is a cultural theorist based in Utrecht and professor in Literary Studies at the Rijksuniversiteit Leiden. Frans-Willem Korsten has been a tutor at PZI since 2003, and was project leader of The City and the Abundance of Life in 2006-07.

His PhD, entitled The Wisdom Brokers (1998), was an investigation into the interrelation between stories and arguments. Recent publications include Lessen in Literatuur (2002, reprinted in 2005); Thamyris/Intersecting: Africa and Its Significant Others: Forty Years of Cultural Entanglement (co-edited with Isabel Hoving and Ernst van Alphen) (2004); Discern(e)ments: Deleuzian Aesthetics (co-edited with Joost de Bloois and Sjef Houppermans) (2004); and Vondel belicht: Voorstellingen van souvereiniteit (2006). New areas of research are literature, rhetoric and law; and the city as lifeworld.