Geschiedenis van de moderne Nederlandse literatuur [A new History of Modern Dutch Literature]

Geschiedenis van de moderne Nederlandse literatuur is an attempt to de-essentialize the central concepts of literary history. Romanticism, realism, avant-garde, modernism, and postmodernism are being reconceptualized as discursive frames that direct the interpretation of texts. Contrary to the existing textbooks in Dutch literary history the book does not focus on labeling or periodization. Instead, it provides a literary-historical method that is based on discourse analysis. It shows how different frames reveal different textual signals (metaphors, binary oppositions) and different critical perspectives on modernity within the same text. Hence, it focuses on the dynamics of literary heritage, not on the fixation of the canon.

• Review Geschiedenis van de moderne Nederlandse literatuur

• Sample Chapter Geschiedenis van de Moderne Nederlandse literatuur (ISSUU)

Reconsidering the Postmodern

Together with one of my colleagues at the University of Amsterdam, Yra van Dijk, I edited the volume Reconsidering the Postmodern: European Literature Beyond Relativism . The idea behind the book was simple: now that we have reached the point in which historical postmodernism, rightly or wrongly, has been declared defunct, it is time to critically evaluate itsliterary legacy. What has been the effect of historical postmodernism? Have we gone beyond it in literature, and why would we want to go beyond it? What criticisms have been leveled against it in the last decennia by writers and critics? What have they put in its place? To what extent do they rely for this on (conceptions of) literature that historical postmodernism had consigned to history?

• An article in the Journal of Dutch Literature related to the topic of Reconsidering the Postmodern

De revanche van de roman [The Revenge of the Novel]

My monograph De revanche van de roman; literatuur, autoriteit en engagement [The Revenge of the Novel; Literature, Legitimacy, and Commitment] was published by Uitgeverij Vantilt in 2009. The book, that turned out to be one of the most talked-of scholarly publications in Dutch literature ever (more than 50 reviews, a stir in Dutch literary journalism, reprints in 2010 and 2011), is about what I call late postmodernism (as in: historical postmodernism) and the novel. I describe historical postmodernism as a medicine against the liberal humanist conception of culture, a medicine that, in the course of the eighties and ninetieths appeared to have unpleasant side effects, such as relativism, cynicism, noncommittal irony. I try to explain the tendency towards engagement in Dutch novels, not as a late in the day rejection of historical postmodernism, but as a late postmodern reaction to these side effects.

• Publisher's information De Revanche van de Roman

Women's Writing

In 2009 Amsterdam University Press published the anthology Women's Writing from the Low Countries 1880-2010 t hat I edited with my colleague at the VU Amsterdam, Jacqueline Bel. This anthology offers English-speaking readers a chance to become acquainted with the leading Dutch and Flemish women writers since the 1880s. The book covers a representative range of public and private genres, from poetry, critical essays, travel literature, and political commentary to diaries and journals.

• Publisher's website

Ongerijmd succes [Poetry in an Unpoetic Age]

My book Ongerijmd succes; poëzie in een onpoëtische tijd  [Remarkable Success; Poetry in an Unpoetic Age], published by Uitgeverij Vantilt in 2006, is about contemporary poetryand about poets crossing the borders of poetry as we know it. One of the keywords for the contemporary poetry scene is intermediality: we see performance, poetry on the Web, poetry in art or even in public space. Where my other books are mostly focused on literary text and discourse, this one is more sociologically focused. It was published a few months after my appointment as a full professor at the University of Amsterdam and it marked, in a way, my formal leave as a journalistic literary critic (due to increased busyness I had to stop with my non-academic side activities). However, for some of my esteemed positivistic colleagues it may well be my most 'academic' book, because of the sociology and the statistics in it...

• Full Text Ongerijmd Succes (ISSUU)

Het boek was beter [Literature Between Autonomy and Massification]

When I was appointed as a professor at the University of Amsterdam in 2005 I held my inaugural lecture Het boek was beter; literatuur tussen autonomie en massificatie [The Book Was Better; Literature Between Autonomy and Massification]. By tradition, Amsterdam University Press published an extended version of the lecture. The small book is about the cultural transformations in the second half of the 20 th century that changed our perception of literature thoroughly. My case was J.J. Voskuil's Bij nader inzien (a novel about a group of students in Dutch literature at the University of Amsterdam in the late 1950s) and it's Wirkungsgeschichte (criticism, film adaptation).

• Full Text Het Boek Was Beter (ISSUU)

Postmoderne poëzie in Nederland en Vlaanderen [Postmodern Dutch Poetry]

Together with my friend and colleague Jos Joosten, professor of Dutch literature at RU Nijmegen, I wrote Postmoderne poëzie in Nederland en Vlaandereren, published by Uitgeverij Vantilt in 2003. In this much-cited book we attempt to reconsider the Dutch and Flemish poetical production since the 1980's in the light of historical postmodernism. The conception of historical postmodernism that we have developed first of all wants counter the (Dutch) communis opinio that there has been no avant-garde since the 1960s. The fact that also the non-mainstream contemporary poets have been co-opted by the commercial literary circus surely indicates that as an institute, the avant-garde has fundamentally changed its nature since the beginning of the last century, but that fact does not reduce the 'alterity' and 'foreignness' of the texts of the contemporary avant-garde.

• English article based upon Postmoderne poëzie in Nederland en Vlaanderen

• Full Text Postmoderne Poëzie in Nederland en Vlaanderen (ISSUU)

De verstoorde lezer [The Unsettled Reader]

In 2001, De verstoorde lezer; over de onbegrijpelijkepoëzie van Lucebert [The Unsettled Reader; Lucebert's Incomprehensible Poetry] was the first book I did with my current Dutch publisher: Uitgeverij Vantilt in Nijmegen. The book analyses how the Dutch poet and painter Lucebert (1924-1994) frustrates the classical reading strategies of new criticism end early structuralism, even beforenew criticism reached Dutch literary criticism. De verstoorde lezer  turned out to be the pilot for another book: Postmoderne poëzie in Nederland en Vlaanderen (see above).

• Full Text De Verstoorde Lezer (ISSUU)

Circus Dubio & Schroom [Dutch Poetry and the Mentality of Modernism]

In 1998 Uitgeverij De Arbeiderspers published my PhD-thesis Circus Dubio & Schroom; Nijhoff, van Ostaijen en de mentaliteit van het modernism  [Circus Waver & Hesitance; Dutch Poetry and the Mentality of Modernism]. In this book I challenge the idea of the (alleged) disinterestedness of historical modernism. I focus on the work and the poetics of two icons of Dutch historical modernism: the Dutch poet, critic and translator M. Nijhoff (1894-1953), and the Flemish poet and critic Paul van Ostaijen (1896-1928). I read their work against the light of classical social theory of Modernity (Max Weber, Theodor Adorno, Anthony Giddens, Zygmunt Bauman, Ernest Gellner: the idea of rationalization and disenchantment).

• Full Text Circus Dubio & Schroom (ISSUU)

PhD-Supervision Thomas Vaessens, UvA

In progress

Femke Essink MA: Adaptation and the Heritage of the Sixties 

http://www.uva.nl/over-de-uva/organisatie/medewerkers/content/e/s/f.m.essink/f.m.essink.html

Universiteit van Amsterdam

Supervisors: Thomas Vaessens, Gaston Franssen

Lisanne Snelders MA: The Dynamics of Literary Heritage. The Case of the Dutch East Indies

http://www.uva.nl/over-de-uva/organisatie/medewerkers/content/s/n/l.l.snelders/l.l.snelders.html

Universiteit van Amsterdam

Supervisors: Thomas Vaessens, Yra van Dijk, Paul Bijl

Rik Spanjers MA: Imagining the Past: Historical Comics and the Dynamics of Cultural Memory

http://www.uva.nl/over-de-uva/organisatie/medewerkers/content/s/p/r.spanjers/r.spanjers.html

Universiteit van Amsterdam

Supervisors: Thomas Vaessens, Yra van Dijk, Dan Hassler-Forrest

Anouk Zuurmond MA: Transnational Literary Projects: Strategies and Effects in the Debate on a European Cultural Identity

http://www.uva.nl/over-de-uva/organisatie/medewerkers/content/z/u/a.zuurmond/a.zuurmond.html

Universiteit van Amsterdam

Supervisors: Thomas Vaessens, Michael Wintle

Ilse van Rijn MA: A poetics of the artist’s text

Universiteit van Amsterdam

Supervisors: Thomas Vaessens, Jeroen Boomgaard, Lex Ter Braak

Accomplished

Dr. Johan Sonnenschein (16-3-2012): Kentering wending knik: dynamiek in modern dichterschap

http://dare.uva.nl/record/412704

Universiteit van Amsterdam

Supervisor: Thomas Vaessens

Dr. Edwin Praat (cum laude, 30-9-2011): Verrek, het is geen kunstenaar: Gerard Reve en het schrijverschap

http://www.uva.nl/over-de-uva/organisatie/medewerkers/content/p/r/e.praat/e.praat.html

Universiteit van Amsterdam

Supervisor: Thomas Vaessens

Dr. Johanna Bundschuh-van Duikeren (2013): Geschlecht und Postmoderne. Zur Auslotung eines komplexen Verhältnisses am Beispiel des niederländischsprachigen Romans

http://www.geisteswissenschaften.fu-berlin.de/we04/institut/mitarbeiter/bundschuh/index.html

Freie Universität Berlin

Supervisors: Jan Kons, Thomas Vaessens ('zweiter Gutachter')

Dr. Gaston Franssen (2008): Gerrit Kouwenaar en de politiek van het lezen

http://www.uva.nl/over-de-uva/organisatie/medewerkers/content/f/r/g.e.h.i.franssen/g.e.h.i.franssen.html

Universiteit Utrecht

Supervisors: Wiljan van den Akker, Thomas Vaessens

Thomas Vaessens is Professor in Dutch literature and Chair of the Dutch Department at the University of Amsterdam, and Academic director of the Netherlands Graduate School for Literary Studies (OSL). His publications in Dutch literature include monographs about Modernism, Postmodernism, poetry and intermediality, and Late Postmodernism. His most recent book is a new history of modern Dutch literature. He is a (founding) member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Dutch Literature . Current research-interests:  Modern and contemporary literature , Interdiscursivity  (literature and politics, literature and popular culture, literature and ethics...), the dynamics of literary heritage (Wirkungsgeschichte, effect/affect, appropriation), Adaptation, Functions of literature, Literarity, the Novel, Digital heritage.

Below you can find links to E-versions of some of my publications. You can find a complete list of my publications (7 books, 7 edited volumes, 50+ academic publications and 50+ professional publications) in the download-section on the right side of this page.

E-versions publications Thomas Vaessens

• On Dutch Literature Reconsidering Postmodernism (in English)

• On Arnon Grunberg and Literary Journalism (in English)

• On the Dutch literary magazine Das Mag (in Dutch)

• On Dutch Poet Laureate Gerrit Komrij (in English)

• On Postmodernism and Dutch Poetry (in English)

• On Dutch Writer M. Februari (in Dutch)

• On Charlie Chaplin and Literature (in Dutch)

• On Flemish Poet Paul van Ostaijen and Mass Culture (in English)

• On the Culture of Reading Today (in Dutch)

• On Literary History (in Dutch)

• On Dutch Poet and Painter Lucebert (in Dutch)

• On Dutch Poet Mustafa Stitou Discussing Western Modernity (in Dutch)

• On New Criticism in The Netherlands (in Dutch)

• On Flemish Poet Peter Verhelst (in Dutch)

• On Dutch Poetry Since 1980 (in German)

• On New Sincerity in Dutch Poetry (in Dutch)

• On the Study of Poetry and Interpretation in the Netherlands (in Dutch)

• On Procedural Poetry (in Dutch)

• My 2006 Book on Dutch Poetry and Intermediality (Ongerijmd Succes, in Dutch)

• My 2006 Inaugural Lecture on Literature Between Autonomy and Massification (in Dutch)

• My 2001 Book on Dutch Poet Lucebert and Postmodernism (in Dutch)

• Geen nevenwerkzaamheden