Activities

My research interests concern (early modern) Dutch literary culture (ca. 1600-1800) in terms of literary topics, themes and authors, for instance: drama, pamphlets and satire; images of the self & the other, national identities and diversity, citizenship, the Dutch canon, female authorship; Brongersma, Coornhert, Focquenbroch, Smids, Vondel, Vos. See Publications.

My modern re-translation (prose, in Dutch) of Vondel’s (in)famous tragedy Lucifer(1654) was published in November 2022. Reviews: Tzum (Jan de Jong), Lekker lang lezen (Inge van Weel), Spiegel der Letteren (Lieke van Deinsen). Bijdragen op neerlandistiek.nl van o.a. Marie José Klaver, Frans Willem Korsten, Marita Mathijsen & Mathijs Sanders.

Currently I am preparing a book about ca. 20 early modern Dutch female authors in the northern provinces (co-author Jannie van der Kloet) and a revised edition of the comedy Warenar (P.C. Hooft) in the educational series Tekst in Context (Amsterdam University Press).

September 2011- August 2020 (retirement): director Dutch Studies Program (University of Groningen)

September 2018 – July 2020: member of the Meesterschapsteam Nederlands

1-1-2017 – 1-1-2021: member Advisory Board (Biography Committee) Dutch Foundation for Literature

May 2013 -January 2019: chief-editor of Internationale Neerlandistiek (Amsterdam University Press) the peer reviewed journal of the Internationale Vereniging voor Neerlandistiek (IVN)

Until September 2018: member of the editorial board of Nederlandse letterkunde, peer reviewed (A-)journal on (Dutch) literary studies (Amsterdam University Press). 

In mijn vrije tijd ben ik vrijwilliger-gids bij het Kloostermuseum St. Bernardushof in Aduard, vrijwilliger-secretaris van de Aduarder Tennis Club en, sinds mijn pensioen (1/8/2020), vrijwilliger-bestuurslid van de Stichting Voedselbank Het Hogeland. Ook ga ik als gecertificeerd  florist (beginner) graag mee met plantenexcursies (Floron, KNNV, IVN). Op 7 juli 2021 rondde ik Floron’s Basiscursus Flora succesvol af.