Position

• Associate Professor (UHD) of Early Modern History
• NWO VIDI-Research Fellow, 2015-

Fields of Interest

Atlantic World   -   News and Public Opinion   -   History of the Illustrated Book   -   Travel Literature

My current project is a book-length study provisionally titled Amsterdam's Atlantic: Public Opinion and the Making of Dutch Brazil. It explores the history of a single, hotly contested colony that generated extensive media coverage and fueled public debate in Amsterdam during the Dutch Golden Age. By examining pamphlets, maps, and paintings alongside previously unused sources such as newspapers, poetry, private correspondence, soldiers' diaries, and alba amicorum, this book unravels the ways in which Dutch Brazil transformed (and was transformed by) the discussion culture of the United Provinces. Amsterdam's Atlantic is under contract with the University of Pennsylvania Press.

Education

• PhD History, University of Amsterdam, 2007 (cum laude)
• MA History and Culture of the Dutch Golden Age, University College London, 2000 (with honours)
• MA (doctoraal) History, University of Groningen, 1999
• MA (doctoraal) Dutch Literature, University of Groningen, 1999

Previous positions and fellowships

• Queen Wilhelmina Visiting Professor, Columbia University in New York, 2013
• NWO VENI-Research Fellow, 2008-2012
• Honorary Research Fellow, Birkbeck, University of London, 2011
• Dr. Ernst Crone Research Fellow, National Maritime Museum Amsterdam, 2007-2008
• Lecturer, American Studies, University of Amsterdam, 2006-2008
• Lecturer, Dutch Renaissance Literature, University College London, 2002 & 2005
• Guest Researcher, Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel, 2004
• Research Fellow, The Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome, 1999 & 2001

The Legacy of Dutch Brazil (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014)  

The Legacy of Dutch Brazil argues that Dutch Brazil is an integral part of Atlantic history, and had an impact well beyond colonial and national narratives in The Netherlands and Brazil. As a geographical and political entity, the colony existed only between 1624 and 1654, but the implications of this bold northern European infiltration into the Iberian sphere of influence were nevertheless profound.

In this volume, thirteen authors trace the geopolitical and cultural impact of Dutch Brazil on the Atlantic World. Collectively they pose the question whether the way we think about this remarkable colonial interlude today is the product of conventional historical wisdom or a set of functional myths.

The Legacy of Dutch Brazil contains chapters by Wim Klooster, Stuart Schwartz, Mark Meuwese, Roquinaldo Ferreira, Mariana Françozo, Evan Haefeli, Johan Verberckmoes, Neil Safier, Arthur Weststeijn, Rebecca Parker Brienen, Julie Berger Hochstrasser, and Joan-Pau Rubiés.

Representations of the Overseas World in the De Bry Collection of Voyages, 1590-1634 (Leiden: Brill, 2008)

The De Bry collection of voyages is one of the most monumental publications of early modern Europe. It comprises 27 folio-volumes, published simultaneously in Latin and German, and contains nearly 600 large-scale copper engravings of European voyages to America, Africa, and Asia.

In this book I argue that the De Bry family manipulated some of Europe's best known travel accounts for their collection in order to reach different readerships: The Latin version was aimed at Catholic readers and humanists, the German edition at Protestant readers in Northern Europe. The book dismisses the notion that the De Bry collection was intended as Calvinist propaganda. This argument is supported by the biography of the De Brys and their publishing firm, the changes they made to the texts and images of original travel accounts, an analysis of the collection's entry on the Index Librorum Expurgatorum in Spain and Portugal, and an identification of Protestants and Catholics who purchased the collection.

A paperback edition (2012) has appeared in Brill's Paperback Collection.

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