Willie van Peer holds a Ph.D. from Lancaster University, and is Professor of Literary Studies and Intercultural Hermeneutics at the University of Munich, former President of IGEL (International Association for the Empirical Study of Literature and Media) and of PALA (Poetics and Linguistics Association).

He has been Visiting Scholar in the Departments of Comparative Literature at Stanford and at Princeton University, and in the Department of (Cognitive) Psychology at the University of Memphis. He is also a Fellow of Clare Hall of Cambridge University.

He is the author of several books and many articles on poetics and the epistemological foundations of literary studies, including Stylistics and Psychology: Investigations of Foregrounding (London, 1986). He edited The Taming of the Text: Explorations in Language, Literature and Culture (Routledge, 1988), together with Seymour Chatman, New Perspectives on Narrative Perspective (SUNY Press, 2001), and together with Max Louwerse, Thematics. Interdisciplinary Studies (Benjamins, 2002).

On March 2013 Willie van Peer had lectures for our University students on topic “Principles and Possibilities of Using Empirical Methods Language and Literature”. The systematic course of lectures familiarized the audience with the benefits of use of empirical methods while studying languages and literatures. Prof. Willie van Peer also conducted a series of classes on the use of SPSS in modern philology. The course was directed both at young researchers, as well as experiences scientists in the field, and was attended by guest from various institutions of Ukraine: Institute of Philology of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, National University of “Kyiv-Mohyla Academy”, Kyiv National Linguistic University, Institute of Humanities at National Aviation University, the National Pedagogical Dragomanov University, Kherson State University.