Theorizing blackness and whiteness in historical perspective in the Netherlands

ir/relevance of race seminar with Dienke Hondius

Lecture

Forthcoming ir/relevance of race seminar with Dienke Hondius, Assistant Professor of Contemporary History at Free University Amsterdam. Abstract will follow

About the lecturer

Dienke Hondius is Assistant Professor of Contemporary History at Free University Amsterdam. She holds an MA in History and a PhD in Social Sciences from the University of Amsterdam, and taught at Erasmus University and Utrecht University.
Among her books are “Lessons of War: trends in education about World War II since 1945” (Bert Bakker, Amsterdam 2010); “Return: Holocaust Survivors and Dutch Anti-Semitism” (Praeger/Greenwood Press, Westport, CT, 2003), and “Memories of the Jewish Lyceum in Amsterdam, 1941-43” (Vassallucci, Amsterdam 2001).
Her PhD was a study of the acceptance of interracial, interethnic and interreligious relations (“Gemengde Huwelijken, Gemengde Gevoelens”. SDU, Den Haag 1999 and 2001).
Her latest book is called “Blackness in Western Europe: Racial Patterns of Paternalism and Exclusion” (Transaction Publishers, New Jersey 2014), and on July 1 of this year the “Amsterdam Guide Slavery Heritage. 100+ Locations, with maps and illustrations” (LM Publishers, Arnhem 2014) will be published, authored by Dienke Hondius, Nancy Jouwe, Dineke Stam, Jennifer Tosch & Annemarie de Wildt.
She launched a new research initiative to make maps of the Amsterdam, Dutch and European urban involvement in the history of slavery and the slave trade with the presentation of a first Google map of Amsterdam slave owners in 1863. Other activities include teaching at the summer school Black Europe : Dimensions of Citizenship, Race, and Ethnic Relations (Amsterdam), and a board membership of the international humanitarian student leadership organisation Humanity in Action. 

About the seminar series

In this seminar series the relevance and irrelevance of race are being discussed as an object and concept of research in order to explore ways to talk about race without naturalizing differences. The series goes beyond a standard definition of race, one that is allegedly relevant everywhere, and situates race in specific practices of research. In addition the series gives room to the various different versions of race that can be found in the European context and explore when and how populations, religions, and cultures become naturalized and racialized. Scholars from different (inter)disciplinary fields (such as genetics, anthropology, philosophy, cultural studies, history, political sciences, science and technology studies) are invited to address the issue of race through a paper presentation. The seminar is held every six weeks at the University of Amsterdam. Webpage Seminar Series

Published by  AISSR