dr. K. (Kristine) Steenbergh

Office hours: Please mail me to make an appointment.

Research interests

Early modern literature (especially drama) and culture, history of the emotions, ecocriticism, gender studies, critical theory.

Research

In June 2007, I defended my PhD thesis Wild Justice: The Dynamics of Gender and Revenge in Early Modern English Drama at Utrecht University. In my book, I examined the ways in which stage plays partake in early modern debates about revenge in shaping particular discourses of masculinity, femininity, and revenge. I am currently rewriting this thesis to submit it for publication.

In 2011, I will start the four-year research project "Moving Scenes: Theatre, Passions and the Public Sphere in Early Modern England," funded by a VENI-grant from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research. "Moving Scenes" examines the role of the theatre in thinking about the transmission of emotion in the context of the emerging public sphere in early modern England.

Although Jürgen Habermas situated the origins of the public sphere in the eighteenth century, recent research has traced its roots to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Several changes in society evoked pervasive questions about the role of the emotions in this emerging public sphere. Not only was the theatre a focus for debates about the effects of passion in perception and judgment, it was also one of the important media in which this debate was carried out. With spectators from across the social spectrum, the theatre was one of the major cultural laboratories in early modern English culture.

Focusing on the role of the theatre in debates about the place of conveyed emotions in the public sphere, Moving Scenes shows that a study of theatrical representations of the effects of passion can do more than shed light on issues of identity and selfhood. The research project provides insight into the politics of the passions in early modern English culture.

Publications

• Willemijn Ruberg and Kristine Steenbergh, eds. Sexed Sentiments: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Gender and Emotion (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, forthcoming 2011).
• "Emotion, Performance and Gender in Shakespeare’s Hamlet" in Sexed Sentiments: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Gender and Emotion (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, forthcoming 2011), 93-116.
• "Gender Studies – Emotions in Jeptha (1659)" in Vondel: Dutch Dramatist in the Golden Age, edited by Frans-Willem Korsten, Jan Bloemendal and Stefan van der Lecq. Leiden: Brill, forthcoming 2011.
• "Wraakzinnige wraaklust: Furieuze vrouwen op het vroegmoderne Engelse toneel," Jaarboek voor Vrouwengeschiedenis 30 (2010), 19-36.
• “Green Wounds: Pain, Anger and Revenge in Early Modern Culture” in: The Sense of Suffering: Constructions of Physical Pain in Early Modern Culture, eds. Jan Frans van Dijkhuizen en Karl Enenkel (Leiden: Brill, 2009).
• “Bare Ruined Choirs: The Monastery as Heterotopia in Early Modern Drama” in: The Reformation Unsettled: British Literature and the Question of Religious Identity, 1560-1660, eds. Jan Frans van Dijkhuizen en Richard Todd (Brepols, 2008).
• Lijf en leden. Gender en het historische lichaam. Jaarboekvoor vrouwengeschiedenis 28 (2008), edited by Kristine Steenbergh et al.
• “Les genres de la fureur: la dynamique des genres et poétique culturelle sur la scène anglaise au seizième siècle” in La mythe et la plume: L’écriture et les femmes en Grande-Bretagne (1540-1640), edited by Jean-Claude Mailhol en Armel Dubois-Nayt (Presses Universitaires de Valenciennes, 2008).

Conference papers

• “Toss, Tumble and Purge: Gender and Emotions in Vondel’s Jeptha,” Vondel, Dutch Dramatist in the Golden Age, Huygens Instituut, The Hague, 27 March 2009.
• Keynote lecture “Emotions and Gender: The Case of Anger in Early Modern English Revenge Tragedies” at the Cultural History of the Emotions in Premodernity conference, 23-26 October 2008, Umeå University, Sweden.
• Conference paper “Living Theory: Shakespeare Biography and Cultural History,” at the inaugural conference of the International Society for Cultural History, Gent, Belgium 27-31 August 2008.
• Conference paper “The Speaking Picture of Poesy: Emotion, Performance and Gender in Early Modern English Theatre” at the International, Interdisciplinary Workshop on Gender and Emotion University of Limerick, 20 June 2008.
• Conference paper “The Politics of Passion: Masculine Selfhood and Anger in Early Modern English Revenge Tragedy,” in the ‘History of Emotions,’ panel, European Social Science History Conference, Lisbon, Portugal, 26 February-1 March 2008.

Teaching

I enjoy teaching literature to all students, from the first year to the Master. If you're in my classes, you will find that I encourage students to think critically and to encourage active discussion of literary texts. I try to train you to become an independent, original, and critical researcher of literature, who has attention for detail, but also knows her/his way around literary theory.

In the past years I taught BA and MA-level courses on Drama, English Renaissance literature and culture, Shakespeare, eighteenth-century English literature and culture, postcolonial literature, and gender theory. I am currently on research leave and will therefore only teach occasionally in the coming years. I miss teaching already, and am always open to suggestions for Research MA tutorials or theses on early modern English literature.

Other activities

Professional activities

I am review editor for the new journal Cultural History (first issue spring 2012, Edinburgh UP). I participate in the Huizinga Institute's programme for PhD students' Introductory Course on Cultural Historical Research (CCO), where I teach the session on gender and history.

Scholarships and prizes

• VENI-grant from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (2010)
• Lecturer of the Year 2009, Faculty of Arts, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
• Winner of the Grassroots Prize 2008 (Innovation in E-learning)
• Nominated for the research prize of the Stichting Praemium Erasmianum for extraordinary dissertations from young scholarly researchers in the humanities (2008)
• Research grant Prins Bernhardfonds to prepare PhD proposal at the Shakespeare Institute, UK (2000)
• Harting scholarship to study English Literature at the University of Birmingham (1997-1998)

Memberships
I am a member of the Renaissance Society of America, the Modern Language Association, the International Society for Cultural History, the International Network for the Cultural History of Emotions in Premodernity, the Shakespeare Society of the Low Countries and the Huizinga Institute.

See also my page on Academia.edu.