We investigate cultural practices, religious beliefs, knowledge systems and social relations, seeking to understand how they interact and transform across historical periods. Through a combination of different source materials (texts, images, maps, objects, scents) and methods (e.g. archival research, digital humanities, embodied learning) we investigate long-term cultural processes, problematizing traditional boundaries, such as between the Middle Ages and the early modern period, between religion and science, between knowing and feeling, or between academic and lay knowledges. Thus, we aim to generate new insights into how culture and religion have developed over time.
We conduct our research in close collaboration with a large variety of public institutions, museums, libraries and other cultural heritage institutes, creative designers, industries and policy makers. We have longstanding experience in curating historically-informed exhibitions with heritage institutions, conserving and critically investigating heritage collections. Through our research we aim to contribute to public debates around Dutch history in a global context, cultural identity, mnemonic and emotional communities, the shifting role of religion in society, and (digital) heritage curation.
We ask questions like:
- How did ordinary people and religious groups develop practices and networks to exercise political influence and religious freedom, to fuel civil action and shape their personal lifestyles?
- How did people manage and generated feelings in the past? How are emotions and sensory experiences historically situated, socially shaped and regulated?
- How can we develop and adopt longitudinal studies and comparative approaches to better understand cultural change, continuity, and interaction over time and across regions?
- How can we map and investigate knowledge ecosystems from the past to the digital age (knowledge creation, transmission, marginalization), and what can we learn from ‘lost’, local knowledges?
- How can we develop, employ and evaluate embodied learning methods to study historical objects (e.g. clothing, medical instruments, scents), and cultural, embodied practices (e.g. knowledge of practitioners).
- How were developments of Enlightenment, modernisation and secularisation interrelated with movements of mission, civil society, philanthropy, and education?
Our academic staff teach, research and take MA, ReMA and PhD supervisions in the following areas:
Prof. dr. Inger Leemans (Chair, Cultural History):
- Cultural History 1600-1850
- History of Emotions and the Senses
- Cultural Heritage Policy; Smell Heritage
- Digital Humanities; Sensory Mining
- Trans-disciplinary research; Science Communication
Prof. dr. Fred van Lieburg (Chair, Religious History):
- Late medieval clergy in the Netherlands
- Public church, religious professionals, and lay religion in the Dutch empire 1600-1960
- International pietism, revivalism, civil society, religious philanthropy
- Dutch academic careers and networks, 1575-1875
Prof. dr. Fokko Jan Dijksterhuis (History of Knowledge)
- History of Science
- Early-modern Knowledge Practices
- Knowledge and discipline formation
- History of Optics, Mathematics, Physics
- History of technology
Prof. dr. George Harinck (History of Neo-Calvinism)
- History of Religion
- Neo-Calvinism
- Church History
- Dutch Protestantism
Dr. Arjan Nobel, Postdoctoral researcher
- Cultural history 1550-1900
- Political/religious history, especially of the countryside
- Public history
- Historical societies
- Family history/genealogy
Prof. dr. Manon Parry (Medical & Nursing History)
- History of Medicine; Nursing History
- Medical and Health Humanities
- Public History
- Medical Museums
- Embodied Learning
Dr. Erika Kuijpers, Associate Professor
- Social and Cultural History 1550-1850
- Non-professional knowledge practices and literacies
- Early modern memories of war and religious conflict
- History of Emotions
- Urban history and migration
- Computational methods
Dr. Ab Flipse, Assistant Professor
- History of Universities / of VU Amsterdam
- Public Management
- History of science / medicine
- Science and religion
- Public history
Dr. Edwina Hagen, Assistant Professor
- Political Culture, specifically Dutch Revolutionary Period (1770-1815)
- History of Emotions
- Gender history; Role of women in political processes
- Ego-documents
- Character Assassination
Dr. Marianne Ritsema van Eck, Assistant Professor
- Cultural and Religious History of Late Medieval and early-modern period
- Franciscan Studies; Cults of the Saints, pilgrimage
- Historical cartography
- Knowledge Transfer
- Heritage as a methodological instrument for historians
Dr. Lorella Viola, Assistant Professor
- Digital Humanities
- Digital Heritage & Digital Infrastructures
- Media History
- Knowledge creation, Impact of the digital transformation
- Language change & multilingualism
Dr. Caro Verbeek, Assistant Professor
- Art History; Futurist and Surrealist art
- Smell heritage and history
- Art and education
- Embodied Learning
- Museum exhibitions and collection curation
Dr. Arjan Nobel
- Religion, demagogy and democracy 1797-1878
Dr. Johan Snel
- Research fellow HDC
- A new critical biography of Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920)
PhD students
Vincent Laarman
Stefan Reyes
Thijs Elfrink
Joren Reichel
Suzanne Whitby
Hugo Lauwers
Ronald van Gelder