Dr. Arjan van Dixhoorn

Arjan van Dixhoorn graduated in Social and Economic History from Utrecht University in 1997. He acquired his Ph.D. (cum laude) from the Free University of Amsterdam in 2004 with a dissertation on the socio-cultural history of the chambers of rhetoric, organizations of literary sociability in the (Dutch-speaking) late medieval and early modern Low Countries. He has been an instructor and postdoctoral researcher at the universities of Maastricht, Antwerp, Ghent, and Utrecht, and (with a Fulbright Junior Scholarship) at the University of California at Los Angeles. From 2013 until 2023, he held the special chair in the History of Zeeland in the World established by the Familiefonds Hurgronje at Utrecht University. He has been teaching at UCR since 2013.

Van Dixhoorn specializes in the history of performative literary cultures in Europe, the knowledge society and the history of public opinion. He is currently finishing a co-authored monograph on a murder case in a Dutch-Belgian border region in 1944 and an edition of Habsburg propaganda during the civic unrest in the Burgundian Low Countries in the late fifteenth century. He is also working on Virtuoso Culture, a study of the making and unmaking of a Dutch-language knowledge-culture in the early modern Low Countries.

• Founding member Young Academy (Humanities and Sciences) of Belgium (2013-2014).
• Awarded by a joint ESF-ALLEA review panel to be one of 21 participants to attend the ESF-ALLEA Early Career Researchers Forum Humanities Spring 2009 I, “Towards a European Young Academy?”, Vienna, 8-10 June, 2009.
• Laureate Study Prize Praemium Erasmianum. The prestigious Dutch annual prizes for the best interdisciplinary doctoral theses in the Humanities, Law and Social Sciences, 2006.
• Student Essay Prize, International Conference: The North Sea Culture, Leiden, 1995.

• Travel grant. Collaborative research center SFB 980 Episteme in Motion, Freie Universität Berlin, Summer 2019.
• Bendikson Fellowship. The Huntington Library, 2012. Title of project: The knowing subject in early modern Dutch, German, French and English vernacular discourse, 1450-1650.
• Honorary Scholarship. University of Groningen, 2012. Special grant for a project proposal in the making. Title of project: Performative Literary Culture and Civil Society in Action: Institutions, Practices and Discourses of Knowledge and Civility in Urban Europe, 1450-1650.
• Postdoctoral Research Fellow. Research Foundation Flanders (FWO), Department of History, Ghent University, 2011/2014. Title of project: Knowledge and the discourse of civil society in the Dutch-speaking Low Countries, 1450- 1650.
• Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Research Foundation Flanders (FWO), Department of History, Ghent University, 2008/2011. Title of project: Theatre society. Vernacular literary culture and early modern knowledge society in the Low Countries, Antwerp 1450-1650.
• Fulbright Junior Scholarship, Department of History/Dutch Studies, University of California at Los Angeles, 2007/2008.
• Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Research Foundation Flanders (FWO)/Flemish-Dutch Committee (VNC), Department of History, Antwerp University, 2005/2008. Title of project: Early modern public opinion. Patterns, mechanisms, and agents in the interplay of opinion and decision making in the Low Countries, 1500-1700.
• PhD research assistant, Dutch Organization for Scientific Research (NWO)/Flemish-Dutch Committee (VNC), Medieval History, Free University of Amsterdam, 1998/2002. Title of project: Conformists and rebels. Chambers of rhetoric in the Low Countries.
• Research Scholarship, Netherlands Organization for International Cooperation in Higher Education (Nuffic), Institute for European History, Mainz, 1997/1998. Title of project: A comparison of burgher revolts in Germany and the Dutch Republic.

Work-related

• Werkgroep Cultuurhistorie (KZGW) (board member, 2015-)
• Etty Hillesum Huis and Research Centre (board member, 2018-)
• Reygersberch Stichting (founding member, chair, 2018-)
• Isaac Beeckman Stichting (founding member of the board, 2018-)
• Kenniscentrum Impact Transatlantische Slavernij (KITAS-Middelburg) (founding member, 2018-)
• Studies in The History of Knowledge Series, Amsterdam University Press, Member Advisory Board (2020-). https://www.aup.nl/en/series/studies-in-the-history-of-knowledge

Not work-related

• Stichting 1 juni 2005 (founding board member, 2014-).

Books

• Lustige geesten. Rederijkers in de Noordelijke Nederlanden (1480-1650). Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2009.

• De stem des volks. Publieke opinie, opinieonderzoek en democratie (Essay on public opinion, public opinion research, and democracy). The Hague, Social and Cultural Planning Office, 2006.

Book/issue editor

• Arjan van Dixhoorn and Susie Speakman Sutch (eds.), Performative Literary Culture. Literary Associations and the World of Learning (1200-1700) (Leiden: Brill, 2023).
• Arjan van Dixhoorn, Marijn Thijs et al (eds.), History of Zeeland in the World: Exploring the World from Zeeland, volume 2 (Middelburg: de Drukkery, 2023).
• Klaas van Berkel, Albert Clement and Arjan van Dixhoorn (eds.), Knowledge and Culture in the Early Dutch Republic. Isaac Beeckman in Context (Amsterdam University Press, 2022).
• Arjan van Dixhoorn, Henk Nellen and Francien Petiet (eds.), Een hoger streven. Bouwstenen voor de geschiedenis van het Zeeuws Genootschap (Middelburg: KZGW, 2019).
• Arjan van Dixhoorn et al (eds.), History of Zeeland in the World: Exploring the World from Zeeland (Middelburg: de Drukkery, 2019).
• Arjan van Dixhoorn, Samuel Mareel and Bart Ramakers (eds.), The Knowledge Culture of the Netherlandish Rhetoricians, special issue of Renaissance Studies, 32 (2018) 1.
• Klaas A.D. Smelik and Arjan van Dixhoorn (eds.), Joods leven in Middelburg en de Mediene door de eeuwen heen (Antwerp-Apeldoorn: Garant, 2017).
• Arjan van Dixhoorn, Jan Bloemendal and Elsa Strietman (eds.), Literary Cultures and Public Opinion in the Early Modern Low Countries. Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History 197 (Leiden: Brill, 2011).
• Arjan van Dixhoorn and Susie Speakman Sutch (eds.), The Reach of the Republic of Letters. Literary and Learned Societies in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe. Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History 168 (Leiden: Brill, 2008).

Articles and book chapters

• “The Rhetorical Paradigm. Language, Eloquence, and Learning among Dutch-speaking Rhetoricians (1450-1650)”, in: The Dutch Language, 1500-1800: Historical Settings, Descriptive Approaches, Teaching Practices. Peeters, Leuven, in press.
• “Introduction”, in: Performative Literary Culture, 1-25.
• “Benefits of Joyfulness: Ideas into Practice”, in: Performative Literary Culture, 105-139, co-authored with Susanna de Beer and Catrien Santing.
• “Careers: The Role of Literary Exercises”, in: Performative Literary Culture, 140-170, with the collaboration of Ignacio García Aguilar, Francisco J. Álvarez and Inmaculada Osuna.
• “Transformations: The Rise of New Institutions”, in: Performative Literary Culture, 171-200, co-authored with Gabriele Ball.
• “Be Who Thou Art: The Vernacular Learning of Johan Fruytiers”, in: Performative Literary Culture, 293-311.
• “Introduction”, in: History of Zeeland in the World 2, 17-59.
• “Het verdrag van Parijs en de wording van het graafschap Zeeland”, Tijdschrift Zeeland KZWG (2023) 1, 46-53.
• “Introduction”, in: Knowledge and Culture in the Early Dutch Republic. Isaac Beeckman in Context, 15-27, co-authored with Klaas van Berkel and Albert Clement.
• “Concluding Remarks”, in: Knowledge and Culture in the Early Dutch Republic. Isaac Beeckman in Context, 471-475, co-authored with Klaas van Berkel.
• “Consten-Culture. Beeckman, the Rhetoricians, and a New Style of Philosophizing”, in: Knowledge and Culture in the Early Dutch Republic. Isaac Beeckman in Context, 339-368.
• “Een allegorie op de Levantse handel? De iconografie van een genrestuk van Adriaen Verdoel de Jonge”, with Johan Francke and Veronica Frenks, Archief KZGW, 2021, 61-120.
• “Literary Society outside Italy, Renaissance”, in: M. Sgarbo (ed.), Encyclopedia of Renaissance Philosophy (Cham: Springer, 2021) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02848-4_219-1.
• “Inleiding”, in: Arjan van Dixhoorn, Henk Nellen and Francien Petiet (eds.), Een hoger streven. Bouwstenen voor de geschiedenis van het Zeeuws Genootschap (Middelburg: KZGW, 2019), 11-26, co-authored with Henk Nellen and Francien Petiet.
• “Recreating Man’s Cunning Virtues. The Philosophical Project of the Netherlandish Culture of Arts”, in: Arjan van Dixhoorn, Samuel Mareel and Bart Ramakers (eds.), Rhetoricians and the Shaping of a Netherlandish Culture of Knowledge, special issue of Renaissance Studies, 32 (2018) 1, 23-42.
• “The Relevance of the Netherlandish Rhetoricians”, co-authored with Samuel Mareel and Bart Ramakers, in: Rhetoricians and the Shaping of a Netherlandish Culture of Knowledge, special issue of Renaissance Studies, 32 (2018) 1, 8-22.
•  “De Jodenvervolging in Zeeland”, in: Klaas Smelik and Arjan van Dixhoorn (eds.), Joden in Middelburg en de Mediene (Garant: Antwerpen, 2017), 101-129, co-authored with Lotte Bergen.
• “Doodsklacht op paneel: Memorie in lokale devotie en filosofie rond 1555”, in: Samuel Mareel et al (eds.), Buiten het Boek, special issue Spiegel der Letteren, 59 (2017) 2-3, 203-230.
•  “The Law, Justice, Governance, and Theatrical Knowledge in the Sixteenth-Century Dutch-speaking Low Countries”, in: Marie Bouhaïk-Gironès, Jelle Koopmans, Katell Lavéant (eds.), La Permission et la Sanction: Théories légales et pratiques du théâtre (XIVe-XVIIe siècle). Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2017, 17-41.
• “The Claim to Expertise and Doctrinal Authority in the Struggle for Anti-Heresy Policies in the Habsburg Netherlands (1520s-1560s)”, in: Voilet Soen, Dries Vanysacker and Wim François (eds.), Church, Censorship and Reform in the Early Modern Habsburg Netherlands, in: Bibliothèque de la Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique, 101. Brepols, Turnhout, 2017, 53-71.
• “De metamorfosen van Zeeland: Dye Cronyke van Zeelandt (1551) als filosofisch traktaat”, in: Johanna Bundschuh (ed.), Literatuur en kennis, special issue of Internationale Neerlandistiek, 55 (2017) 2, 91-114.
• “Aura of the Word in a Handwritten Letter: Or an Observation on the Political Arts in the Rebel State of Holland (1574)”, in: Jessica Buskirk and Samuel Mareel (eds.), The Aura of the Word in the Early Age of Print (1450-1600). New York/ London: Routledge, 2016, 35-50.
• “Working Bodies, Matter and the Performance of Knowledge: The Mechanical and Liberal Arts in the Civic Community”, in: Sven Dupré et al (eds.), Embattled Territory. The Circulation of Knowledge in the Spanish Netherlands. Gent: Academia Press, 2015. Co-authored with Bert De Munck, 255-278.
• “Rederijkers (1400-1600)”, in: Jeroen Jansen and Nico Laan (eds.), Van hof tot overheid. Geschiedenis van literaire instituties in Nederland en Vlaanderen. Hilversum, Verloren, 2015, 67-93.
• “Historische vergelijkingen voor hedendaags gebruik”, Beleid & Maatschappij, 42 (2015) 3, 223-243, co-authored with Anita Boele and Pepijn van Houwelingen.
• “The Multilingualism of Dutch Rhetoricians: Jan van den Dale’s Uure van den doot and the Use of Language (Brussels, ca.1516)”, in: Jan Bloemendal (ed.), Bilingual Europe: Latin and Vernacular Cultures ca. 1300-1800. Leiden: Brill, 2015 (Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History 239), 50-72.
• “The Prosperity of Belgica and the Virtues of Antwerp: Guicciardini´s Descrittione di tutti Paesi Bassi”, in: Christine Göttler, Bart Ramakers, and Joanna Woodall (eds.), Trading Values. Cultural Translation in Early Modern Antwerp. Special issue Netherlands Yearbook for the History of Art (2014), 76-107.
• “Nature, Play and the Middle Dutch Knowledge Community of Brussels in the Late Fifteenth and Early Sixteenth Centuries”, in: Bettine Noak (ed.), Wissenstransfer und Auctoritas in der frühneuzeitlichen niederländischsprachigen Literatur. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck&Ruprecht–unipress (Berliner Mittelalter&Frühneuzeitforschung 19) 2014, 99-122.
• “Monumentalizering van een festival: Het Antwerpse Landjuweel van 1561 als historische gebeurtenis”, Jaarboek de Fonteine (2011-2012), 15-42.
• “Theatre Society in the Low Countries: Performative Culture and the Public Sphere in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries”, in: Jan Bloemendal, Peter Eversmann, and Elsa Strietman (eds.), Drama, Performance and Debate. The Role of Theatre and Theatricality in Public Opinion in the Early Modern Period. Leiden: Brill, 2012, 81-114.
• “The Making of a Public Issue in Early Modern Europe: The Spanish Inquisition and Public Opinion in the Netherlands”, in: Massimo Rospocher (ed.), Beyond the Public Sphere: Opinions, Publics, Spaces in Early Modern Europe. Bologna: Il Mulino; Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2012 (Annali dell’Istituto storico italo-germanico in Trento. Contributi; 27), 249-269.
• “Literary Cultures and Public Opinion in the Early Modern Netherlands”, in: Bloemendal, Van Dixhoorn, Strietman (eds.), Literary Cultures and Public Opinion. Leiden: Brill, 2011, 1-35, co-authored with Jan Bloemendal.
• “Early Modern Literary Cultures and Public Opinion: An Epilogue in the Form of a Discussion”, in: Bloemendal, Van Dixhoorn, Strietman (eds.), Literary Cultures and Public Opinion. Leiden: Brill, 2011, 267-291, co-authored with Jan Bloemendal.
• “The Grain Issue of 1565-1566. Policy Making, Public Opinion, and the Common Good in the Habsburg Netherlands”, in: Elodie Lecuppre-Desjardin and Anne-Laure Van Bruaene (eds.), De Bono Communi. The Discourse and Practice of the Common Good in the European City (13th-16th c.). Turnhout: Brepols, 2010 (Studies in Urban History (1100-1800) 22), 171-204.
• “De scharpheit van een gladde tong. Literaire teksten en publieke-opinievorming in de vroegmoderne Nederlanden”, Bijdragen en Mededelingen voor de Geschiedenis der Nederlanden, 125 (2010) 1, 3-28, co-authored with Jan Bloemendal.
• “Soorten rederijkers. Rederijkers en hun plaats in het intellectuele veld: 1550-1650”, in: D. Coigneau and S. Mareel (eds.), Met eigen ogen. De rederijker als dichtend individu (1450-1600) (=Jaarboek De Fonteine) (2009), 87-119.
• “De opgeworpen rechtbank der publieke opinie. Het tijdschrift en de geschiedenis van de publieke opinie”, Tijdschrift voor tijdschriftstudies, 26 (2009), 54-75.
• “New Institutions and the Dynamics of Civic Culture. Chambers of Rhetoric in the Early Modern (Northern) Netherlands”, in: Rudolf Suntrup and Jan Veenstra (eds.), Konstruktion der Gegenwart und Zukunft/Shaping the Present and the Future. Medieval to Early Modern Culture/ Kultureller Wandel vom Mittelalter zur Frühen Neuzeit 10. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2008, 135-179.
• “Introduction”, in: Van Dixhoorn and Speakman Sutch (eds.), The Reach of the Republic of Letters, 1-16, co-authored with Susie Speakman Sutch.
• “Chambers of Rhetoric: Performative Culture and Literary Sociability in the Early Modern Northern Netherlands”, in: The Reach of the Republic of Letters, 119-158.
• “Epilogue”, in: The Reach of the Republic of Letters, 423-461.
•  “Liefhebbers van de redekunst. Het Vlaardingse festival van 1616 en de principes van het Hollandse rederijkersleven”, in: Bart Ramakers (ed.), Op de Hollandse Parnas. De Vlaardingse rederijkerswedstrijd van 1616. Zwolle: Waanders, 2006, 11-29.
•  “Engagement en ambitie. De Haagse rederijkerskamer ‘Met Ghenuchten’ en de ontwikkelingen van een burgerlijke samenleving in Holland rond 1500”, in: Jaarboek voor Middeleeuwse Geschiedenis, 9 (2006), 150-190, co-authored with Serge ter Braake.
• “Writing Poetry as Intellectual Training. Chambers of Rhetoric and the Development of Vernacular Intellectual Life in the Low Countries between 1480 and 1600”, in: K. Goudriaan, J. van Moolenbroek and A. Tervoort (eds.), Education and Learning in the Netherlands, 1400-1600. Essays in honour of Prof. Dr. H. de Ridder-Symoens. Leiden: Brill, 2004 (Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History 123), 201-222.
• “Burgers, branies en bollebozen. De sociaal-institutionele ontwikkeling van de rederijkerskamers in de Noordelijke Nederlanden, 1470-1650”, in: Bart Ramakers (ed.), Conformisten en rebellen. Rederijkerscultuur in de Nederlanden (1400-1650). Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2003, 65-85.
• “Edifying Dutch Youths. The Boys of the Chambers of Rhetoric in the Early Seventeenth Century”, Paedagogica Historica, 39 (2003) 3, 325-337, co-authored with Benjamin Roberts.
• “Waar retorica regeert. Rederijkersregels rond taalgebruik en gedrag in de 16e en 17e eeuw”, Zeventiende Eeuw, 18 (2002), 17-30.
• “Rederijkers in een Zeeuws dorp; oprichting en organisatie van de rederijkerskamer de Wijngaardranken te Kapelle in de eerste helft van de zestiende eeuw”, Zeeland, 10 (2001) 2, 57-64.
• “Voorstanden van de vrije wetten. Burgerbewegingen in Arnhem en de Republiek tussen 1702 en 1707”, Tijdschrift voor Sociale Geschiedenis, 25 (1999) 1, 25-54.
• “In een traditie gevangen? Hollandse rederijkerskamers en rederijkers in de recente literatuurgeschiedschrijving”, Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis, 112 (1999), 385-406.