Since 2020, I am working at The University of Amsterdam as an Assistant Professor in Dutch Literature. It is my job to explore the connections between historical and modern literature from a decolonial perspective, in the broadest sense. With colleagues I am developing a new course about landscape and ecology in Dutch literature from the Medieval period to the 21st century, as well as a new programme for Dutch Studies focusing on inclusion and diversity in Dutch culture and society in a global context.

After finishing my PhD at the UvA in 2015, I have worked as a teacher at the universities of Leiden, Utrecht, Nijmegen, Greenwich (London), and Groningen, at departments varying from Comparative Literature, Philosophy, Cultural Studies, and Literary Studies. I have taught courses in creative writing at ArtEZ Arnhem, as well as international summer schools for IES Abroad Amsterdam (Gender and Sexuality in Dutch Literature) and the Utrecht Summerschool (Art History of the 17th Century). 

Currently, I am a member of the advisory board ‘Poetry and Prose’ for the Dutch Foundation for Literature, and a member of the editorial board of De Zeven Provinciën Reeks. Before, I have been a member of the juries for the VSB Poetry Prize (2016) and the Libris Literature Price (2017), and a member of the advisory board ‘Literature and Theatre’ for the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts (2017-2019).

My research focuses on the early modern literary roots of anti-colonialism. It aims to bring marginalised voices to the fore, creating a more balanced understanding of the Dutch colonial past. My current project ‘Literary Unsettlements’ combines methods from Early Modern Literature and Postcolonial Theory to recover voices of dissent in early modern colonial discourse, and to gain insight into present-day cultural representations of the 17th century, such as the 'Golden Age', that have kept these voices hidden from our view. Within this project, my article about Spinozism and colonialism has been awarded the ASCA Article Award 2021.

With colleagues from Utrecht and Leiden, I am organizing a two-day conference on ‘Slavery in the Cultural Imagination’ on 28-29 October 2021. We are also setting up a new research network, Colonial Diffractions, of literary scholars from Flanders, Germany and the Netherlands studying ‘tolerance’ as a central element of Dutch cultural identity, and its precarious relation to colonial oppression.

I am currently working on a book publication on free speech in the work of the Dutch poet Joost van den Vondel. It utilises the Foucauldian notion of parrhesia to demonstrate how Vondel ‘dramatised’ political discourse in the Dutch Republic.