NICAST

Pepita Hesselberth is assistant professor of film and digital culture and Leiden University. She is also the director of (NICA) and a DFF laureate. She published widely on the topics of disconnectivity, the politics of withdrawal, and contemporary cinematics. Together with Joost de Bloois she edited Politics of Withdrawal: Media, Art, Theory (Rowman & Litttlefield, 2021). Other books include co-edited volumes on Legibility in the Age of Signs and Machines (with Esther Peeren, Janna Houwen and Ruby de Vos; Brill 2018), Compact Cinematics: The Moving-Image in the Age of Bit-Sized Media (with Maria Poulaki; Bloomsbury 2016), and a monograph on Cinematic Chonotopes (Bloomsbury 2014). She is the editor-in-chief of a book series on Media | Art | Politics at Leiden University Press (with Yasco Horsman).

Joost de Bloois is assistant professor at the University of Amsterdam, Department of Literary and Cultural Analysis, and a researcher at the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis. With Pepita Hesselberth, he co-edited Politics of Withdrawal: Media, Art, Theory (Rowman & Litttlefield, 2021). Other books include a.o. 50 Key Terms for Cultural Studies (with Anneleen Masschelein and Stijn de Cauwer), monographs and co-edited volumes on Alain Badiou and Italian post-workerism, and a monograph on the seven-week occupation of the University of Amsterdam in 2015, In de Naam van het Maagdenhuis (Leesmagazijn, 2016).

Benjamin Schoonenberg is an artist and researcher with a background in film studies, literary studies and cultural analysis, working across writing, installation and video. He is currently teaching at the Film studies department at Leiden University and is the technician and editor of NICAst.