Mathieu Govaerts

Mathieu Govaerts recently completed a Master’s degree at the Université libre de Bruxelles, where he focused on the early poetry of Allen Ginsberg and his debt to the English Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley under the scope of Nature Philosophy. Mathieu now dedicates himself to researching the fields of Beat literature, English Romanticism and their confluences, especially with regard to spirituality.

Mathieu is also an unpublished poet, very much inspired by Ginsberg and Kerouac for their chosen techniques.

“I was introduced to the Beat Generation by Dr Franca Bellarsi during the first year of my MA at ULB (2021). I was immediately captivated by the different voices of the group and the richness of their work. I therefore decided to fully immerse myself in the study of the Beat Generation and wrote my MA thesis on the matter. My thesis received many compliments from the members of the jury (with a 98% mark) and other professors at my university and is currently nominated for the faculty’s prize for best thesis, with great chances of winning (this is not my prevision, of course). This should testify to the quality of my work. I also partook in two EBSN conferences: the 2021 Virtual Conference and the 10^th Annual Conference in Murcia. All in all, as a European interested in the Beats, I think it befitting to become a member of the EBSN.”