perspectives on the world - universiteit...
TRANSCRIPT
The - academic year saw the quality assessment of the
education and research carried out at our institutes. It goes
without saying that these assessments involve a lot of work, but
they are necessary for transparency and accountability, as well as
being extremely useful. We learn from the experience, and we
receive useful suggestions from our peers who review us.
The Faculty of Humanities can be proud of the way the different
committees evaluated the quality of our research. The output of
the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL), for example,
was termed “impressive in its quality, often representing
international-level research and in some cases even world-leading
research”. The committee that assessed the Leiden University
Institute for History (LUIH) “was impressed by the number of
grants, awards and prizes that were acquired in the period under
review” and described the institute as “an attractive and
prestigious place of research and teaching for many scholars”.
Another committee remarked that the Leiden Institute for Area
Studies (LIAS) is working towards a more interdisciplinary and
transregional research programme. They complimented the
researchers of this institute: “They are strong international
players, even among the leaders in their respective fields”. The
Leiden University Institute for Religious Studies (LIRS) was
referred to as “the institutional home of a number of high-calibre
scholars with an strong national and international reputation”,
while, according to another committee, the research of the Leiden
University Institute for Philosophy (LUIPh) “reaches a high
standard, as evidenced by refereed articles, book chapters and
monographs”. The output of the Leiden University Centre for the
Arts in Society (LUCAS) was described as “good to excellent in all
three programmes”. The committee concluded with regard to the
Academy of Creative and Performing Arts (ACPA): “It is clear
that Leiden University and the Faculty of Humanities have a
success story on their hands”.
It is highly rewarding to work in such a Faculty and to know that
we can look forward to the future with confidence. It is also clear
that the quality of our research is recognised internationally. A
few examples of this research are presented in this edition of
Perspectives, that covers the - academic year: from the
impact of social reading on the book industry, to the system of
deliberative democracy; from the response to environmental
problems to Assistant Professor Boletsi’s insight that “we’re all
barbarians”. You can also read about former master’s student
Sander Stolk, who developed a computer tool to calculate how
many words can be found for a given concept in the Thesaurus of
Old English, as well as about how young people draw an image of
God, what are the underlying aspects of effective speeches of
politicians, and what we, as society, can learn from studying –
sometimes inaccurate – accounts of the Dutch Revolt.
I hope you will enjoy reading our Perspectives on the World.
Professor Wim van den Doel
Dean
Humanities
A word from the Dean
• The Leiden University Institute for Philosophy (LUIPh) studies
philosophy in all its facets, in relation to the many disciplines
taught at the University
• The Leiden University Institute for Religious Studies (LIRS)
includes all religions within its range of expertise
The Faculty of Humanities is home to more than , students.
In the - academic year they are able to choose from no
fewer than BA and MA programmes, including research
master’s. In , the Faculty’s staff members were engaged in
teaching and research activities based on a turnover of almost
million euros. The Faculty awarded PhD degrees to
candidates in .
International researchThe Faculty is ranked among the top five Arts and Humanities
faculties outside the English-speaking world. The quality of the
Faculty’s research is recognised internationally, as witnessed by
the fact that our researchers are regularly awarded significant
national and international research grants and prizes. An example
this year is the award for the short film El último consejo. This film
by PhD candidate Itandehui Jansen of our Academy of Creative
and Performing Arts was acclaimed at the international film
festival Viña del Mar in Chili. The film is about the Mixtec Indian
community in Mexico. The jury commended Jansen for the way
Humanities
Humanities at Leiden University
Multidisciplinary collaborationThe Faculty of Humanities was formed in . Merging the
diverse departments to create the current institutes has enabled us
to engage in collaboration at a multidisciplinary level and given
us the opportunity to extend our scope beyond the limits of the
former departments.
The Faculty’s research activities are currently structured within
seven institutes:
• The Academy of Creative and Performing Arts (ACPA) focuses
on bringing together art and science
• The Leiden University Institute for Area Studies (LIAS)
combines thorough knowledge of language and culture with
disciplinary approaches from the humanities, social sciences
and law
• The Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS)
covers the field of literature and literary studies, the history of
art and material culture, and film and new media studies
• The Leiden University Institute for History (LUIH) has a broad
and wide-reaching academic scope. The Institute has an unique
international orientation and focuses on the study of
European, American, Asian and African societies in a global
context
• The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL) brings
together all the Faculty’s linguistic research
Leiden’s Faculty of Humanities is an international centre for studying the world’s languages, cultures and nations. The Faculty’s research stretches from prehistoric times to the present day, and adopts a broadperspective that encompasses fields as diverse as religion, philosophy, literature, art and technology.
she blended fiction and non-fiction. The European ‘WeCurate’
subsidy for cultural projects was awarded to Professor Kitty
Zijlmans (LUCAS). Together with artists, the public and cultural
institutions, Zijlmans’ research team is investigating how cultural
organisations and the public themselves can think about culture
in a broader way. How can culture and cultural activities
contribute to social challenges? Or improve the quality of our
neighbourhood? And how can museums connect with new
generations?
Besides awards and European subsidies, funding is also provided
by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO)
that finances a number of top researchers every year. Its
prestigious VICI award, one of the largest personal scientific
awards in the Netherlands, has been awarded to a Leiden
Humanities researcher twelve times since its inception in .
Last year Professor Kasia Cwiertka (LIAS) received a VICI award
for her research on waste management and what it tells us about
society. More specifically, her research is about recent changes in
China, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea. The contribution made
by the Faculty of Humanities plays a key role in positioning
Leiden University among the top three recipients of VICI awards.
Profile themesIn order to facilitate cutting-edge fundamental research at
national and international level, Leiden University has chosen to
focus on six key themes from among eleven multi-disciplinary
fields of research. The Faculty of Humanities is engaged in
research relating to four of these themes:
• Global Interaction of Civilizations and Languages
• The Asian Challenge
• Health, Life and Biosciences
• Law, Democracy and Governance: Legitimacy in a Multilevel
Setting
In , our university founded ‘LeidenGlobal’ a collaboration
between research institutions and museums. This partnership
brings together scientific and educational knowledge about global
and area studies.
More about the Faculty of HumanitiesFor more information about the Faculty, its programmes andinstitutes, see: hum.leiden.edu.The recipients of scientific awards are listed at:hum.leiden.edu/research/hall-of-fame.A list of candidates who recently received their PhD can befound at: hum.leiden.edu/research/PhDs. Subsidies received by researchers are listed at:hum.leiden.edu/research.
Humanities
Humanities
A politician’s way with wordsWhatever you may think of Geert Wilders’ opinions, he is rarely accused of using ‘vague language’. So what is his secret? And what is it that makes us decide that some politicians are too ‘woolly’? Does one politicianspeak more as a ‘man of the people’ than another? Maarten van Leeuwen (1981) graduated in Linguistics,and is now studying politicians’ speeches at word and sentence level for his PhD dissertation on thestylistics of the Dutch language. Van Leeuwen is affiliated to Leiden University Centre for Linguistics.
Apart from an isolated attempt some years ago to identify the
stylistics of the Dutch language, there has for a long time been
little or no scientific knowledge in this field of study. A group of
Leiden researchers is currently working in this unchartered
territory, within the context of the interdisciplinary NWO
research project on ‘Stylistics of Dutch’, in which Van Leeuwen is
participating. The goal of the project is to reintroduce stylistics to
Dutch Studies as a field of research. Van Leeuwen’s work is part of
this effort.
Stylistics is about the choices a writer makes. Van Leeuwen: “The
DutchRail used to have stoptreinen (literally: ‘stop trains’). Now
they refer to these same trains as sprinters. With this change they
are making a stylistic choice that has rhetorical consequences: in
contrast to ‘stop train’, ‘sprinter’ emphasises how quickly the
train accelerates away.” Van Leeuwen studies these kinds of
stylistic choices in parliamentary speeches, taking media opinions
of different politicians as the starting point.
War metaphorVan Leeuwen compared a number of speeches on the topic of
integration by MP Geert Wilders, who is known as a ‘clear’
speaker, and former Minister Ella Vogelaar, who was said to use
‘woolly’ language. His analysis of their use of vocabulary and
figures of speech confirmed these opinions. “Wilders gives many
specific examples and, unlike Vogelaar, uses a lot of repetition and
metaphors. Many of Wilders’ speeches are recognisable by his use
of war metaphors: he often uses terms from warfare such as
‘fight’, ‘capitulate’ and ‘Trojan Horse’.”
The analysis also shows the grammatical choices that create the
impression that Wilders formulates his opinions clearly – this is
where Van Leeuwen’s background (his master’s thesis was onFoto ANP: Phil Nijhuis
Humanities
grammatical constructions using the verb krijgen (‘to get’) is most
apparent. “Vogelaar often formulated sentences with a main
clause and a subordinate clause, for instance: ‘I think that the
weather will be good tomorrow.’ Wilders says: ‘The weather will
be good tomorrow.’ Vogelaar’s choice of sentence structure left
much more room for discussion.”
Having a sayAnother aspect of the research focuses on whether the language
used by Wilders and Alexander Pechtold, another opposition
leader, corresponds with the way in which they present
themselves. “Wilders has created an image of himself as a political
outsider and a ‘man of the people’. This is also apparent in his
stylistic choices: he says, for instance: ‘People think’ instead of ‘I
think’. This seems to give voters something of a say as well.
Pechtold, however, creates the impression that he is a part of the
political establishment in The Hague. This, too, can be seen in his
use of language. He uses more jargon, and policy rather than
voters takes centre stage in his speeches. Pechtold says things like:
‘There will be less of a burden on the public and business.’
Wilders would say: ‘The public and business will bear less of the
burden.’ Wilders takes the perspective of the voters, and nearly
always gives them a more prominent role in the sentence.”
One of the goals of the stylistics project is to develop a method
for forming well-founded judgments about style. Van Leeuwen:
“We are creating a checklist of linguistic phenomena, so that you
can systematically analyse style. We use it when teaching stylistics,
but others will also be able to use it for scientific research. This
kind of checklist could be useful for speechwriters and journalists,
too. In addition, the study provides insight into the rhetorical
effects of stylistic choices, which is of interest to anyone who is
professionally involved with language.”
Maarten van Leeuwen
“The NS used to have stoptreinen (literally: ‘stoptrains’); now they refer to these same trains assprinters.”
Humanities
Solving environmental issuesHanneke Muilwijk (1986) has a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree in both Chemistry (Sustainable Molecular
Science & Technology) and Philosophy. Her Philosophy thesis was awarded the Wouter Achterberg Prize in 2013.
“During my Chemistry studies, it became abundantly clear to me
that in terms of technology, we are able to come up with fantastic
solutions to environmental problems. But what about the next
step? I find this question fascinating, because actually
implementing these solutions often turns out to be much more
complex than the technical issues involved. In my thesis I
investigated why this is and how things could be improved.
“Sustainability issues often involve a number of different
interests: some people need the timber from the rainforest in
order to survive whereas others want to protect a rare butterfly.
Personal gain – a car journey, for example – is often at odds with
a collective problem, such as environmental pollution. In
addition, it’s essential that people take responsibility for their own
behaviour: low-energy bulbs should not mean that they leave
their lights on longer. Another difficulty is that while our
problems transgress borders, the international structures are not
equipped to deal with them.
“The conclusion I have drawn is that our liberal model of
democracy is not particularly suited to address these kinds of
problems. My hypothesis is that a deliberative democracy, in
which decisions are not based on a vote but on discussion and
consensus, is much better equipped for this.
Humanities
Hanneke Muilwijk
“The conclusion I have drawn is that our liberal modelof democracy is not particularly suited to address thesekinds of environmental problems.”
“The American researcher Fishkin has performed experiments in
which he brought people together and asked them to make
consensual decisions. He asked the test subjects to fill in a
questionnaire before and after the experiments. In one of his
European experiments, many of the participants proved to have
changed their minds on environmental issues: after the
experiment they made greener choices and voted for different
parties.
“Of course, deliberative democracy is not a magic wand; you
cannot determine the outcome. But it does show that this system
is better equipped to deal with environmental problems.
“After I graduated, I joined the Ministry of Infrastructure and the
Environment as a government trainee. I focus on the public
perception of water safety. I am happy to be doing work that is
socially relevant. In the future I would like to do a PhD on the
interaction between science and society.”
Humanities
“What makes a reader decide whether or not to read a new book?
The opinion of professionals, such as reviewers, is starting to
count for less. Research shows that what your friends and
acquaintances think is becoming increasingly important. Book
marketing has become more democratic, as it were.
“Reading has always been an incentive for social interaction – we
can term this ‘social reading’ – but the internet and social media
have made this process quicker and easier. Readers visit websites
and download apps on literature. They exchange book tips, news
and reviews via media such as Facebook and Twitter. In my thesis,
I documented how social reading can be used in book marketing.
“The book industry is having a hard time in the Netherlands:
publishers are faced with falling sales figures. They could use this
new kind of social reading, for instance by giving away books to
people who retweet a message about a book or write a review. The
most effective form of marketing is to stir consumers to action
because you then create a group of loyal followers, and word will
spread quickly about your book. The trouble is that publishers
run the risk of losing control: a book could end up receiving bad
reviews.
“Some publishers are therefore still a bit cautious. But the great
advantage is that you can easily reach a large target group, even
for books with a low marketing budget or by unknown writers. It
also enables authors to do much of the marketing themselves.
And you can reach people who rarely enter a bookshop, if at all.
To read or not to readCarola van der Drift (1989) has a Bachelor’s degree in Japanese Studies and recently completed her Master’s degree in Book and Digital Media Studies.
Humanities
Carola van der Drift
“Research shows that what your friends andacquaintances think is becoming increasinglyimportant. Book marketing has become moredemocratic, as it were.”
“I have just completed my thesis, but the topic is still very much
on my mind. I work at the University Library and write about the
impact of modern media on the library world for the journal
Informatie Professional. I would like to continue doing research,
especially if I can combine the themes of my master’s degree with
those of my bachelor’s degree, which was in Japanese.”
Humanities
“We’re always somebody else’sbarbarian”
Whenever the ancient Greeks encountered people they didn’t understand, they would call them barbaroi, because to the Greeks, their language represented incomprehensible sounds. In our current dictionaries,‘barbarian’ means the opposite of civilized, or the antithesis of ‘us’. However, in his poem ‘Waiting for thebarbarians’ (1904), Greek poet Cavafy suggests that the civilized depend on the barbarians, because theycarry the promise of a new beginning. Maria Boletsi (Corfu, 1979) was fascinated by this poem as ateenager. She works at the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society where she is Assistant Professorat the Film and Literary Studies Department. Boletsi has just published Barbarism and Its Discontents.
Maria Boletsi is a product of her time. When she started her
master’s in Amsterdam in , the West was dominated by the al-
Qaeda attacks of . In the years that followed, Boletsi detected
an increase in the use of the word ‘barbarian’ in the media and in
political rhetoric as well as in everyday language. With Cavafy in
mind, she had found the inspiration for her research.
Dangerous enemiesBoletsi soon concluded that the barbarian’s role is always in
relation to civilisation. “To call somebody a barbarian has certain
consequences for how we perceive this person. It isn’t at all
innocent; there’s a lot of violence in these linguistic
constructions. Tagging others as barbarians transforms them
from legitimate opponents into irrational and dangerous enemies
that you have to eliminate. You can’t reason with evil. We hear
politicians using the term to legitimise military action against
Detail of the Esperando a los bárbaros installation by Graciela
Sacco (). Heliography on paper and wood, variable dimensions.
Photograph by Maria Boletsi, taken at Museum Morsbroich,
Germany.
Humanities
Maria Boletsi
“Tagging others as barbarians transforms them fromlegitimate opponents into irrational and dangerousenemies that you have to eliminate.”
others or to suspend human rights in the name of protection;
Guantanamo Bay is the perfect example of this.”
The meaning of barbarian as ‘someone we don’t understand’ is
also reflected quite literally in how people view recent protest
movements, such as the Occupy movement. “Many people don’t
understand the Occupy movement. They feel it doesn’t have clear
objectives. This is why they view it as barbarian,
incomprehensible. But this case also shows how relative the
concept is: the occupiers call bankers ‘barbarians’ too. The
barbarian isn’t a natural category. People aren’t essentially or
naturally barbarians; we’re always somebody else’s barbarian.”
A new perspectiveHowever, there can also be another side to the concept of
barbarism. “And now, what’s going to happen to us without
barbarians? They were, those people, a kind of solution,” Cavafy
writes. In Boletsi’s view, “This is what is intriguing about this
poem: what happens to the civilised when the barbarian is no
longer there? We’re lost if we don’t have this category of ‘the
other’ against which we can define ourselves.” But barbarism can
also be used in an affirmative or critical way, she suggests. “It has
been used in art, literature and philosophy as a mode of critique
of civilisation, progress or rationality. As a critical concept, it can
signify an alternative, new perspective, a new beginning.
The implications of current uses of the word still intrigue Boletsi.
In her new research she is focusing on the role of barbarism after
/ in art and literature, as well as in media and cultural theory.
This summer she will start a project with researchers from
Switzerland and Germany on the modern history of barbarism
and its role in definitions of European identity since the
eighteenth century. The project, for which she has just received an
NWO Internationalisation grant, is due to be completed in .
Humanities
“In my Psychology training very little attention was paid to
spirituality and the answers people seek to the big questions in
life. But I think this is precisely what makes us human. In society
there is also a lot of interest in spirituality and practices such as
mindfulness, but meanwhile the churches are emptying. This is
why in my Religious Studies thesis I wanted to consider the basis
of religious conviction: the development of the relationship
between an individual and God.
“I asked over seventy young people to draw the picture they see in
their minds if they think of GOD – I used three capital letters to
avoid biasing them. I wanted to find out how ‘developed’ their
image of God was, whether it had personal features and differed
from the fairy-tale image of an old man with a long beard, high
up on a cloud.
“Many drawings turned out to be very specific, and most were of
the fairy-tale old man. The young people had not really developed
their images of God into their own personal depictions. This
might be due to the way that churches try to appeal to young
people. They tend to reach out to them with mass events, but
appear to pay little attention to the more personal relationship
with God.
An old man with a long beardLizette Romijn (1987) did a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and went on to do two Master’s degrees simultaneously: in Psychology and Religious Studies.
Drawing by one of the young participants.
Humanities
Lizette Romijn
“I wanted to find out how ‘developed’ their image ofGod was, whether it had personal features anddiffered from the fairy-tale image of an old man witha long beard, high up on a cloud.”
“I also used a questionnaire to obtain some personal information
about the participants, and then looked at whether this
information correlated with their image of God. Most of the
drawings that depicted biblical scenes proved to have been
produced by religious young people with diplomas in junior
general secondary education or senior secondary vocational
education. Religious participants with a senior general secondary
education diploma or a higher professional diploma were most
likely to produce drawings that did not contain any biblical
references. Young people who felt insecure in their relationship
with their mother had a tendency to draw a more realistic image
of God, which differed more strongly from the fairy-tale picture.
Some researchers think that children’s images of God are
primarily a projection of their parents. If young people are more
insecure in their relationship with their mother, their image of
God will tend to represent a more accessible figure.
“If I were given the opportunity to do PhD research on this topic,
I would definitely seize it. At the moment I am working as a
researcher at the Youth Care Bureau. In my work, I often come in
contact with people with a different religious background, so my
studies definitely come in handy.”
Humanities
The Japanese struggle with a wartime past
During his PhD training, Mark encountered a book by Japanese
historian Yoshimi Yoshiaki called Grass-Roots Fascism. The War
Experience of the Japanese People (). “It’s a fascinating book,
because it looks at the experiences of ordinary Japanese people
during the Second World War. When I finished my PhD, I jumped
at the chance to translate it, because I thought it was long
overdue.”
Yoshimi, a member of the Japanese student protest movement in
the sixties, saw German students demanding an explanation for
the war. He wondered why this wasn’t happening in Japan. Mark:
“Japanese history is often seen as a history of oppression from
above, partly based on the idea that the Japanese are passive and
feudalistic: not modern enough, and therefore easily pushed into
war. This was a convenient explanation, maintained both by
Japanese elites and by foreign countries with their own political
When Ethan Mark (1965) met his future wife, the daughter of an Indonesian air force officer and his Dutch wife, he also met his academic future. Mark had already finished his Bachelor’s degree in Japanese Studiesand had been an exchange student in Tokyo. His encounter with Indonesia inspired him to complete a PhDat Columbia University on the Japanese occupation of the Indonesian island of Java during World War II. Nextyear, he will publish the English translation of a landmark book about Japanese fascism, with an extensiveintroduction that puts the issue in a global perspective. Ethan Mark is a specialist in the history of modernJapan and works at the Leiden University Institute for Area Studies.
agenda. But Yoshimi didn’t accept the idea that ordinary Japanese
people had no active role in the war.”
Historical research on the experiences of ordinary people during
a war that had ended more than thirty years earlier wasn’t easy.
“But Yoshimi found many diaries and memoirs of low-ranking
soldiers and their families. These people turned out to be
surprisingly literate. The Japanese government had not been
forthcoming in explaining the war, but Yoshimi saw that there
were many Japanese who had thought about it and were still
wrestling with it.”
Brothers?The most striking aspect of the book in Mark’s eyes, however, is
its illustration of the central role of the Second Sino-Japanese War
(starting in ) in shaping developments within wartime Japan
Humanities
– and beyond. “The interaction between the battlefront and the
home front, which Yoshimi emphasises, is something we tend to
overlook, and it has relevance for our understanding of the
Second World War more generally. The Japanese became
increasingly brutal because they couldn’t handle Chinese
resistance. While the propaganda called the Chinese ‘brothers’,
one diary after another shows that in daily practice the Japanese
treated them as untermenschen. In the end, these experiences
radicalised Japan.”
In his introduction to Grass-Roots Fascism, Mark also assesses its
depiction of Japan’s occupation experience in neighbouring
countries like Taiwan, Korea and Indonesia. “In the last twenty-
odd years, scholars have started to look more at the grey areas of
interaction in colonial history, not just oppression and resistance.
For example, ordinary Indonesians suffered severely under
Japanese occupation, but the Indonesian elite had a much more
complex relationship with the Japanese. In my own work I look at
questions such as: why did they co-operate, what kind of interests
or ideologies did they share?”
Having completed a revised version of his PhD thesis, Mark now
wants to write a history of the Second World War that isn’t
Eurocentric. “The story of the War always starts in in Poland.
I have trouble finding a valid reason for this. If you look at the
War from the perspective of most of the world, this was a war
about empires fighting to the death. The fascist countries all saw
the war as a legitimate war for empire. The Sino-Japanese war was
the beginning of the end of colonialism. In this sense, the war in
Asia was essential to global history. I’d like to write a narrative
that starts the Second World War in , at the Marco Polo
Bridge in China, when the Japanese and Chinese initiated total
war.”
Ethan Mark
“The Japanese government had not beenforthcoming in explaining the war, but Yoshimi sawthat there were many Japanese who had thoughtabout it and were still wrestling with it.”
Humanities
Greetings from the Anglo-Saxons Sander Stolk (1985) studied Computer Science before doing a Bachelor’s degree in English Language and Culture and a Master’s in Literary Studies: English Literature and Culture.
“For my master’s thesis in English I tried to find a use for the
programming skills I had acquired while studying Computer
Science. I developed a tool that calculates how many words can be
found for a given concept in the Thesaurus of Old English.
“The thesaurus organises groups of words into a tree structure: it
begins with an abstract category of words, such as ‘actions’, and
then branches out into increasingly specific categories, such as
‘gestures’ and then ‘greetings’. The vocabulary of a civilisation
reveals its culture: we can now see how many words and nuances
the Anglo-Saxons had for ‘war’, for example.
“I did a case study on the words for and meanings of ‘to greet’.
The first thing you do when you meet another person is greet
him. It is a way of acknowledging the other person, a ritual that
structures the encounter. The Old English gretan (English: to
greet, Dutch: groeten) can have a number of meanings, all of
which relate to initial contact, whether this be playing the harp or
attacking with a spear. The same word can therefore have many
associations.
“I also studied literary texts, poems and administrative texts that
contained the words for greeting, in order to discover more about
the context in which they were used.
Humanities
Sander Stolk
“I developed a tool that calculates how manywords can be found for a given concept in theThesaurus of Old English.”
“My study showed that the initial greeting in Old English often
had a health or well-being connotation: hal (English: whole,
Dutch: heel) and gesund (English: healthy, Dutch: gezond) are
examples of this. Health wishes are not a feature of greetings in
modern English: they generally take the form of a question (‘How
do you do?’) or are used when leaving (‘Take care’).
“This kind of study makes it possible to chart the development of
a language. Although I originally studied English because I didn’t
enjoy working in the IT sector, my research has once again given
me a taste for programming, so that’s what I will be doing next.
But I will also be giving some serious consideration to whether I
want to do a PhD in this field.”
Episode from the Dutch Revolt. Hendrik van Steenwijck, Church
interior with iconoclasts, c. -, oil on panel (Collectie
Museum Het Prinsenhof, Delft).
Humanities
Tales of the Dutch RevoltOn 3 October each year, Leiden celebrates the Relief of Leiden – the city’s liberation from the Spanish Siege in 1574. People eat hutspot, and herring with white bread is handed out. Every Dutch person has heard ofthese festivities; they are familiar components of our memory culture of the Eighty Years War. Where betterto carry out research on this culture than at the Leiden University Institute for History? This is whereProfessor Judith Pollmann (1964) is leading the exceptional research project ‘Tales of the Revolt. Memory,oblivion and identity in the Low Countries, 1566-1700’.
Apart from Leiden’s eating habits, Pollmann and her research
group are studying diverse aspects of Dutch culture in the Golden
Age that bore witness to the tumultuous past, be it stained-glass
windows in churches, plaques on houses, street names,
storytelling, chronicles, literature or plays. “We study how
memories are transmitted, but also what this says about how
people deal with change and how they construct their own story
from events.” The Eighty Years War (-) is a rewarding
epoch to study, because of the quick succession of events during
the Revolt against the King and the lasting effects of the ensuing
war on the relationship between the Northern and Southern
Provinces of the Low Countries. This struggle eventually led to
the formation of two separate states.
One of the threads that Pollmann can see running through her
work as a historian specialising in the early modern era is how
people deal with change. “I am a child of the time when religious
barriers were lifted in the Netherlands: at a young age I had many
a discussion with my grandmother about the consequences of
these changes, for example.” Pollmann studied History in
Amsterdam and Renaissance Studies in London, and developed
an interest in the impact of change in the sixteenth century. A
collection of her research group’s results will be published later
this year under the title Memory before modernity. Practices of
memory in early modern Europe. Pollmann’s own contribution to
the larger research project will follow in .
AwkwardIf you consider what we know about the Eighty Years War in the
Low Countries, you can see how people construct their own
version of history and use this for political purposes. The
Southern regions – modern-day Belgium – initially rose in revolt
against the Spanish Habsburgs, but later they again came under
Spanish rule. “This was awkward, so they reconstructed history.
Religion played an important role in this respect. Stories were told
of how local saints had repelled attacks by heretics. William of
Orange, who initiated the revolt, was depicted as a person driven
primarily by his own ambitions. And, no, they had never been
Calvinists: it was just the bad influence of those Hollanders (from
the North).”
Humanities
Judith Pollmann
In the independence-seeking North, there were too many
religious distinctions to use religion as the basis for a commonly
constructed identity, Pollmann concludes. “So their story had a
much more secular and xenophobic bias: the Spanish versus the
Dutch. The concept of Fatherland proved to be the solution here:
Dutch was primarily all that was not Spanish. Revolt memories
became a tool in national politics: did you fight hard enough for
our Fatherland? But a common culture of remembrance was not
a matter of course. We can see this from the fact that it took thirty
years for a funerary monument to be built for William of
Orange.”
Different storiesHer research also led Pollmann to develop more profound ideas
about her field. “So many different stories have been told
about our past over the years. Some of these stories are
nonsense when looking at them from a scholarly
perspective, but that doesn’t make them less interesting.
Mayor Van der Werff is traditionally seen as a hero who
offered his own body to the hungry Leiden citizens
during the Siege of Leiden. We now know that there is no
evidence of such heroism, and that he may in fact have
considered capitulating. This knowledge changes nothing
about the celebration, and we still sing patriotic songs near
his statue on October. And there is not necessarily anything
wrong in this. It is our job as historians to challenge myths, but
we also need to accept that other people want to do other things
with the past.”
“We study how memories are transmitted, but also what this says about how people deal withchange and how they construct their own story from events.”
Perspectives on the WorldReflections of -
Faculty of Humanities
EditorsJesca Zweijtzer
Crowd Communicatie, Lise-Lotte Kerkhof
InterviewsSchonewille Schrijft, Marie-Louise Schonewille
TranslationAcademic Language Centre, Faculty of Humanities
Portrait photographyHielco Kuipers
DesignRatio Design, Haarlem
Graphic productionUFB / GrafiMedia
September