Dutch Studies Commons^™

“What Are You?” An Exploration Of Race And Mixed Identity In The Netherlands, Claire Haug

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The Netherlands is a country well-known for its multiculturalism and politics of tolerance. But is this the whole story? How do colonial legacies impact the current racial politics in the Netherlands, and how does this framework differ from that of the U.S.? This zine, along with reflective artist’s statement and literature review, provides background in both colonial histories and current language and context around mixed race/bicultural identities and the regulation of interracial relationships in the Netherlands. Furthermore, it explores my own relationship with my mixed identity, as a student coming from the U.S. to the Netherlands.

Mapping Colonial Interdependencies In Dutch Brazil: European Linen & Brasilianen Identity, Carrie Anderson

Artl@s Bulletin

In Dutch Brazil, the Brasilianen were essential allies to the West India Company. To maintain this critical alliance, the Dutch presented them with gifts of linen, a fabric in high demand. Representations of Brasilianen wearing linen garments were pervasive and include an image on Joan Blaeu’s 1647 map of the Brazilian Captaincies of Rio Grande and Paraíba. Traditional interpretations of these linen-clad Brasilianen prioritize a center/periphery model; in contrast, I argue that these pictured linens document the interdependencies between the WIC and the Brasilianen, a position supported by digital maps plotting Dutch/indigenous exchanges.

Frank Thoughts: Investigating The Construction Of Anne Frank As A Site Of Heritage And Identity Formation In A Globalized Postholocaust Society, Sarah Silverstein

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This research begins to investigate the ways constructions of Dutch-Jewish history and the Holocaust in the Netherlands post World War II have become active symbols of heritage or physical sites of heritage for tourists and host communities alike. In this paper I consider the ways in which the memorialization of Anne Frank in Amsterdam and the human rights violations documented more broadly in the host community, the Netherlands, during the Holocaust has and continues to influence identity politics of the Dutch nation-state, its culture, and citizens on both a local and global stage in contemporary times. The “Jewish History – …

To Save A Soul? Analyzing Hieronymus Bosch’S Death And The Miser, Ryan Bilger

Student Publications

The Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch remains to this day one of the most famous artists of the Northern Renaissance. His unique style and fantastical images have made him an icon beyond his years. Bosch’s painting Death and the Miser, now in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., stands out as one of his most thematically complex paintings, packed with pertinent details and allusions to other works of his and those created by other artists. His inclusion of various demonic creatures, the figure of Death, and an angel and crucifix create a tense atmosphere surrounding the passing of the …

Critical Citizen Engagement: The Black Pete Controversy, Anti-Racism Activism, And Limits To Citizenship In The Netherlands, Lianne M.A. Mulder

Western Research Forum

Background

This research analyses the engagement of Dutch citizens with a migration background in anti-racism activism, specifically activism against the blackface caricature Black Pete. It aims to answer how and why their citizenship is questioned when they become critical participants of civil society, and how this relates to the history of Dutch colonialism, the denial of racism, and the self-image of white Dutch people as ‘good, tolerant, and innocent’ despite evidence to the contrary.

Methods

The research is based on literature and field research and uses a theoretical framework based on critical race theory, citizenship studies, and decolonial theory.

Results …

Keeping Our Eyes Open: Visualizing Networks And Art History, Stephanie Porras

Artl@s Bulletin

Network visualizations have the potential to translate messy archival work into clouds of connection, powerful maps of relations that can reveal hidden agents or nodes of production. But network visualizations must also be understood as artifacts of our own visual culture, laden with the biases and limits of both past and present knowledge systems. Rather than seeing networks as uniform webs of connection, social network analysis must productively interrogate how biopolitical, cultural and social power are manifested within these visualizations, reinforcing the biases and lacunae of the archive.

Hell In Hand: Fear And Hope In The Hellmouths Of The Hours Of Catherine Of Cleves, Stephanie Lish

Theses and Dissertations

This paper is an attempt to investigate how well the borders and miniatures of The Hours of Catherine of Cleves facilitated the method of meditation recommended by Gerard Zerbolt of Zutphen and therefore was a useful tool in Catherine’s search for eternal salvation.

The Spike Of Female Soccer Players In The Netherlands Since 2010, Morgan Colley

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

In the Dutch society, the sport of soccer, also known as football, draws a lot of attention and has millions of followers when it comes to the men’s soccer clubs. The most common and widely celebrated soccer teams in the Netherlands are the major teams, such as, AJAX, PSV and Feyenoord, all being male soccer teams. There is a lack of female soccer clubs around the Netherlands when comparing it to the number of male soccer clubs. Women’s soccer is underrepresented in the news of Dutch sports media and obviously overpowered by the enthusiasm surrounding men’s soccer. Only in the …

Pink Parenthood: An Exploration Of Lesbian Parenting In The Netherlands, Sophia Ladner

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This is an explorative study of Dutch Lesbian parents and their experiences having and raising children in Dutch society. This research explores the social attitudes surrounding lesbian parents in Amsterdam and another city to see how their experiences are shaped by factors including their sexual orientation, their construction of family, and the relationships and values they feel are important to impart on their children. 5 qualitative interviews, four with married couples, and 1 solo interview, laid the groundwork for the research. The data from the interviews was analyzed using existing texts on LGBTQ, within a framework of social constructionist theory. …

A Boy In Hiding: Surviving The Nazis, Amsterdam 1940-1945, Stan Rubens

Zea E-Books Collection

A Boy in Hiding: Surviving the Nazis is a poignant, true-survival story of a young boy who hid for four years underground in Holland during World War II. A Boy in Hiding sheds a light on the difficult road that lay ahead for Anne Frank—had she survived. This book is written from the point of view of an eight-year-old boy growing up too fast during the five years of the war. Now, sixty years later, Rubens gives a voice to the young boy, who—despite the hard times and difficulties he encountered, never lost his positive view on life.

Voices Trapped Within The Portrait: Annetje Kool Pieter Vanderlyn And The Expectations Regarding Gender In Public And Private Spheres In A Burgeoning Nation, Abigail Hollander

Honors Theses

The main subjects of this study, Pieter Vanderlyn, the attributed artist of “A Portrait of Annetje Kool” (c.1740), and Annetje Kool, the sitter, both had subversive identities relative to the sociocultural expectations of New Netherland, a Hudson River Valley based settlement. The oil portrait on canvas depicts a young woman in an elaborate dress with lace and gilt embellishments. To understand this portrait’s historical context, this thesis examines how male and female voices functioned on the margins of the moral boundaries that shaped expectations of gender appropriate thought and action during the colonial, revolutionary, and post-revolutionary eras in New York …

Mary Of Nemmigen, With Its Dutch Analogue Mariken Van Nieumeghen, Clifford Davidson, Ton Broos, Martin Walsh

Clifford Davidson

Under The Floorboards, Greg Sennema

Library Publications

My grandfather Theo Polman (1904-1965) maintained a daily diary for his entire adult life, recording both banal and dramatic events that occurred in and around his home in Groningen. In reading and rereading his diary – in particular the dark years of Nazi occupation – I have become intimately familiar with the quotidian details of his life as a tobacco-store owner, as a doting husband to his homemaker wife, and as a caring father to his son and daughter (my mother). Theo's descriptions of tangible objects including heirlooms or food items are easily detectable in my own upbringing as a …

Motherhood In The Feast Of St. Nicholas, Rukmini Girish

Audre Lorde Writing Prize

No abstract provided.

Huggies, High-Fives, And Huismannen: Exploring The Masculinity And Everyday Experiences Of Dutch Stay-At-Home Fathers, Courtney C. Grey

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This qualitative research study explores Dutch stay-at-home fathers, or “huismannen,” and their everyday experiences with their role and their own masculinity. There has been much research conducted on stay-at-home fathers within other countries and cultures, but the current research significantly lacks the perspective and voices of those within the Dutch culture. To gather these voices, oral history interviews were conducted with five Dutch huismannen, and the collected data were analyzed using gender theory focused on masculinity and current relevant literature. This analysis led to the conclusion that Dutch stay-at-home fathers create and conform to a complicit masculine identity. …

Canadian Christian Nationalism?: The Religiosity And Politics Of The Christian Heritage Party Of Canada, Leah A D Mckeen

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

In this dissertation I examines the worldview and concerns held by members of the Christian Heritage Party of Canada (CHP) as a means of understanding Canada’s Christian Right. I present a perspective of Canada’s Christian Right that challenges assumptions made about this religio-political ideology by showing how the political choices made by members of the CHP make sense within the members’ context. The CHP is a federal political party, first registered in 1986, that markets itself as “Canada’s only pro-life party.” Although the party was initially developed by a group of conservative Protestants and Roman Catholics, the majority of its …

Dutch Landscape Painting: Documenting Globalization And Environmental Imagination, Irene J. Klaver

Proceedings from the Document Academy

There is an old saying that God made the Earth, but the Dutch made the Netherlands; they did this by engineering relationships of the water and land.

The Dutch landscape is an authored landscape documenting human reaction to geological, economic, and cultural changes. As a consequence of Dutch globalization, landscape painting arose as a new form of painting, documenting these changes and reactions to them. In a period of newly created land, reclaimed and constructed by sheer human activity, the explicit construction of new environments apparently elicited an implicit desire to hold on to an older, familiar traditional landscape. The …

Guest Editorial, Herman J. De Vries

University Faculty Publications and Creative Works

No abstract provided.

Conscience's De Leeuw Van Vlaanderen (The Lion Of Flanders) And Its Adaptation To Film By Claus, Gertjan Willems

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Conscience's De Leeuw van Vlaanderen (The Lion of Flanders) and Its Adaptation to Film by Claus" Gertjan Willems discusses Hugo Claus's 1984 filmic adaptation of Hendrik Conscience's 1838 historical novel, a landmark in the history of the Flemish Movement. Willems's analysis is executed by means of a textual film analysis and archival research. Willems pays special attention to the Flemish-Dutch coproduction's complex relations with the national question. Despite various difficulties concerning Flemish nationalist sensitivities of the project, the producers wanted the film to be as faithful as possible to Conscience's novel. This resulted in an …

The Joint Archives Of Holland Celebrates 25 Years Of Service, Geoffrey D. Reynolds

Faculty Publications

This year marks the twenty-fifth year since the founding of the Joint Archives of Holland (JAH) as a cooperative program at Hope College. Since then, the staff, comprised of dozens of students, dedicated volunteers, a secretary, and professionally trained archivists, have collected, processed, preserved and given access to thousands of feet of archival resources to countless researchers around the world. Prior to the 1988 founding of the JAH, over three decades of archival work by volunteers and part-time staff had been done at Hope College, Western Theological Seminary, the Netherlands Museum and City of Holland, to pave the way for …