as well as YAL (preferably realistic fiction); short stories; slam poetry; phenomenology; empirical studies of literature; interdisciplinary research; literary education; spiritual themes, specifically nonduality and meaning in/of life topics; (literary) aesthetics; and controversial literature.