Arts and Culture
Are you a journalist and would you like to get in touch with a researcher who does not appear on this page? Please contact the UvA Press Office on 020 525 2695 or press@uva.nl.
Architecture and urban design
Dr Petra Brouwer is an assistant professor of Architectural History. Her areas of expertise include the history of modern architecture and town planning from the 19th to the 21st centuries. In her research and teaching, she focuses on architecture in relation to the architectural design, canonisation, heritage, mass culture, and national and local identity. She is also an expert in historical and current processes of city planning and urban renewal. | P.A.Brouwer@uva.nl | 020 525 3037
Art and Cultural Sociology
Prof. Olav Velthuis is professor of Sociology, in particular of economic life and culture. He specialises in economic sociology, art sociology and cultural sociology. In his research, Velthuis focuses on, among other things, the globalisation of art markets and the valuation and pricing of contemporary art. He has studied the emergence and development of art markets in the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China). Velthuis also looks at the interrelations between market and gift exchange; the valuation and pricing of contemporary art; and the moral and socio-technological dimensions of markets for adult content.| O.J.M.Velthuis@uva.nl | 020 525 3579
Art history – medieval
Dr Wendelien van Welie specialises in medieval art, with a focus on early Christian art, Byzantine art, Carolingian/Ottonian art, iconography and historiography. She is currently working on a major research project on the body in medieval art. She studies clothing, hairstyles, headgear, physiognomy, nudity, the mutilated body, and the way a body is cared for, among other things, in order to learn more about the medieval world of thought. The project resulted in the successful exhibition 'Body Language' in Museum Catharijneconvent (Utrecht) and Van Welie's book Body Language - Het Lichaam in de middeleeuwse Kunst (The Body in Medieval Art), which was named one of the Best Dutch Book Designs of 2020. | W.A.W.vanWelie-Vink@uva.nl | 020 525 3034
Art history – modern and contemporary
Prof. Christa-Maria Lerm Hayes is Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art History. Her areas of expertise are word and image ratios, (in particular how artists read literature [eg James Joyce]), performance, exhibitions and art institutions. She is also interested in social art practices, post-war stories in art and artistic research. | C.M.K.E.Lerm-Hayes@uva.nl | 020 525 3889
Art history - women in art & the 17th century
Dr Judith Noorman focuses on early modern art from the 'Low Countries'. In particular, she focuses on women in history and the art world. She is leading a large-scale research project on this subject and is collaborating with various Dutch museums, including the Rijksmuseum. She has also conducted research into Rembrandt's workshop and the role of women as nude models. Noorman is a researcher and assistant professor in the Art History department. | J.F.J.Noorman@uva.nl
Books, publishers and libraries
Prof. Lisa Kuitert is professor of Book Studies, and specialises in publishing and publishers in the Netherlands from the 19th to 21st centuries, in particular literary publishers. She is also an expert on book culture, both in the Netherlands and in the former colony of the 'Dutch East Indies' (Indonesia) - for example, reading facilities, bookstores and printers, authorship, school books and translations. She is also known for her expertise in literary prizes and other symbolic aspects of the book. | E.A.Kuitert@uva.nl | 020 525 4727
Conservation and restoration
Dr Maartje Stols-Witlox is a paintings conservator. Her areas of expertise are the examination, preservation and restoration of paintings. She performs research into painting techniques, historical paint recipes and restoration recipes and the ethics of restoration.| M.J.N.Stols-Witlox@uva.nl | 020 525 6131
Cultural philosophy and popular culture
Prof. René Boomkens is professor of General Cultural Sciences and Cultural Philosophy. Boomkens' expertise lies in the fields of urban culture, popular culture and globalisation. | R.W.Boomkens@uva.nl
Cultural phenomena
Prof. Peter Jan Margry is professor of European Ethnology. His research focuses on the culture of daily life in the Netherlands. He investigates people's daily actions and the perception of those actions, with a focus on three themes: religious culture, cultural memory and intangible heritage. Keywords: ethnology, rituals, traditions, cultural practices, folk culture, folklore, religious culture. Margry is also a senior researcher in the field of religious culture at the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences' Meertens Institute. | P.J.J.Margry@uva.nl
Film
Prof. Patricia Pisters is professor of Film Studies, and specialises in film theory and philosophy. In her research into neuro-aesthetics, she looks at how images work in the brain, and how the brain has become part of visual culture. In addition, Pisters focuses on media ecology. This relates to the influence of media, technology and communication on people and their environments. Pisters' latest book explores the poetics of horror in the work of a new generation of female directors. She has previously studied the work of Alfred Hitchcock and did research on Maghreb cinema, New Hollywood aesthetics and Dutch film culture. | P.P.R.W.Pisters@uva.nl | 020 525 4593
Literature
Prof. Gaston Franssen is professor of Dutch Literary Studies and Intermediality. He specialises in modern literature and literary culture. His research areas include contemporary Dutch and American-English literature, literary celebrity, success and fandom, and (literary) stories about illness and health. | G.E.H.I.Franssen@uva.nl | 020 525 2569
Music
Dr Ashley Burgoyne's expertise lies at the interface of musicology and artificial intelligence. He is particularly interested in musical behaviour at sound level and investigates, for example, how songs can be catchy and how musical memory works in the long term. With his project 'Hooked on Music', Burgoyne reached hundreds of thousands of participants worldwide. He currently works at the Amsterdam Music Lab to understand what people hear – and ignore – as they stream music every day. Burgoyne is an assistant professor of Computational Musicology and a researcher in the music cognition group at the Institute for Logic, Language, and Computation. | J.A.Burgoyne@uva.nl | 020 525 7034
Music in everyday life
Dr Oliver Seibt is a cultural musicologist with an ethnographic orientation and a specialisation in popular music studies. His research focuses on music in everyday life and (the globalisation of) Japanese popular music. In both areas he is particularly interested in the role of the imaginary in musicking. He was co-founder of the German-speaking section of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM D-A-CH) and is currently a board member of IASPM Benelux. In 2020, together with Ian Pocervina and Sydney Schelvis, he founded Amsterdance, the Amsterdam Electronic Dance Music Research Group. | f.o.seibt@uva.nl
Music cognition
Prof. Henkjan Honing is professor of Music Cognition. His areas of expertise are musicality, musical animals, music and the brain, music cognition and music technology. He is affiliated with the Musicology department, the Institute for Logic, Language and Computation (ILLC) and Amsterdam Brain and Cognition (ABC). | H.J.Honing@uva.nl | pa@henkjanhoning.nl
Theatre
Prof. Kati Röttger is professor of Theatre Studies. Her research focuses on contemporary performing arts, visual culture, theatre in Latin America, and the history of European theatre. She studies spectacle techniques in experimental culture and popular theatre (including melodrama) of the 19th century and the establishment of the national theatre in Germany and the Netherlands in the 18th century. Röttger has also published on the construction of gender, postcolonial criticism and the effect of intermediality in theatre and the performing arts. | K.E.Rottger@uva.nl | 020 525 4098