prof. dr. S. (Susan) Legêne

General

Office hours: as a rule on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays; irregular on Mondays and Fridays

Curriculum Vitae

Research interests

• Contemporary history, colonialism and decolonisation in comparative perspective, nation building
• Migration histories, diaspora
• Cultural heritage and political practices
• Historiography: the meaning and value of material culture, visual sources and intangible heritage for historical research; ICT and history
• Developments in e-humanities

Teaching

BA courses Major Contemporary History
BA methodology course Cultural sources for political history
BA Minor Migration Studies
MA courses Trajectory Culture and Power
Research Master: tutorials, thesis supervision, core module.

See Course Guide

Research

• PhotoCLEC: Photographs, Colonial Legacy and Museums in Contemporary European Culture (2010-Jan. 2012). HERA JRP comparative research programme on the meaning and role of photographs from colonial times in postcolonial UK, Norway and the Netherlands. In the Netherlands the research focus is on Indies photograph collections.
  See also: http://www.heranet.info/photoclec/index 
• Agora: Creating the Historic Fabric for and Providing Web-enabled Access to Objects in Dynamic Historical Sequences. NWO-research project on digitally mediated public history and museum collections; in collaboration with Computer Sciences (Faculty of Sciences) (2009-2013).
  website: http://agora.cs.vu.nl/
• Sites, Bodies and Stories - The dynamics of heritage formation in colonial and postcolonial Indonesia and the Netherlands: International NWO research project on archaeology, human remains and wayang puppet theatre (tangible, intangible and academic heritage), signifying processes, citizenship and national identity (2008-2012). Collaboration with: Gadjah Mada University Yogyakarta and Eijkman Institute for Molecular Biology in Jakarta, as well as NIOD and KITLV in the Netherlands.
  website: https://www.surfgroepen.nl/sites/sbs/public  
• The future of the World Heritage Convention (2010-2012). Policy research funded by the Dutch Ministry of Education Culture and Science in the context of Unesco evaluations of the World Heritage Convention.

Publications

• web-review in English of: Viktor Kaisiëpo, Een perspectief voor Papoea. het verhaal van mijn strijd. Amsterdam (Bert Bakker) 2011. in:  BMGN-LCVHR 126:4 (2011) http://www.knhg.nl/wpcontent/uploads/Kaisiepo_Viktor_Een_perspectief_voor_Papoea_
  Het_verhaal_van_mijn_leven_en_mijn_strijd_Susan_Legene_2011-4_web.pdf
• Susan Legêne, 'Bringing History Home. Postcolonial Immigrants and the Dutch Cultural Arena', BMGN The Low Countries Historical Review 126:2 (2011) 54-70.
  http://www.knhg.nl/wpcontent/uploads/bmgn/Legene_Susan_Bringing_history_home.pdf 
• Susan Legêne, 'Mijn en dijn -- gedeeld erfgoed en geschiedenis'. In: Kosmopolis Utrecht (red.), Gedeeld erfgoed: Theorie en praktijk gespiegeld. Utrecht (Kosmopolis/Museum Maluku) 2011, p. 31-38. http://dare.ubvu.vu.nl/bitstream/1871/25813/2/Kosmopoliserfgoed_boek_web.pdf
• Susan Legêne, 'Waar blijft de kritiek? Canon tussen wetenschap, politiek en cultuur'. In: Maria Grever, Ido de Haan, Dienke Hondius en Susan Legêne (red.), Grenzeloze gelijkheid. Historische vertogen over cultuurverschil. Amsterdam (Uitgeverij Bert Bakker) 2011, p. 238-254 en 352-355.
• Janneke van Dijk & Susan Legêne (eds.), The Netherlands East-Indies at the Tropenmuseum.A colonial history. Amsterdam (KIT Publishers) 2011.

2010

• Spiegelreflex. Culturele sporen van de koloniale ervaring. Amsterdam (Uitgeverij Bert Bakker), 2010.
• 'Impressed Images/Expressed Experiences: The Historical Imagination of Politics' in: L. Jensen, J. Leerssen, M. Mathijsen (eds.), Free Access to the Past. Romanticism, Cultural Heritage and the Nation. Leiden/Boston (Brill) 2010.

2009

• 'Dwinegeri -- Multiculturalism  and the Colonial past (or: The Cultural Borders of Being Dutch).' In: Benjamin Kaplan, Marybeth Carlson, Laura Cruz (eds.), Boundaries and their Meanings in the History of the Netherlands. Leiden/Boston (Brill) 2009, pp. 223--242.
• Berteke Waaldijk en Susan Legêne, ‘Ethische politiek in Nederland. Cultureel burgerschap tussen overheersing, opvoeding en afscheid.’ In: Marieke Bloembergen en Remco Raben, Het koloniale beschavingsoffensief. Wegen naar het nieuwe Indië 1890-1950. Leiden (KITLV) 2009, pp. 187-216. (Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land en Volkenkunde nr. 265)
• Susan Legêne, Muntslag/vuistslag. De historische verbeelding van de politiek. Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam 2009. (Rede in verkorte vorm uitgesproken bij de aanvaarding van het ambt van hoogleraar Politieke Geschiedenis aan de faculteit der Letteren van de Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam op 30 januari 2009) (Inaugural lecture Vu professor of Political History)
  http://dare.ubvu.vu.nl/bitstream/1871/13152/1/oratielegene_web.pdf

2008

• Legêne, Susan, ‘Pleidooi voor historische tentoonstellingskritiek’, in: Tijdschrift voor geschiedenis 2008 jrg. 121:4, pp. 462-469 (Contramine).
• Koos van Brakel & Susan Legêne, Collection policies and approaches (2008-2012) of the Tropenmuseum. Amsterdam (KIT Publishers) 2008 (Bulletin 381).
• 'Metamorfose. Toorops inburgeringstraject.' In: De Gids, jrg. 171:5, mei 2008, pp. 393-407.
• 'Flatirons and the Folds of History. On Archives, Cultural heritage and Colonial Legacies.' In: Saskia Wieringa (ed.), Traveling Heritages. New Perspectives on Collecting, Preserving and Sharing Women's History. Amsterdam (Aksant) 2008, pp. 47-64.

2007

• with B. Waaldijk, 'Mission Interrupted: Gender, History and the Colonial Canon.' In: M. Grever and S. Stuurman (eds), Beyond the Canon. History  for the Twenty-first Century. Hampshire /New York (Palgrave Macmillan) 2007, pp. 188-204. 
• 'Enlightenment, Empathy, Retreat. The cultural heritage of the Ethische Politiek. In: P. ter Keurs (ed.), Colonial Collections Revisited. Leiden (CNWS Publications) 2007, pp. 220-245 (Mededelingen van het Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde Leiden no. 36) 
• with D. van Duuren et al., Physical Anthropology Reconsidered. Human Remains at the Tropenmuseum. Amsterdam (KIT Publishers) 2007. [Bulletin of the Royal Tropical Institute nr. 375] 
• From India to Suriname. A journey into the future narrated by two photograph albums (1913-1930). Allahabad (Manav Vikas Sangrahalaya - GB Pant Institute) 2007. [Bidesia Occasional Papers Series nr. 2)

Extensive list of publications: Legene publications update 2011 

Professional activities

• Member Humanities Council KNAW
• Member of the Netherlands National Commission for UNESCO and the Ethical Code Committee of Dutch museums
• Board member of Stichting entoen.nu (the Dutch 'canon foundation')
• Chair of KITLV members' association
• Member scientific advisory committee of NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, and of KITLV (KNAW)

Links

• www.entoen.nu
• www.unesco.nl
• http://www.kitlv.nl/home/Vereniging