Lieke Stelling studied English literature at the University of Utrecht and University College London and comparative literature at the University of Utrecht. She completed her PhD at the University of Leiden in 2013 before returning to Utrecht in 2015. Her research interests include sixteenth- and seventeenth-century literature, Shakespeare, religious conversion, humour and religion, and early modern conceptions of Europe.

Anton Bruder is a researcher in Renaissance literature, working on Dr Lieke Stelling's Vidi Project, 'Discovering Europe in the Eearly Modern Period: How Literary Bestsellers Shapes a Diverse Community (1517-1713)'. He focuses on the representation of multilingualism in relation to European identity in European bestsellers of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The remarkable resistance to the problematisation of multilingualism in the popular tradition of chivalric romances forms a counterpoint to thinking about more critical explorations of language and problems of mutual comprehension in works from Pantagruel to Don Quijote.

Francesca Barbera studied English Literature and Linguistics at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and Early Modern Studies at University College London. Her research focuses on the depiction of cities as European microcosms in early modern literary bestsellers.