Temperatures are dropping. Frosty winds made moan... We can't help but think of old king Isidoor in that famous Annie M.G. Schmidt poem, who suddenly feels the urge to go skating on the frozen lake...
It is a good time to look back on the past year in Dutch Studies, and there are also some things to look forward to.
All postgraduate students and Early Career Researchers in Dutch and Flemish history, literature, art history, translation studies, linguistics, and sociology are invited to London for the 4th edition of the ALCS Postgraduate Colloquium. This international meeting will take place at UCL and is designed to foster links between British and Irish Low Countries Studies and scholars from other countries, and to support the next generation of researchers in our field.
More details and a CfP will follow soon.
After an overwhelming success and by popular demand, we are currently organising a second edition of the ALCS Zomercursus. This Dutch Language Course will be hosted once more by University of Edinburgh. The course is supported by the Nederlandse Taalunie and open to all students of Dutch in the UK and Ireland, from higher beginners to advanced level (A1-B2).
Apart from interactive language sessions, there will be themed workshops, interesting talks and other activities. More information on how to enroll will follow soon!
UCL Dutch and Dutch at Sheffield are very much looking forward to welcoming Dutch novelist and poet Simone Atangana Bekono (1991) as their next Taalunie Writer in Residence.
Atangana Bekono won the prestigious Charlotte Köhler Stipendium for new Dutch writers. How the First Sparks became Visible, her first collection of poems, was published in 2016 and translated into English by David Colmer in 2021. In 2018 she won the Poëziedebuutprijs Aan Zee for this collection in 2018. Besides poetry, Atangana Bekono also writes prose. Her debut novel Confrontaties appeared in September 2020.
JOURNAL - DUTCH CROSSING
Our flagship journal Dutch Crossing: Journal of Low Countries Studies continues to develop successfully. At present it has a very healthy h-index of 9 according to Harzing's Publish and Perish. The complete journal run from 1977 to the present day is now available online.
Does your library have a subscription to Dutch Crossing? If not, please encourage them to do so!
ESSAY PRIZE: 15 JUNE 2023
Undergraduate and Postgraduate Students, and Early Career Researchers are warmly invited to submit their essays and (short) dissertations on any area of Low Countries Studies (linguistics, literature, cultural studies, history, art history, politics, etc.) for one of the annual ALCS Essay Prizes.
Essays should be sent in electronic form (Word or PDF) to Dr Carol Fehringer, Secretary of the ALCS Committee: carol.fehringer@ncl.ac.uk
RESEARCH GRANTS: 15 JUNE 2023
ALCS members are welcome to apply for small research grants. Requests for funding can be sent to the ALCS Treasurer, Dr Jenny Watson: jenny.watson@ed.ac.uk
LOOKING BACK...
The 14th ALCS Biennial Conference at the University of Edinburgh was all about 'homing in' on home in a Low Countries context. After two years of zoom and teams it was a great pleasure to physically welcome 27 speakers, coming from 9 different countries and 3 different continents. Our keynote speakers were Ester Mijers (Edinburgh), Jan Willem Duyvendak (Amsterdam), Olivia Rutazibwa (London), and Malgorzata Drwal (Poznan).
We are grateful for the time and effort everyone took to share their research and thoughts on a variety of topics. Their talks were inspiring, their enthusiasm contagious. The 15th ALCS Conference will be held in 2024 at the University of Sheffield, which will be celebrating 75 years of Dutch!
The first edition of the ALCS Dutch Summer School for students of Dutch in the UK and Ireland was a great success! From 3 until 8 July 2022, around 25 students of Dutch from all over the UK flocked together in Edinburgh for a week of language sessions, workshops, outings and cultural events exploring the cultural, political and economic links between Scotland and the Low Countries.
"I have come away with closer friendships, a better cultural understanding of both the Low Countries and Scotland, and ultimately more confidence in my ability to communicate in Dutch", says student Emma Halliburton.
The ALCS Summer School was kindly supported by de Nederlandse Taalunie.
This year’s ALCS UG Dissertation prize went to Gemma Blacker (University of Sheffield) for her dissertation on Toon Tellegen’s Transnational Transfer: How a Dutch Author Crossed International, Linguistic, and Gender Boundaries.
The ALCS Essay Prize was awarded to Lydia Cope (University of Sheffield) for her essay on How the sense of belonging to a nation is shaped and mediated through family ties in Johan Fretz’s Onder de Paramariboom
ALCS Research Grants were granted this year to Adam Sammut (University of London), Annie Ochmanek (Columbia University), and Jacob Baxter (University of St Andrews).
In March 2022, writer and performer Rashif El Kaoui visited London and Sheffield as our Taalunie Writer in Residence 2022. Together with the professional guidance of literary translator Jonathan Reeder, final year students in Dutch put themselves to translating El Kaoui’s critically acclaimed theatre text De bastaard.
This project was sponsored by the Nederlandse Taalunie & Literatuur Vlaanderen.
Book Launch: Pieter Geyl & Britain, edited by Stijn van Rossem and Ulrich Tiedau
On 17 October 2022, the UCL Institute for Advanced Studies launched this new publication by our Dutch Crossing Editor in Chief Ulrich Tiedau on Pieter Geyl. The volume reexamines Geyl’s relationship with Britain (and the Anglophone world at large) and sheds new light on his multi-faceted work as a historian, journalist, homme de lettres and political activist.
Pieter Geyl (1887—1966) remains one of the most internationally renowned Dutch historians of the twentieth century, but also one of the most controversial. Having come to the UK as a journalist, he started his academic career at University College London in the aftermath of World War I. A prolific writer and an early example of a ‘public intellectual’, Geyl remains one of the most influential thinkers on history of his time.
The book was launched in the presence of Laura van Voorst-Vader (Netherlands Embassy) and Bart Brosius (Flanders House).
On 27 April 2022, the ALCS and the Dutch Centre at Austin Friars in London welcomed Barbara Essenboom (chair 30 June – 1 July Committee), Lieven Miguel Kandolo (Hand in hand against racism), Adam Duckworth (National Museums of Liverpool), and Megan Strutt (Sheffield student) to explore how and what young people in the Netherlands, Belgium and the UK learn about Empire, and how the colonial legacy is presented in public life. The debate was moderated by Dr Henriette Louwerse (ALCS).
It doesn't happen very often, but it happened in March at the Sheffield Drama Studio! For this year's edition of the SLC Theatre Festival, students of Dutch performed Baltazar Krulls hart zingt maneschijn, a free adaptation by Dr Filip De Ceuster of Kurt Köhler's 1934 novel, performed in English and Dutch!
As one of the few experts on Flanders' prominent author Maurice Gilliams, ALCS Director Filip De Ceuster contributed to a four-part podcast series discussing the life and works of this intriguing poet and novelist.
All four episodes were broadcast on the Belgian national Radio Klara – equivalent of BBC Radio 3 – and are available on most media platforms, including spotify.