Review of the Research Institute for History and - Universiteit Utrecht

Renaissance culture in Europe (Italian), music and musical life in the Netherlands after the Middle Ages,
music and its poetics in the German Baroque, the music theatre in Germany in the fi rst half of the twentieth
century, and popular music of the twentieth and twenty-fi rst centuries. The establishment of two extra-ordinary
professorships, in Dutch Song Culture Now and in the Past (prof. Louis Grijp, since 2001), and Dutch
Music after 1600 (fi rst prof. Rokus de Groot, since 2000 prof. Emile Wennekes) has done much to reinforce
the study of Dutch music culture in recent years.
The various disciplines within the group have been working actively together in teaching programmes
for more than twenty years, since Riet Schenkeveld-van der Dussen, former professor of Early Modern
Dutch Literature, initiated the successful Utrecht interdisciplinary undergraduate programme Studies of the
Renaissance and the Baroque. Prof. Harald Hendrix (Italian Literature) took over from her and initiated,
together with Van Gemert, the new interfaculty MA programme in Renaissance Studies. The group has also
participated in the Erasmus teaching network on Emblematics, where dr Arie Jan Gelderblom is a prominent
fi gure. These innovations in teaching have in turn stimulated cooperation in research within the group,
between scholars of Dutch and Music; Dutch, English and Italian; English and Italian. This led to the (second)
series of Utrecht Renaissance Studies, publications on Imagology and on musical and literary historio graphy.
Another innovation by the Utrecht group relates to digital tools, especially for the study of emblems.
A 3. Processes in research, internal and external collaboration
Several collective efforts by members of this group, often undertaken in collaboration with colleagues from
outside Utrecht, have resulted in remarkable publications. Most prominent among these were a series of
books and articles on women writers, and a standard history of Dutch music.
Schenkeveld-Van der Dussen managed a Dutch-Flemish-South African collaborative project on the
history of early modern Dutch female authorship: Met en zonder lauwerkrans: schrijvende vrouwen uit de vroegmoderne
tijd (1997). This was followed by a more theoretically orientated, international KNAW-volume:
Writing the history of women’s writing in 2001, edited by Van Gemert and others.
Grijp was in charge of the equally large, multidisciplinary and international collaborative Muziekgeschiedenis
der Nederlanden (2001), with contributions by musicologists, art historians and literary historians.
Other international music projects are the thematic group on the circulation of music, managed by dr Rudolf
Rasch (ESF project Musical Life in Europe 1600-1900), and the NWO/DFG project on the German Music
Theatre, managed by Op de Coul, in collaboration with the University of Bayreuth. In this multidisciplinary
project 25 scholars from Europe and the USA study the production systems and various types of art in
German music theatre between 1900 and 1950.
Following the focus of ideologies in Dutch literature, Van Gemert chairs a group wich works on the
relations between the ideological (cultural, social, political, gendered etc.) content of literature and its poetic
instruments (rhetoric, genres etc.). They also study the reception of literature and methodological aspects of
research. This resulted in several externally fi nanced projects, managed by Utrecht scholars: 1. an international
project on the entire Dutch literary history (Gelderblom; funding by the Dutch and Flemish governments
and the Dutch Taalunie); 2. an international pioneering project on digitizing emblems (dr Els Stronks, NWO
grant); 3. a project on rhetorical strategies in pamphlets (dr Marijke Meijer Drees, NWO grant: Aspasia).
Members of Arts, cultures and their contexts have also contributed to the theme of international exchange
of cultural products, for example in an authoritative chapter by Hendrix on the European reception of Italian
literature in the Storia della letteratura italiana (2002), and a book, co-edited by dr Ton Hoenselaars on The
Italian World of English Renaissance Drama: Cultural Exchange and Intertextuality (1998). On the related theme
of imagology cooperating members of the group edited various volumes in the Utrecht Renaissance Studies
appeared (Vreemd volk, Beschaafde burgers), along with Meijer Drees’ contribution to the NWO IJkpunten
Programme Dutch Culture in a European Perspective (Andere landen, andere mensen 1997) and the best-selling
PhD-thesis by dr Yolanda Rodriguéz Peréz, on the Spanish perception of the Dutch during the Revolt.
A 4. Academic Reputation
In the period under review members of this programme have occupied prominent roles in national and
international research organizations and institutions. Gelderblom and Op de Coul were Erasmus visiting
121 Arts, culture and their contexts OGC
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