Academic research
From February 2008 onwards, Koen Leurs is a PhD candidate for the Utrecht University High Potential Wired Up Research Programme.The Wired Up project addresses the functioning of digital media as innovative socialization practices for migrant youth. More specifically Koen will focus on identity construction and global representation, by investigating whether Dutch Moroccan and Mexican American young migrants use internet applications to reinforce local ethnic identity or adapt to mainstream global representations of youth culture and whether these are market by gender differences.

From September 2007 untill January 2008 Koen studied philosophy after receiving a grant from the Radboudstichting.

He finished his bachelor programme cum laude in 2005. Findings of his bachelor thesis, entitled "exploring pedophilia, a pragmatic inventory of the pedophilic discourse observed from a digital media perspective" were presented at an international conference in Amsterdam. In september 2005, he started the international oriented research master programme Media Studies (Mphil) at the Utrecht Research Institute for History and Culture (OGC) and the Utrecht University. During this program, he studied abroad for one semester, at the Communications and New Media Programme @ the National University of Singare. Here he studied terrorism, cybercrime and media and communication theory. Koen finished his master by writing a thesis on the topic of the framing of terrorism on CNN and Al Jazeera and on so-called war-blogs. Examples of these studies can be found under the "portfolio" section. Koen finished his MA programme cum laude in 2007.

Koen began his voyage through the field of new media from up close in 2001 while working in several functions for Dutchtone, a mobile phone company (now known as Orange). He began researching new media phenomena in 2002, enrolling in the University of Utrecht's Communication and Information Studies Programme. During this programme he focussed on among other things, mythology, sexuality and implications of file sharing and pedophilia.

Teaching
Also, he has been active as a teacher for the course "History and theory of new media" (in the academic year of 2005-2006 & 2006-2007, first year bachelor Communication and Information Studies course), "Knowledge, humanities and society" (in the academic year of 2006-2007) third year bachelor Language and Culture Studies course ) and most recently "Spaces of (new) media" (in the academic year of 2007-2008) a master-level course from the New Media, Digital Culture curriculum.

Other
Besides his scholarly work, Koen was active as an editor for Vooys magazine, a Dutch literary magazine focussing on the humanities in the broadest sense of the word. He was also a contributor for Cut.Up, focussing on "living in a medialized environment".

See my CV for more detailed information.

Download curriculum vitae (.pdf)