Research projects

Information about research projects within the LUICD

Marie Curie Programmma (Zevende Kaderprogramma): Mobility of Ideas and Transmission of Texts. Vernacular Literature in the Rhineland and the Low Countries (ca. 1300-1550)

Title Mobility of Ideas and Transmission of Texts. Vernacular Literature and Learning in the Rhineland and the Low Countries (ca. 1300-1550)
Supervisor Dr. G. Warnar e.a. (Leiden)
Department Dutch Language and Culture
Researchers     12 PhD researchers. In Leiden: Y.A.A. van Damme MA, H. Dierckx MA en J.A. de Mol MA
Leiden (office), Freiburg, Lecce, Oxford en Antwerpen
Term 2009 until 2013
Budget Eur 2.300.000,-


Summary
Mobility of Ideas and Transmission of Texts is an Initial Training Network that studies the medieval transmission of learning from the ecclesiastical and academic elites of the professional intellectuals to the wider readership that could be reached through the vernacular. The programme focuses on the medieval dynamics of intellectual life in the Rhineland and the Low countries, nowadays divided over five countries ( Switzerland, France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands) but one cultural region in the later Middle Ages. Here, the great fourteenth-century mystics Meister Eckhart, Johannes Tauler, Jan van Ruusbroec and their contemporaries produced a sophisticated vernacular literature on contemplative theology and religious practice, introducing new lay audiences to a personal relation with the Supreme Being. The project seeks to develop a new perspective on this literary culture by looking at the readership, appropriation and circulation of texts in the contemporary religious and intellectual contexts. The programme unites expertise in the fields of medieval philosophy, religious studies, manuscript studies and Dutch and German literature, to provide structural training for interdisciplinary and international research in one of the medieval aspects of European culture of lasting merit. The training programme is built on a number of current research projects in which all full partners participate simultaneously, thus offering an adequate international infrastructure for a series of coherent PhD projects on medieval literature and learning that require a broader academic framework than the national literatures and other concepts of the modern tradition of academic disciplines. The programme prepares a new generation of medievalists for international careers in academic research, education and the presentation of the medieval cultural heritage.

To project's website

Spinoza premie prof.dr. I. Sluiter (Classics and Classical Civilization)

Specific information about this research programme will follow soon.
To the NWO-website

NWO-Vici: Art, Agency and Living Presence in Early Modern Italy

Title Art, Agency and Living Presence in Early Modern Italy
Supervisor Prof.dr. C.A. van Eck
Department Art History
Researchers     Dr. S.P.M. Bussels
Dr. L. Hermans
Drs. E.J.M. van Kessel
Dr. M. Schraven
Dr. J.J. van Gastel
Term 01-04-2005 until 30-11-2010
Budget Eur 845.000,00



Summary
Statements that works of art or buildings are so lifelike that they seem alive; that they look at the beholder, move, speak or weep are a constant and world-wide theme in reactions to the visual arts and architecture. Such responses are clearly wrong: images are not alive, and if they move, speak or bleed it is because there is a hidden mechanism at work. Yet the frequence and persistence of such statements suggest that they are not simply a matter of cognitive or psychopathological confusion, a primitive way of reacting to art, a critical cliché or hyperbole. In early modern Italy a paradoxical variety of such response is very widespread: works of art are considered to be so lifelike that they become alive in the viewers experience. Viewers react as if they are in the presence of a living and acting person. What has rarely been noticed however is that such statements (and the corresponding instructions to artists to aim for the illusion of living presence) lead to the paradox that art, in order to be of the highest quality and at its most persuasive, must cease to look like art. The representation dissolves into what it represents. Nor have existing studies considered the role of rhetoric, which played an important part in early modern thought about the arts in shaping such response, whereas vividness and living presence play a central role in rhetorical thought about persuasion. Unlike existing approaches to such responses, which consider them in terms of representation, this programme adopts a new approach based on the paradoxical nature of these responses in early modern Italy: it draws on rhetorical discussions of lifelikeness and living presence, and it uses the anthropological theory of art as agency developed by Alfred Gell. Whereas rhetoric is important as an historical source, Gell's theory of art as agency is an important heuristic instrument, and helps to articulate these responses.



Publications
  • S. Bussels (2005). Jaunty Joys and Sinuous Sorrows. Rhetoric and Body Language in a Tableau Vivant of the Antwerp Entry of 1549. pp. 257-69.
  • prof. dr. C.A. van Eck (2006). "Longinus' Essay on the Sublime and the "most solemn and awfull appearance" of Hawksmoor's churches. pp. 1-7.
  • dr. L. Hermans (2006). Built-in Eloquence. Rhetoric in Architecture in the Villa Barbaro at Maser. pp. 1-25.
  • S. Bussels (2006). Todo sobre Eva. Génesis y Género en una presentación de fuegos de artificios durante la Entrada de Carlos V y su hijo Felipe en Amberes. pp. 214-260.
  • S. Bussels (2007). Between Decency and Desire. Verbal and Visual Discourses on Dress and Nudity in the Antwerp Entry of 1549. pp. 62-80.
  • J.J. van Gastel (2007). 'Hoc opus exculpsit Io. Bologna. Andreas Andreanus Incisit'. Andrea Andreanis chiaroscuro houtsneden naar Giambologna. pp. 14-39.
  • B. van Oostveldt, S. Bussels (2007). Vreemde schurken op het toneel. De secularisering van het Ottomaanse schrikbeeld en het ?gouvernementaliteitsbegrip? in vroegmoderne spektakels uit de Zuidelijke Nederlanden. pp. 192-207.
  • L. Hermans (2008). The Rules of Rhetoric as Manual for Reading Architecture,.
  • S.P.M. Bussels (2008). De rol van de allegorie in Coornhert?s Comedie vande Rijckeman.
  • S.P.M. Bussels (2008). Vrouwe Retorica, bedrieglijke schone. De rol van retorica in de toneelstukken van Coornhert?, in:. De rol van de retorica in de toneelstukken van Coornhert.
  • S.P.M. Bussels, S. Mareel (2008). Strategieën van overtuiging in het rederijkerstoneel en de beeldende kunsten in de vijftiende- en zestiende-eeuwse Nederlanden.

Book chapters

  • S. Bussels, K. Vuyk, C. Kattenbelt, L. van Heteren, M. Bleeker (2005). De retoriek van het tableau vivant, het toernooi, de slagorde, de paradestoet en het vuurwerk in de intocht van Karel V en Filips in 1549. in: Theater Topics. Amsterdam:
  • S. Bussels, M. Kolk (2005). Splendid Cruelty: The Turk in Early Modern Court Entertainment in The Netherlands and France. in: The Performance of the Comic in Arabic Theatre. Gent: pp. 316-330.
  • S. Bussels, B. van Oostveldt, G. Urmeneta Ottiker, C. Stalpaert, P. Allegaert (2006). Geheugen, spreek. Jetty Roels, Alain Platel en Barbara Raes op zoek naar sporen van dans in Gent. in: De speler en de strop. Gent: pp. 193-210.
  • prof. dr. C.A. van Eck (2006). 'Artisan's Mannerism and 17th-Century Alternatives to Sir John Summerson's Formalist Approach'. in: Summerson and Hitchcock. New Haven en Londen: pp. 85-105.
  • S. Bussels, M. Takemoto (2007). 'The Mask as a Token for Theatrical Deception: View on and Use of the Theatre Mask in Late Republican Rome', in: Mikio Takemoto (ed.), , Tokyo, JSPS, 2007, 110-114.. in: Acts of the International Conference on the Ancient Mask. Tokyo: pp. 110-114.
  • S. Bussels, K. Vuyk, L. van Heteren, C. Kattenbelt, M. Bleeker (2007). De macht van levende beelden: Een onderzoek naar de agency van visualiteit in literatuur, retorica, beeldende kunsten en theater aan de hand van antieke bronnen. in: Theater Topics 3. Amsterdam:
  • L Hermans, H. Hendrix, P. Procaccioli (2008). Alvise Cornaro and the Construction of Theatrical Society. in: Officine del nuovo. Rome: pp. 349-367.
  • C.A. van Eck, C Macy, S Bonnemaison (2008). Statecraft or Stagecraft? English Paper Architecture in the Seventeenth Century. in: Festival Architecture. London: pp. 113-129.
  • B. van Oostveldt, S.P.M. Bussels, A. Cools, J. Taels, T. Crombez (2008). How to Perform the Polis. The Locus of Tragical Deception? Brill, Leiden, 2008. in: The Locus of Tragedy. Leiden:
  • C.A.. van Eck, S. Bonnemaison, C. Macy (2008). Statecraft or stagecraft? English paper architecture in the seventeenth century. in: Festival Architecture. Londen en New York: pp. 113-129.
  • C.A. van Eck, R. Williams, J. Elkins (2008). Architectural Theory, Systematicity, and Living Presence. in: Renaissance Theory. New York en Londen: pp. 385-394. ISBN 0-415-96046-5


    More information: www.hum.leiden.edu/research/artandagency

NWO-Vidi: The quest for the legitimacy of architecture in Europe, 1750-1850

Title The quest for the legitimacy of architecture in Europe, 1750-1850
Supervisor     dr. M.J.F. Delbeke
Department Art History
Researchers         dr. M.J.F. Delbeke, L.J. Bleijenberg MA
Term 01-01-2010 until 31-12-2014
Budget Eur 800.000,00



Summary
Architecture emerged as an autonomous discipline in the Renaissance with the publication of theories of design: treatises defining the architect's knowledge, and the principles and models for designing buildings. These principles were founded on the conviction that to become works of art, buildings need to acquire meanings that, transcending the structural, spatial and functional aspects of architecture, are cultural in the widest sense of the word. Design theories substantiated this claim by invoking the authorities of Vitrivius'? treatise on architecture and the ruins of antiquity, examples of good design incorporating the values of an exemplary civilisation. At the end of the 17th century, however, the authority of antiquity was eroded, while developments in science and technology changed building practice and design. As a result, over the period 1750-1850 new design theories emerged. Whereas the majority of these texts are well known, it has rarely been noted that they aimed at repositioning architectural design within culture writ large. After all, the architectural profession still required design principles which promised to produce buildings of cultural relevance. Moreover, after antiquity had lost its authority, architectural theory sought new intellectual foundations in emerging discourses such as primitivism. Finally, in search of cultural legitimacy, the reflection on architectural design expanded outside the realm of the treatise. By examining this process, the programme aims to redefine the body of architectural theory of the period in Europe, and to consider in detail how at a time when attitudes towards the past fundamentally changed, architectural theory sought new ways of explaining how buildings acquire wider cultural meanings by turning to new theories of the origins of society. Thus, the programme aims to identify the intellectual contexts that were of importance for the architectural theory of the period, and especially to clarify the relation of architectural theory to primitivism

NWO-Vidi: Turning over a New Leaf: Manuscript Innovation in the Twelfth-Century Renaissance

Title Turning over a New Leaf: Manuscript Innovation in the Twelfth-Century Renaissance
Supervisor     dr. F. Kwakkel
Department         English language and culture
Researchers dr. F. Kwakkel, J.A. Weston MA
Term 01-05-2010 until 31-04-2015
Budget Eur 800.000,00 



Summary
The project described on these pages is concerned with the intriguing relationship between written culture and society, specifically how innovations in the technology of the medieval manuscript (the handwritten book, or codex, used before the invention of print) relate to cultural change. It will argue that the age of renewal known as the "Twelfth-Century Renaissance" (c. 1075 - c. 1225) produced a new manuscript format, custom-tailored for the age: during this period manuscript production turned over a new leaf, as did readers, who were introduced to new reading aids, page layouts and scripts. This proposal claims that the emergence of this new book is caused by shifts in the manner of reading and the texts that were read, as well as a changing intellectual profile of scholars. The project traces the roots of this new manuscript (the institutional homes of a new breed of European scholars), maps its development, and explains its elevation to new book standard. With its innovative blend of physicality and historical inquiry the project is anticipated to have significant implications for all medieval disciplines that use primary sources. As it is, primary sources are silent beyond the words on their pages: medieval scholars nearly exclusively turn to these sources for their contents. However, this project will show, based on a "field-tested" methodology, how observations related to the physical formats in which medieval texts were fitted (type of script, reading aids, layout of the page, etc.) can be "spun" and used as historical arguments. By showing how medieval primary sources can be exploited more fully, beyond the text they carry, the project demonstrates to medieval scholars from a variety of disciplines how to turn over a new leaf in their inquiries and look at familiar textual sources from a new perspective.

NWO-Veni: The Meaning of Pain in Spiritual Poetry in English, 1531 - 1660

Title The Meaning of Pain in Spiritual Poetry in English, 1531-1660
Department     English Language and Culture
Researcher dr. J.F. van Dijkhuizen
Term  01-09-2006 until 31-08-2010
Budget Eur 135.200,00


Summary
This research project proceeds from the idea that the experience of pain, far from being a purely bodily sensation, is powerfully mediated by cultural belief systems. In the early modern period, religion provided a vital tool for interpreting pain. At the same time, as a result of the Protestant Reformation, religious conceptions of physical suffering were undergoing fundamental changes. Indeed, it is to the Reformation era that we can attribute the beginnings of modern notions of physical pain as meaningless. Reformation theologians denied the idea, crucial in late medieval religious culture, that physical suffering could contribute to salvation. In this way, they greatly diminished the theological significance of pain. At most, physical suffering could serve as a spiritual warning to sinful Christians. These shifts in early modern religious views on pain were often piecemeal and full of contradictions. This is especially true for early modern England, with its shifting attitude towards the Reformation. This project seeks to study the changing meanings of physical suffering from a literary perspective. It argues that the theological and cultural complexities and ambivalences surrounding the issue of pain were explored with special intensity in the spiritual poetry of early modern England. Religious poetry formed a cultural laboratory in which the implications of emerging Reformed views on pain were addressed, in which rival conceptions of pain were confronted, and in which new ways of interpreting pain were constructed. In consequence, spiritual poets drew on theological discourses, but also linked these to a variety of medical models of pain. The project focuses on the era between Henry VIII's break with Rome in 1531 and the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660. The overall aim of the project is to produce a monograph on the meaning of pain in spiritual poetry in English written during this period.


Publications
  • J F van Dijkhuizen (2008). In Thy Passion Slain: Donne, Herbert, and the Theology of Pain. in: The Reformation Unsettled. Antwerpen: pp. 59-85. ISBN 978 2503526249 .
  • J F van Dijkhuizen (2009). Partakers of Pain: Religious Meanings of Pain in Early Modern England. in: The Sense of Suffering. Leiden: pp. 189-221. ISBN 978 90 04 17247 0.
  • J F van Dijkhuizen (2009). Introduction: Constructions of Physical Pain in Early Modern Culture. in: The Sense of Suffering. Leiden: pp. 1-19. ISBN 978 90 04 17247 0.

NWO-Veni: The Poetics of Prose. The Use of Prose in Middle Dutch Literature

Title The Poetics of Prose. The Use of Prose in Middle Dutch Literature
Department Dutch Language and Culture
Researcher     Dr. J.M. van Driel
Term 01-02-2009 until 31-01-2012
Budget Eur 208.000,00


Summary
Nearly all present-day fiction and non-fiction literature is written in prose. In our oldest medieval literature, however, the dominant medium is rhyme. The scarcity of of prose in Medieval Dutch literature is remarkable and has not been explained fully. This project wants to retrieve the factors that governed the use of prose and that of verse in Middle Dutch literature and to describe how the influence of these factors has developed during the Middle Ages, from the early 13th century till in the 15th century.
In this project medieval prose will be considered a medium with intrinsic stylistic possibilities, not an unbound form that is lacking poetical features. The approach of this project combines methods from several disciplines: an analysis of the formal features of prose will be combined with investigations of the function of medieval literature and its public. Central attention will be given to the poetical opinions of medieval Dutch writers on the form and style of their works.

NWO-Veni: Indigenous Roots of the Dutch Renaissance. A Study of the Conceptions of the Medieval in Early Modern Dutch Literature

Title Indigenous Roots of the Dutch Renaissance. A Study of the Conceptions of
the Medieval in Early Modern Dutch Literature
Department     Dutch Language and Culture
Researcher dr. O. van Marion
Term 01-01-2009 until 31-12-2012
Budget Eur 208.000,00


Summary
The starting point of the research project proposed is the fascinating paradox in Dutch literature that many literary sources from the Middle Ages were still creatively used, interpreted and adapted by early modern authors and editors, while the various histories of Dutch literature take a perspective of discontinuity, of a rapture between the Middle Ages and the early modern period, dominated by classicism and humanism. The project will take the opposite perspective and look at the transition from the Middle Ages to the following centuries as a continuous process. Not only were medieval classics avidly read and adapted, authors also used medieval themes and characters to gain acceptance for the new poetical or political ideas. The project intends to investigate the various conceptions of the medieval in early modern literature; the sources will be studied from a new perspective, focussing on canonical and uncanonical texts, following a current in the international field of medievalism.

NWO-Veni: Shaping Roman virtue. Early Roman oratory and the fashioning of aristocratic identity in the Empire

Title Shaping Roman virtue. Early Roman oratory and the fashioning of aristocratic identity in the Empire
Supervisor     dr. C.H. Pieper
Department          Greek and Latin languages and cultures
Researcher dr. C.H. Pieper
Term 01-01-2010 until 31-12-2013
Budget Eur 235.000,00


Summary
Even in our time, the model for rhetorical theory and practice remains classical antiquity, notably the Roman orator Cicero. But what about the orators that came before Cicero? Our knowledge of pre-Ciceronian oratory, of which we possess only a few, strongly fragmented original texts, is largely based on Cicero?s Brutus. In this work, however, Cicero constructs an ?ideal orator? which implies that his view on the earlier period is all but objective. Factual literary history of early Roman oratory is therefore impossible to achieve. Rather, my project aims to analyse pre-Ciceronian rhetoric in the context of the later shaping of Roman and especially aristocratic values. Traditionally, oratory was a key competence of the Roman upper classes. They used it to ensure the stability of the political and social system on which their power was based. With the end of the republic, space for oratory in political debate was much reduced, since major decisions were now taken by the emperor. In response, the Roman nobility had to reshape its social identity and negotiate its position. One argumentative strategy in this process was the fashioning of an idealized image of republican eloquence and the ancient orators. By the insertion of their concept of ?republican oratory? as cultural capital within a socio-cultural canon, they shaped themselves as the true carriers of republican values. Thus discourse about republican oratory became itself an instrument for stabilizing contemporary identities. My project will map this process of negotiation from the end of the 1st century BC to the 2nd century AD. I will contrast the cultural fashioning of republican orators with the fragmentary remains of their texts in order to establish points of contact and disagreement. The hypothesis is that our understanding of these fragments cannot be separated from the imperial process of shaping ideal oratory.

NWO-Veni: The Sublime in Context

Title The Sublime in Context
Supervisor     dr. C.C. de Jonge
Department          Greek and Latin languages and cultures
Researcher dr. C.C. de Jonge
Term 01-01-2010 until 31-12-2012
Budget Eur 250.000,00


Summary
Does the Sublime have a context? One of the most influential concepts of ancient rhetorical and literary theory, the Sublime (Greek: hupsos) inspired many modern thinkers such as Kant, Burke and Schopenhauer. In the first century BC, rhetoricians seem to have developed the terminology of hupsos (literally height) in order to describe the special effect of a passage in prose or poetry that enchants and completely overwhelms the audience. The modern fascination for the sublime is ultimately based on the ancient rhetorical treatise On the Sublime (Peri hupsous), the unknown author of which is commonly referred to as Longinus. Because both date and authorship of this work are unknown, scholars have traditionally regarded the treatise as an isolated, unique and even mysterious piece of ancient literary criticism. Peri hupsous is considered to be so timeless that it seems to be a work without context. This research project, however, aims at placing the ancient Sublime (and the treatise that made it famous) in its intellectual context, by examining the close connections between Longinus and five disciplines that are highly relevant to his work: (1) rhetorical theory, (2) technical grammar, (3) poetic criticism, (4) art and architecture and (5) the theory and practice of literary composition in Augustan poetry. Through close reading, intertextuality and discourse analysis, On the Sublime will be compared with the works of a number of Greek and Roman authors who represent the five contexts mentioned. By relating Longinus' discourse and ideas to these different disciplines, we will be able to reconstruct the intellectual context of his rich and multidisciplinary treatise. This reading of Longinus within the rhetorical, cultural, literary and intellectual world of the first centuries BC and AD will result in a new early history of one of the most influential categories in the history of literature.

NWO-Veni: Female Spies or 'she-Intelligencers': Towards a Gendered History of Seventeenth-Century Espionage

Title Female Spies or 'she-Intelligencers': Towards a Gendered History of Seventeenth-Century Espionage
Supervisor     dr. N.N.W. Akkerman
Department          English language and culture
Researcher dr. N.N.W. Akkerman
Term 01-03-2011 until 28-02-2015
Budget Eur 250.000,00


Summary
The role of female spies in early modern Europe was much more extensive than scholars have assumed until now. Women could not be appointed as ambassadors or official diplomats. They were, however, welcomed within alternative, semi-private spaces - such as the secretariats of households and distribution centres of mail - engaging with the production, surveying and gathering of intelligence. The scholarship that has been done on English early modern convents on the Continent reveals the more worldly activities of nuns: their involvement in politics and espionage. A few nuns who acted as spies for the Stuart cause have received significant attention. Yet these and other case studies are still considered as isolated incidents. The predominant historiography of early modern intelligence or espionage typically characterizes the seventeenth-century world of the spy as a female-free zone.

This project argues that female spying activities were by no means out of the ordinary in the context of British intercontinental relations in the first half of the seventeenth century. In fact, playwrights, nurses, ladies-in-waiting, postmistresses, and women in other professions and positions operated as spies during this period. This means that they secretly obtained information from the enemy either out of political or religious convictions, or to obtain money or power. Unlike men, these women were not restricted by codes of chivalry and honour. Sometimes they worked alone, but there is substantial evidence to suggest involvement in secret spy networks. Hitherto unexamined archival material reveals the underground whereabouts of early modern female spies. For the first time, it is possible to comprehensively explore their contribution to the European spying trade in the seventeenth century. By analysing neglected (continental) spy centres and integrating these groups of female intelligencers into the traditional, male-orientated historical narratives, I will proceed towards a gendered history of early modern espionage.

NWO-VENI: The intimate voice of the Russian Avant-garde: adapting the aesthetic self and the rise of Socialist Realism

Title The intimate voice of the Russian Avant-garde: adapting the aesthetic self and the rise of Socialist Realism
Supervisor     dr. J.L.J. Scheijen
Department         Slavic languages and cultures
Researchers dr. J.L.J. Scheijen
Term 01-01-2011 tot 31-12-2014
Budget Eur 250.000,00 


Summary
This proposed research uses ego-documents from visual artists that were not intended for publication to reassess the scholarly debate on the demise of the Russian Avant-garde aesthetic in the twenties and early thirties of the 20th century. It provides an alternative perspective on the public discussions in the Russian art world that preceded and orchestrated the rise of Socialist Realism, before its official canonization in 1932. While a majority of Avant-garde artists identified with the rules of Stalinist society, and the official course of the artistic bureaucracy, they also had to come to terms with a severe loss of cultural capital. In diaries, intimate correspondence, and other autobiographical practices they created intricate private narratives to legitimize these losses ? narratives that challenge reductionist approaches to the question of the demise of the Avant-garde aesthetic.

While providing new perspectives on a long standing scholarly debate, it will also bring to the fore an important body of texts from archival collections by esteemed artists like Vladimir Tatlin, El Lissitzky and Solomon Nikritin, that have passed unnoticed by western and Russian researchers alike.

Key words: Russian Avant-garde, Ego-documents, Socialist Realism, Stalinism, Avant-garde aesthetic

NWO-VENI: Visions of Rome. Strategic Appropriation of the Roman Heritage in Humanist Latin Poetry

Title Visions of Rome. Strategic Appropriation of the Roman Heritage in Humanist Latin Poetry
Supervisor     dr. S.T.M. de Beer
Department         Classics and Classical Civilization
Researchers dr. S.T.M. de Beer
Term 07-05-2011 tot 31-01-2015
Budget Eur 240.000,00 



Summary
Capitol Hill in Washington and Mussolini's triumphal road along the Forum Romanum both present a visual connection to ancient Rome that supports a claim to power. These claims could only be plausible because the city of Rome was - and still is - a heritage site of shared cultural, political and religious milestones. This central position is largely the result of the activities of the Renaissance humanists. They fervently uncovered the glorious Roman past that was still perceptible in the ruined monuments and the Latin Classics. At the same time they restored the Roman heritage by new literary output. This process of preservation and renovation is reflected in the visions of Rome articulated in humanist Latin poetry. A systematic study of these texts is particularly rewarding, because they were written by the main agents in this process, and combine ancient and contemporary, visual and literary images of the eternal city.

These images range from Rome as the capital of a powerful empire to a ruined city; from Rome as the iconic centre of Christian faith to the target of the Protestant Reformation. This research project aims at mapping and understanding these contrasting visions, by viewing them as the result of a dynamic process of selection, interpretation and appropriation of the Roman heritage. It is my hypothesis that these images were strategically employed in order to shape the identities of the humanists and their audience and to legitimize the political and religious powers involved. I furthermore assume that the Latin literary genres, themes and motifs employed support and unite these strategies.

By adopting a multidisciplinary approach, consisting of literary, cultural-historical and sociological methods I will offer a new interpretative framework for the flexibility of the Roman image as strategic appropriation of Rome's literary and cultural heritage.





NWO-Cultural Dynamics: Cultural Representations of Living Nature: Dynamics of Intermedial Recording in Text and Image (ca. 1550-1670)

Title Cultural Representations of Living Nature: Dynamics of Intermedial Recording in Text and Image (ca. 1550-1670)
Supervisor     Prof.dr. P.J. Smith
Department Franse taal en cultuur
Researcher drs. M.E. Rikken
  Dr. M.F. Egmond
Term 01-01-2010 tot 01-01-2015
Budget Eur 430.727,00 voor personele kosten
  Eur 34.000 voor materiële kosten 


Summary
Natural History in Europe changed in a fundamental way after 1550. Knowledge of nature grew exponentially thanks to new discovered species, and new research methods and models of description. The micro-world of insects and other small creatures became a new focus of attention, moreover, partly on account of the invention of the microscope c. 1610 in Italy and the Netherlands. This increase of knowledge caused frictions between the traditional, emblematic worldview and a more scientific one. Signs of these frictions can be discerned in the visual arts and literature.

How did early modern science document the living micro-world and macro-world? How was this scientific documentation transposed to the visual arts and literature? And how did it change medium, for instance from collection (herbarium, collection of curiosities, botanical garden, menagerie) to scientific drawing, printed scientific publication, painting or literature?

Three projects investigate these questions for the period 1550-1670, and share the perspective of intermediality:

1. the interest in the micro-world before and shortly after the invention of the microscope in Italy and the Netherlands (c. 1550-1670);

2. the role of natural history (both the micro- and the macro-world) in paintings by Joris Hoefnagel (1542-c.1600), Jan Brueghel the Elder (1568-1625) and Jan van Kessel (1626-1679).

3. the friction between animal symbolism and zoology in the pictorial and literary representation of the Fall from Dürer to Rembrandt and Vondel.

The relatively long time-span (c. 1550-1670) allows the investigation of the changing frictions between the emblematic and the scientific worldview in a historical perspective.



Publication

P.J. Smith (2010). Diersymboliek in Rembrandts "Zondeval" (1638) en in Vondels "Adam in ballingschap" (1664). De zeventiende eeuw. pp. 2-20. ISSN 0921-142x.

NWO-Vrije competitie: The Limits of Language

Title The Limits of Language
Supervisor Prof.dr. I. Sluiter
Department       Greek and Latin Languages and Cultures
Researchers Dr. A.M. Rademaker
Drs. C.L. Caspers
Dr. R.M. van den Berg
Term 01-08-2004 until 31-12-2009
Budget Eur 160.194,00
+ Eur 10.820,00


 
Title Early Intellectuals on Language: Presocratic and Sophistic Views on Language
Department Greek and Latin Languages and Cultures
Reseacher         Dr. A.M. Rademaker
Term 01-08-2004 until 06-12-2009
Budget Eur 163.812,00
  + Eur 4.538,00



Title Dramatic Views on Languages: ideas on language found in Greek tragedy and comedy
Department Greek and Latin Languages and Cultures
Researcher         Drs. C.L. Caspers
Term 01-01-2005 tot 31-12-2009
Budget Eur 157.683,00
Eur 4.538,00



Summary
Using an innovative integrated combination of approaches, this project aims to reassess the earliest Greek ideas on language, literature and communication in projects on the earliest Greek intellectuals and the dramatists; it will then study the way these ideas are reflected in Plato`s Cratylus, first highlight of the history of linguistic thought, and point of reference for all later thinkers on language.



Publications 
  • H. Lamers, A.M. Rademaker (2007). Talking about myself: a pragmatic approach to the use of aspect forms in Lysias 12.4-19. pp. 458-476.
  • R.M. v.d. Berg (2008). review of B. Ancheschi, 'Die Götternamen in Platons Kratylos'.
  • I. Sluiter (2009). 'Socrates als de ideale man'. pp. 3-14.
Book chapters
  • I. Sluiter, R.M. Rosen, I. Sluiter (2008). 'General Introduction'. in: KAKOS. Badness and Anti-Value in Classical Antiquity. Leiden: pp. 1-27.

NWO-Vrije competitie: The Literary Construction of Cultural Identity in Germany after the 'Wende'

Title The Literary Construction of Cultural Identity in Germany after the 'Wende'
Supervisor Prof.dr. A. Visser
Department       German Language and Culture
Researchers Drs. I.M. Maçzka
Dr. K. Thijs
Term 01-07-2004 until 31-12-2009
Budget Eur 160.194,00
  Eur 10.820,00



Title Simple Storys (sic) oder Helden der Geschichte? Kommunikative Erinnerung an Leben in DDR
Department German Language and Culture
Researcher         Dr. K. Thijs
Term 01-03-2006 until 31-12-2009
Budget Eur 162.227,00
Eur 4.538,00



Summary
The program aims to develop a new and sophisticated theoretical basis for analyzing the contributions made by literature to the construction of (collective) cultural identity. To this end it will combine and supplement four methodological approaches, and use these for an innovative and challenging combination of case studies on Germany after 1990. In all case studies, the emphasis will be on the use and representation of the past.    



Publications
  • I.M. Maczka (2006). Pictures of the Fall of the Berlin Wall in Post-"Wende" Germany. pp. 27-36.
  • K. Thijs (2007). Deutsches Opfergedenken. Von der westdeutschen Provinz in die Weltstadt Berlin. pp. 15-33.
  • K. Thijs (2007). Een volk van slachtoffers.. Over de recente aandacht voor het Duitse oorlogsleed. pp. 16-20.
  • K. Thijs (2007). Een volk van daders en slachtoffers?. Over de recente aandacht voor het Duitse oorlogsleed. pp. 28-33.
  • A. Visser (2008). ...niemands Knecht, niemands Herr. pp. 128-134. ISSN 0018-4942.
  • dr. K. Thijs (2008). &um den Besitz der deutschen Geschichte.. Städtebau und Geschichtsdebatten im spätgeteilten Berlin. pp. 35-60.
  • K. Thijs (2008). It?s a Chuzpa!. Why German Victimization nevertheless doesn?t really bother Dutch Wartime Memory. pp. 164-184.
Book chapters
  • I Sluiter, A Visser (2004). "Playing The Persians": Remembering History In Literature. in: Living in Posterity Essays in Honour of Bart Westerweel. Hilversum: pp. 239-248. ISBN 90-6550-839-2.
  • K Thijs, P. Dassen, T. Nijhuis, K Thijs, P Dassen (2007). Slachtoffers in het land van de daders. Inleiding. in: Duitsers als slachtoffers. Einde van een taboe? (Amsterdam, 2007). Amsterdam: ISBN 978 90 5330 553 9.
  • K. Thijs, P Dassen, T. Nijhuis, K. Thijs (2007). Sileziërs, soldaten en andere onschuldigen. Vier conflicten uit het herinneringsjaar 1985. in: Duitsers als slachtoffers. Einde van een taboe?. Amsterdam: ISBN 978 90 5330 553 9 .
  • A. Visser, E. Schörkhuber (2007). "Wieso hast du das so erzählt?" Trügerische Identitäten in Die Vertreibung aus der Hölle. in: Was einmal wirklich war.. Wien: pp. 110-133.
  • A. Visser, P. Dassen, K. Thijs, T. Nijhuis (2007). "Alsof klanken en woorden er vandoor waren gegaan" ? Duitse slachtoffers en Duitse literatuur. in: Duitsers als slachtoffers. Het einde van een taboe?. Amsterdam: pp. 257-304.
  • I.M. Maczka (2008). Pictures of the Fall of the Berlin Wall in German Cinema. in: Berlin's Culturescape in the Twentieth Century. Regina: pp. 183-199. ISBN 978-0-88977-224-.
  • prof. dr. A. Visser (2008). Kommunikative Erinnerung an Leben in der DDR. in: Gedächtnis und Identität. Die deutsche Literatur nach der Vereinigung. Würzburg: pp. 69-84. ISBN 978-3-8260-3788-7.
  • A. Visser (2009). Wo war ich? Wo bin ich?? Zur Lyrik Heinz Czechowskis. in: Neulektüren - New Readings.. Amsterdam/Atlanta: pp. 319-340. ISBN 978-90-420-2524-0.

More information: Centrum voor Taal en Identiteit (CTI)

NWO-Vrije competitie: Carolus Clusius and Sixteenth-Century Botany in the Context of the New Cultural History of Science

Title Carolus Clusius and Sixteenth-Century Botany in the Context of the New Cultural History of Science
Supervisor prof.dr. P.G. Hoftijzer
Department Book Studies
Researchers     Drs. E. van Gelder
Drs. S.M.W. van Zanen
Dr. M.F. Egmond
Term 01-09-2005 until 14-09-2010
Budget Eur 21.407,00



Title Natural history in the making. Carolus Clusius and the European community of naturalists
Department Book Studies
Researcher      Dr. M.F. Egmond
Term 01-09-2005 until 31-08-2009
Budget Eur 159.986,00
+ Eur 5.000,00



Title Exchange and language in Clusius' European network of botanists: French and Latin (circa 1560-1610)
Department Book Studies
Researcher        Drs. S.M.W. van Zanen
Term 15-09-2005 tot 14-09-2010
Budget Eur 151.804,00
+ Eur 5.000,00  

 
Title Clusius and botany in the context of Austrian court and aristocratic culture (circa 1570-1590)
Department Book Studies/ History
Researcher        Drs. E. van Gelder
Term 01-09-2005 until 28-02-2010
Budget Eur 151.857,00
+ Eur 5.000,00



Summary
Focusing on the most important European botanist of the sixteenth century, Carolus Clusius (1526-1609), his work and network, this research project investigates how European botany became a field of specialist, scientific expertise during the period 1550-1610. This process took place both inside and outside the universities, while botany continued to have strong roots in practical expertise. The new cultural history of science forms the theoretical framework of the project and has inspired the choice of three closely related principal themes and questions: 1) how sixteenth-century courts, aristocratic households, towns and universities functioned as ateliers of knowledge and contributed to the development of types of botanical expertise, research methods and forms of presentation; 2) which types of exchange (of information and gifts) shaped the growing European community of botanical experts; and 3) what Clusius? contribution was to the innovation of botanical research practices. By investigating these topics, the project intends to explore the relatively underdeveloped field of practical knowledge and its contribution to science; throw more light on networks, exchanges and research practices that were part of the European republic of letters and precursors to the scientific revolution; and contribute to the discussions about the formation of scientific fields of expertise.  



Publications
  • Dr. M.F. Egmond (2005). Clusius, Cluyt, Saint Omer. The origins of the sixteenth-century botanical and zoological watercolours in Libri Picturati A. 16-30. pp. 11-67.
  • F.M. Egmond (2007). The Clusius Project. Clusius and Sixteenth-century Botany in the Context of the New Cultural History of Science. pp. 66-68.
  • MA E. van Gelder (2008). Recensie van A. Goldgar, Tulipmania. Money, honor, and knowledge in the Dutch Golden Age (Chicago/London, 2007)). pp. 138-140.
  • dr M.F. Egmond (2008). Apothecaries as experts and brokers in the sixteenth-century network of the naturalist Carolus Clusius. pp. 59-91.
Book chapters 
  • E. van Gelder, T. Monquil-Broersen, E. Stoop, J. Belinfante (2007). Paddestoelen in de zestiende eeuw. in: Universitaire collecties in Nederland. Zwolle: pp. 23-23.
  • E. Gelder, S.M.W. van Zanen, K. van Ommen, G. Warnar, A. Vrolijk (2007). 755 A 3: Ctrl+X en Ctrl+V. Knip-en plakwerk in Carolus Clusius' verzameld werk. in: Aangeraakt. Leiden: pp. 90-98.
  • F.M. Egmond, P.G. Hoftijzer, F.M. Egmond, R.W.P. Visser (2007). Clusius and Friends: cultures of exchange in the circles of European naturalists. in: Carolus Clusius. Amsterdam: pp. 9-49.
  • F.M. Egmond, K. Enenkel, P.J. Smith (2007). Curious fish: connections between some sixteenth-century watercolours and prints. in: Early Modern Zoology. Leiden/Boston: pp. 245-272.
  • F.M. Egmond, N. Koniordos, D. Ramada Curto, A. Molho (2007). A European community of scholars: exchange and friendship among early modern natural historians. in: Finding Europe. New York: pp. 159-183.
  • F.M. Egmond, F. Bethencourt, F.M. Egmond (2007). Correspondence and natural history in the sixteenth century: cultures of exchange in the circle of Carolus Clusius. in: Correspondence and Cultural Exchange in Early Modern Europe 1400-1700. Cambridge: pp. 104-142.
  • M.F. Egmond, dr G. van Uffelen, dr A. Zemanek, dr J. de Koning, dr B. Zemanek (2008). The making of the Libri Picturati A.16-30. in: Drawn after Nature. The complete botanical watercolours of the 16th-century Libri Picturati. Zeist: pp. 13-21. ISBN 9789050112383.
  • M.F. Egmond, L. Ramon-Laca Menendez de Luarca, B. Zemanek, A. Zemanek,  J. de Koning, G. van Uffelen (2008). Dramatis Personae. in: Drawn after Nature. The complete botanical watercolours of the 16th-century Libri Picturati. Zeist: pp. 45-48. ISBN 9789050112383.
  • G. van Uffelen, M.F. Egmond (2008). Sources cited in the annotations. in: Drawn after Nature. The complete botanical watercolours of the 16th-century Libri Picturati. Zeist: pp. 51-52. ISBN 9789050112383. 

    More information

    Website Carolus Clusius Project 

NWO-Vrije competitie: The New Management of Knowledge in the Early Modern Period: The Transmission of Classical Latin Literature via Neo-Latin Commentaries

Title The New Management of Knowledge in the Early Modern Period: The Transmission of Classical Latin Literature via Neo-Latin Commentaries
Supervisor Prof.dr. K.A.E. Enenkel
Department Greek and Latin Languages and Cultures
Researchers      Dr. C.H. Pieper
Dhr. M.H.K. Jansen
Dr. S.T.M. de Beer
Dr. A.S.Q. Visser
Term 01-04-2008 until 30-06-2012
Budget Eur 82.649,00
+ Eur 57.300,00



Title Neo-Latin Commentaries on Latin Poets: Roman poetry as Literary Model and Archive of Knowledge
Department Greek and Latin Languages and Cultures
Researcher       Dhr. M.H.K. Jansen
Term 01-07-2008 until 30-06-2012
Budget Eur 177.495,00
+ Eur 5.000,00



Title Roman Scientific and Encyclopaedic Literature: Foundation and Authorisation of Early Modern Knowledge
Department Greek and Latin Languages and Cultures
Researchers      Dr. A.S.Q. Visser
  Dr. S.T.M. de Beer
Term 01-01-2009 until 30-06-2011
Budget Eur 174.911,00
+ Eur 5.000,00



Summary
This programmatic research focuses on the transmission of classical Latin literature through Neo-Latin commentaries in the early modern period. In the early modern period - ca. 1480-1700 - the whole of classical Latin literature became available in new editions, accompanied by textual commentaries. For the new transmission of knowledge, the Neo-Latin commentary was of pivotal importance. Spot checks have led to the hypothesis that Neo-Latin commentaries offer an extremely complex exegesis that systematically unlocks the classical texts for diverse disciplines and practices of knowledge, such as medicine, geography, zoology, agriculture, hunting, horsemanship and so on. In this respect, the Neo-Latin commentary differs fundamentally from the modern practice in classical philology. The early modern commentators transformed the classical texts into multifunctional archives of knowledge which were considered the basis of almost all areas of scholarship and science. This programmatic research analyses the various strategies of commenting which were used to achieve this goal, and relates them to discourses of the knowledge areas at which the commentaries were directed. Because of the heterogeneity and the quantity of the sources, NWO's programmatic research offers an ideal form to make this research possible. This programme consists of two well defined projects (1 dissertation, 1 monograph), as well as a synthesis to be written by the programme director. Project 1 and 2 study the commentaries on two very different sorts of texts: Roman metrical poetry (epos, lyric poetry, comedy) (The Neo-Latin Commentary: Roman Poetry as Literary Model and Archive of Knowledge) and classical Latin scientific prose, such as treatises on natural history, agriculture and so on (Roman Scientific and Encyclopaedic Literature - Foundation and Authorisation of Early Modern Knowledge). The programme director will write a synthetic, systematic monograph in which he will deepen and explore the results of the more detailed research projects within a broader framework of early modern intellectual life: the reception of classical antiquity, the history of science, the history of education and the history of reading. In this way the project will offer a thorough, comprehensive, and innovative examination of the important field of the Neo-Latin commentary, which is a serious desideratum at this moment.

NWO-Vrije competitie: Cultures of Collecting

Title Anatomical Collections as Public History
Supervisor prof.dr. R. Zwijnenberg
Department       Art History
Researcher Dr. H.G. Knoeff
Term 01-10-2008 until 30-09-2012
Budget Eur 176.904,00
+ Eur 5.000,00



Title Collecting pathological anatomy
Department Art History
Researcher         Drs. H. Huistra
Term 01-12-2008 untilt 30-11-2012
Budget Eur 177.495,00
+ Eur 5.000,00



Title Collections of perfection
Department        Art History
Researchr        Drs. M.M.A. Hendriksen
Term 01-09-2008 until 31-08-2012
Budget Eur 177.495,00
+ Eur 5.000,00
                                    

Website project 'Cultures of Collecting'

NWO-Internationalisering: Storehouses of Wholesome Learning. Accumulation and Dissemination of Encyclopeadic Knowledge in the Early Middle Ages

Titel Storehouses of Wholesome Learning. Accumulation an dissemination of Encyclopeadic Knowledge in the Early Middle Ages
Supervisor Prof.dr. A.J. Vanderjagt (RU Groningen)
Department English Language and Culture
Researchers     Prof.dr. R.H. Bremmer (Leiden)
Prof.dr. P. Lendinara, dr. F.E. Alcamesi, prof.dr. C. Giliberto, prof.dr. C. Rizzo, prof.dr. L. Teresi (Univ. of Palermo)
Dr. K. Dekker, dr. K.E. Olsen (RU Groningen) e.a.
Term 1-1-2004 until 12-2-2009 (ending in 2009)
Budget Eur 34.000 voor materiële kosten
 


Summary
The aim of this project is the study of the transmission and development of encyclopaedic knowledge in the early Middle Ages (500-1200). During this period, miscellanies of scholian texts, including abecedaria, glossaries, epigrams and encyclopaedic texts, made up an important part of the cultural blood-line from the Mediterranean World to North-Western Europe. Such collections, a number of which have been preserved in manuscripts in the University Library at Leiden, have, until now, been studied mostly from a traditional philological perspective. In this project, miscellanies of early medieval encyclopaedic and scholian texts will be evaluated along modern interdisciplinary lines, in an integrated way, as storehouses of learning functioning as vehicles of culture. Hence, special attention will be paid to the reciprocal cohesion between individual texts and to the relation between texts and book. To achieve this aim, the seventh-century Italian mission to England will be recontextualised by focussing on the scholars who compiled and collected these encyclopaedic texts. The nature and the contents of these miscellanies will be assessed according to whether they were basic school texts or advanced scholarly works. Thus, the rationale behind the compilation of the collections, with regard to their interpretation and to the hermeneutical principles involved, will be studied against the role of the individual scribes and scholars, as well as of monastic policies and the scholarly climate, at the time.

The project originates from a long period of previous scholarly contacts between its organisers. The participants consist of an international group of scholars, from Italy and the Netherlands, who have all been working in this field. They will meet for annual workshops in Palermo, Leiden and Groningen, which will each be devoted to a major aspect of the project. The results of the workshops will be published in a series of three volumes to constitute an essential result of the project. No less important, though, will be the opportunity to intensify the scholarly contacts between Italy and the Netherlands, and the creation of a stimulating international platform for these studies.


Project's website

NWO-Internationalisering: Prehistories of the Sublime

Title Prehistories of the Sublime
Supervisor Prof.dr. C.A. van Eck
Department Art History
Researchers     Prof.dr. Caroline van Eck, Maarten Delbeke (Leiden)
  Helen Hills, Anthony Geraghty (York)
  Lina Bolzoni (Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa).
Term 01-01-2007 until 31-12-2009
Budget Eur 32.100,00



Summary
The history of the sublime is easy to write; but not so its prehistory, that is its development from the first editions and translations in the 16th century until its codification as an aesthetic concept by Burke and Kant after 1750. In the treatise Peri Hupsous or 'On the Sublime' the 1st-century orator Longinus described the experience of the sublime as one which sweeps readers or viewers along, robs them of rational control over their feelings, and opens hitherto unknown vistas of the infinite, the horrendous, or the incomprehensible. Longinus description continues to raise many questions, not the least what kind of experience this is: amazement or wonder, aesthetic enjoyment, religious or mystical rapture. It seems easy to say the sublime experience is related to all these sensations at the same time, but this in itself is the very issue we seek to address. How exactly did this complex notion function in the period before its codification, with which meanings was it endowed, and what is its relationship to the 'neighbouring' experiences that we just mentioned?   After the codification of the sublime by Burke and Kant the term came to stand for an aesthetic concept; but before 1750, it escaped easy disciplinary classification. Contrary to a widely held belief, many Greek editions and translations were made from the 1550s onwards, but very few of them have been studied. The discipline that wrote the history of the sublime after 1750 is that of aesthetics; but that discipline itself evolved only in the course of the 18th century. As a result, aesthetics imposed a conceptual grid on the sublime as described by Longinus and others that made it very difficult to reconstruct its pre-modern genealogy. To study the history of the sublime before 1750, therefore, raises two problems: on the one hand, its meaning cannot be located in a monodisciplinary way (e.g. as an aesthetic concept, on a par with the beautiful or the ugly); on the other hand, in early modern Europe experiences that after 1750 would be characterized as sublime did occur, but were labelled differently: as experiences of wonder and amazement, as mystical experiences of rapture, as horror or fear. As a consequence, any investigation in the pre-history of the sublime has to be multi-disciplinary, drawing on rhetoric, art history, history of philosophy and religion, literary studies and anthropology. This programme starts at the origins of such a prehistory: to investigate early editions of Longinus.



Publication
  • C.A. van Eck (2007). Longinus' Essay on the Sublime and the 'Most Solemn and Awfull Appearance of Hawksmoor's Churches. pp. 1-7.

NWO-Internationalisering: The Material Basis of Disciplinarity

Title The Material Basis of Disciplinarity
Department       Art History
Researcher Prof.dr. M.A. Meadow
Term 01-09-2008 until 31-08-2011
Budget Eur 36.000,00



Summary
In the research process, universities acquire and produce material artefacts and specimens in enormous numbers, in some cases dwarfing library holdings in both quantity and financial worth. Organized into research and teaching collections, these myriad things have a determining effect on the formation, development and practice of academic disciplines. This is not a merely historical phenomenon; universities continue to accrue collections at a high rate. One need only think of the almost exponential growth of biological, bio-medical, archaeological and ethnographic collections to confirm this fact. The consolidation of the Netherlands? biological collections in Leiden as a joint bio-diversity initiative between the university and the Rijksmuseum Naturalis is a dramatic example unfolding at this very moment. Yet surprisingly little is known at a comprehensive level about the historic or current roles of material collections in the university, since they are dispersed physically and administratively across the disciplinary spectrum. This lack of knowledge can have profound consequences, as decisions are being made about the fate of university collections at a highly local level and with a very narrow historical perspective.

NWO-Internationalisering: Precarity and Post-autonomia: the Global Heritage

Title Precarity and Post-autonomia: the Global Heritage
Department       Literary Studies
Researcher Prof.dr. F.W.A. Korsten
Term 01-09-2010 until 31-08-2013
Budget Eur 31.875,00


Summary
This project aims to create an international network of researchers that explores the global heritage of the Italian autonomia-movement from the 1960-70s in contemporary cultural and social movements, but with a particular reference to Italy, France and the US. The focal point of the project will be the notion of precarity, as it is developed and represented in different social movements and which has been greatly influenced by a number of theories and theorists associated with the Italian autonomia-movement and their French associates, and has become a key-concept in cultural theory in the US.

NWO-Internationalisering: Multimedia Research and Documentation of African Oral Genres: Connecting Diasporas and Local Audiences

Title Multimedia Research and Documentation of African Oral Genres: Connecting Diasporas and Local Audiences
Department     Languages and Cultures of Africa
Researcher Dr. D. Merolla
Term 01-10-2010 tot 30-09-2013
Budget Eur 21.250,00



Summary
The project Multimedia Research and Documentation of African Oral Genres: Connecting Diasporas and Local Audiences focuses on multimedia as technology that allows scholars to share documentation and scientific knowledge with the cultural owners of the collected oral genres.

The present project builds on the experience and results of the previous three-year program (see previous project African oral literatures, new media and technologies: challenges for research and documentation). Reassessing the scope of the previous project, a series of conferences and workshops will be organized to discuss and implement two distinct but correlated topics: a) the use of electronic tools to reach and to 'activate' larger audiences, in particular African diasporas and local publics, and b) the theoretical reflection on partnership (scholars, storytellers, technicians, and amateur/activist documentarians) in documentation and research.

The visibility of African Oral Literatures as field of study will be enhanced by joint scientific publications and new research projects of the network members and thanks to the cooperation with The World Oral Literature Project (see below).

The present proposal enlarges the previous network by involving new partner institutes and individual researchers. European Universities participate in the monetary matching. African Universities participate with human resources and local facilities.

The previous partners have confirmed their participation: Leiden University, the University of Hamburg, the Institut National des Langues et Civilizations Orientales INALCO (Paris), the University of Naples L'Orientale, and the School of African and Oriental Studies SOAS (London). New institutional contacts have been established with African universities and researchers: the Language Centre of the University of Ghana (Accra, Ghana), the School of Languages of Rhodes University (South Africa), and the University of Bamako (Mali). Another valuable addition to the network is the participation of The World Oral Project (director: Dr. M. Turin, Cambridge University GB) that will strengthen the comparative aspects of the academic collaboration. The World Oral Literature Project supports video documentation of orality worldwide with the interactive website http://www.oralliterature.org

NWO-Internationalisering: From Idol to Museum Piece: Alternative Histories of Sculpture 1660-1815

Title From Idol to Museum Piece: Alternative Histories of Sculpture 1660-1815
Supervisor Prof.dr. C.A. van Eck
Department Art History
Researchers     Prof.dr. C.A. van Eck
Term 01-09-2011 tot 30-08-2014
Budget Eur 39.850,00

 

Summary
The publication of Winckelmann's Geschichte der Kunst des Altertums in 1764 is generally considered as the defining moment in the genesis of the modern, scholarly study of sculpture. Its immediate success and recognition as a new departure in the study of classical art however has obscured from view other ways of studying the history of sculpture and thinking about the meaning and importance of that art: from the history of idolatry by Borboni and Lemée to the anthropological and ethnographical approaches to the origins, religious role and cultural meaning of sculpture by De Brosses, Guasco, Dulaure and Quatremère de Quincy. The aim of this program is to bring together European and American experts from art history and major European sculpture departments to reconstruct these alternative histories, which have regained their relevance now that the assumptions on which Winckelmann's Geschichte was based have been submitted to a radical critique; to publish their major texts in critical editions and to present the results of this program as well in museum contexts.


NWO-Mozaïek: Pushing the Limits

Title Pushing the Limits
Supervisor    Prof.dr. E.J. van Alphen
Opleiding Literarary Studies
Researcher Drs. I.E.E. Jansen
Term 01-01-2007 until 31-12-2010
Budget Eur 180.000,00



Summary
The research will examine how contemporary cinema engaging with cultural hybridity, relocates the boundaries of mainstream film conventions and thus develops new narrative strategies.

NWO-Mozaïek: Transcultural Creation in the French-Persian Literature after the Eighties

Title Transcultural creation in the French-Persian literature after the Eighties
Supervisor Prof.dr. P.J. Smith
Department    French Language and Culture
Researcher E. Daneshvar Tehranizadeh MA
Term 01-11-2008 until 31-10-2012
Budget Eur 180.000,00



Summary
A study of interferences between French Western structures and the method of writing of Iranian authors in exile. Which type of Western infiltrations could be twinned with an impregnated Eastern culture rich in poetry and Persian mythology, but also marked by an often politicized Islam; and which are the results?

NWO-Mozaïek: Mysticism for a new age: Hendriks Herp's 'Spieghel der volcomenheit'...Franciscan observance in the Low Countries

Titel Mysticism for a new age: Hendrik Herp's Spieghel der volcomenheit in manuscript and print (c. 1445/60 - 1552) and the franciscan observance in the Low Countries
Supervisor    A. Dlabacova, MPhil
Department     Dutch Language and Culture
Researcher A. Dlabacova, Mphil
Term 01-09-2009 until 31-08-2013
Budget Eur 200.000,00


Summary
This project aims to comprehend the popularity of the Spieghel der volcomenheit by Hendrik Herp (written c. 1455), a manual for mystical life, by describing and analyzing the text and its transmission in manuscript and print within its contemporary context, namely the historical and literary background of the religious movement of the Franciscan Observance.

NWO-Startsubsidie: StudioLab

Title StudioLab
Supervisor    Prof.dr. R. Zwijnenberg
Department    Art History
Uitvoerder Prof.dr. R. Zwijnenberg
Location Faculty of Science / Organic Chemistry
Term 9-01-2009 until 31-08-2009
Budget Eur 35.000,00



Summary
The purpose of this start subsidy is to draw up an application for NWO Investment Subsidy Large to establish a StudioLab as part of The Arts and Genomics Centre. The StudioLab will be a unique research facility located within the Faculty of Sciences where artists, life scientists and researchers from the humanities can meet to discuss and work together on art-life sciences research projects. The StudioLab will be actively involved in public agenda setting on contemporary issues related to the life sciences, including biodiversity, the greenhouse effect and biotechnology.

NWO-Toptalent: Cultural identity in the Byzantine diaspora literature of Italy, 1400-1500

Title Cultural identity in the Byzantine diaspora literature of Italy, 1400-1500 
Supervisor Prof.dr. K.A.E. Enenkel
Department    Greek and Latin Languages and Cultures
Researcher H. Lamers, Mphil
Term 1-9-2008 until 1-9-2012
Budget Euro € 180.000

Summary
Lamers intends to chart the strategies with which Byzantine refugees created a cultural identity on Italian soil.  In their literature they tried to position themselves convincingly in the complex social-cultural situation in which they were placed as a result of migration.

NWO-Toptalent: Real estate in Latin Poetry

Title Real estate in Latin poetry
Supervisor Prof.dr. J. Booth
Department     Greek Languages and Cultures
Researcher B.L. Reitz, MPhil
Term 1-9-2008 until 1-9-2012
Budget Euro 180.000

Summary
In her research on 'Engineering poetry - the process of construction in classical Latin verse', Reitz analyses how the themes of architecture and building are represented in Latin poetry in the first century of the Roman Empire.  Reitz is investigating the place of this theme in poetry, and is looking at the relationship between literary studies and architectural history.

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Last Modified: 19-12-2011