Research interests: sites of memory; painful heritage; urban space; in situ memorial museums; literary and cultural analysis; material culture of the Holocaust; digital memories; memories of the future; postcolonial memories of Indonesia; Holocaust memory in Indonesia.

My field of expertise covers memory, heritage and museum studies. I focus on spatial and material environments, such as museums, memorials and heritage sites, and the way the past is remediated at these locations.

Materialities of postcolonial memory

Together with Dr. Paul Bijl, Dr. Chiara de Cesari and Dr. Ihab Saloul, I organized the international ‘AHM Conference 2017: Materialities of Postcolonial Memory’ hosted by the Amsterdam School for Heritage, Memory and Material Culture (7-9 December 2017). Now that the privileged position of white people is being rethought in Western societies, and people of color are increasingly vocal about racism in contemporary Europe, the colonial and slavery pasts have more than ever become points of social encounter and contention. Matter and materiality are central concerns in such debates, from the centuries long but often unacknowledged African and Asian presence in Europe to the ruinous effects of the colonial past on communities around the globe to often unarticulated material traces in Europe’s towns and cities. At the same time, material interventions, from protests to new museum spaces, form creative contestations of present and past material injustices. This international conference looks at the awkward, aphasiac and contested memories of Europe’s colonial and slavery past by bringing together scholars from heritage and memory studies, postcolonial and critical race studies, conservation and material culture studies, art, anthropology and all other disciplines represented in AHM.

Digital Holocaust memory

Together with prof. dr. Yra van Dijk, I coordinated the European project ‘Digital Memory of the Shoah’, funded by NWO (2017-2018). With partners from universities, NGO’s and museums from the Netherlands, the UK, Poland, Germany, Israel, Belgium, Croatia, Italy and Sweden, we wrote a H2020 proposal for fundamental and comparative research on this topic. We focused on three topics: (1) connectivity and community; (2) testimony, narrative and digital archives (3) performance, affect and presence.

Sites of Holocaust memory

My dissertation Signs of the Shoah: The Hollandsche Schouwburg as a Site of Memory (University of Amsterdam, 2016) is an in-depth study of the Hollandsche Schouwburg. This former theater in Amsterdam was used as deportation site for tens of thousands of Jews during World War II and currently functions as a memorial museum. In analysing the design and use of the current presentation, I found that the meaning of this site is bot inherent to an authentic location, but rather produced through an interaction between site-specific media and its visitors. This open character ensures that such sites remain relevant to current and future generations, as they offer direct, yet mediated, contact with the troubled past. My dissertation was supervised by prof. dr. Frank van Vree and prof. dr. Rob van der Laarse and a collaboration with the Jewish Cultural Quarter. AUP published my dissertation in 2019.

In 2013, AUP published a contributed volume on the history of the Hollandsche Schouwburg, De Hollandsche Schouwburg: theater, deportatieplaats, plek van herinnering (2nd print in 2017). In 2017, an AUP published an English and fully revised volume, Site of Deportation, Site of Memory. The Amsterdam Hollandsche Schouwburg and the Holocaust. I was editor and co-author for both works.

Selection of publications

Monograph

Fragments of the Holocaust. The Hollandsche Schouwburg as a Site of Memory. Amsterdam: AUP, 2019.

Edited volume

Edited with Ihab Saloul, Postcolonial Heritages and Memories: Materialities, Contestations and Dialogues, Amsterdam: AUP, 2024 (forthcoming).

Edited with F. van Vree & H. Berg, Site of Deportation, Site of Memory. The Amsterdam Hollandsche Schouwburg and the Holocaust. Amsterdam: AUP, 2017.

Edited with F. van Vree & H. Berg, De Hollandsche Schouwburg: theater, deportatieplaats, plek van herinnering. Amsterdam: AUP, 2013.

Book chapters

“Displaced Memories in a Migratory Setting: Antisemitism and the Holocaust in Indonesia”, The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Cultural Heritage and Conflict, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2023 (forthcoming).

“Unveiling, concealing, removing: the figure of the Jew in Taring Padi’s “People’s Justice” at Documenta 15 (2022)”, Routledge Advances in Urban History. New York: Routledge, forthcoming (2023).

“Het geënsceneerde Anne Frank Huis: van leegte tot virtual reality” in Een joods kind dat weet van eeuwen heeft. Anne Frank als vluchteling, schrijfster en icoon, ed. by Frank van Vree and Martin van Gelderen. Amsterdam: Prometheus, 2022.

“Rethinking the Present, Reclaiming the Future” in L. ter Haar, V-A. Houppermans, A. Kaminski, & B. Gerlings (Eds.), Recipes for the Future: Preview from cultural quarantine (Vol. 196, pp. 77-102). Eindhoven: Onomatopee, 2020.

‘Site of Memory, Site of Mourning’ In Site of Deportation, Site of Memory. The Amsterdam Hollandsche Schouwburg and the Holocaust (pp. 155-190). Amsterdam: AUP, 2017.

‘Stilstaan bij de Jodenvervolging. De Hollandsche Schouwburg als plek van herinnering’ In De Hollandsche Schouwburg: theater, deportatieplaats, plek van herinnering (pp. 218-246). Amsterdam: AUP, 2013.

With E. Göbel. ‘Theater van onmogelijke herinneringen. Van 'schandvlek' tot herdenkingsplaats’ In De Hollandsche Schouwburg: theater, deportatieplaats, plek van herinnering (pp. 162-189). Amsterdam: AUP, 2013.

 ‘Stage, performance, media event: the national commemoration of the Second World War in the Netherlands’ In D. Agostinho, E. Antz & C. Ferreira (Eds.), Panic and mourning: the cultural work of trauma (Culture & conflict, 1) (pp. 247-261). Berlin: De Gruyter, 2012

Articles

 “Het Nationaal Holocaust Namenmonument als sluitstuk van de Nederlandse herinneringscultuur” in Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis, 2023 (forthcoming).

“Review Remco Ensel, Anne Frank on the Postwar Dutch Stage: Performance, Memory, Affect” in Studia Rosenthaliana, 2022.

With Y. van Dijk. “Herinneringscultuur, Erfgoed en Culturele Instellingen in het Digitale Tijdperk” in De Nederlandse Boekengids, 3 (5), pp. 25-27, 2020.

 “Transnationale herinneringen: circulatie en politisering” in Onderzoek Uitgelicht, 2 (7), 2018.

“Het lange leven van Raul Hilbergs standaardwerk” in Onderzoek Uitgelicht, 1(2), pp. 4-9, 2012.

“De dynamiek van de herinnering: vijf oorlogsmonumenten” in Auschwitz Bulletin, 56 (1), pp. 5-6, 2012.

“The Huge Pink Condom at the Place de la Concorde” in Simulacrum, 16 (3/4), pp. 52-55, 2008.

‘Hoe nieuwe generaties Indische Nederlanders zich tot hun verleden verhouden’, moderator panel discussion ‘Van zwijgzaamheid geen sprake’ of Spui25, Amsterdam, 2023.

‘Lost in Translation: Discussing Art’s Place in a Polarised Public Discourse’, moderator session at conference  ‘(un)Common Grounds. Reflecting on Documenta Fifteen’ of Framer Framed, Amsterdam, 2022.

‘Contemporary Jewish literature on Jewish Identity in the Netherlands and France’, moderator session at conference ‘The Politics of Jewish Literature and the Making of Post-War Europe’ of ACES Europe, Amsterdam, 2021.

‘De toekomst van het verleden’, invited speaker at conference ‘De toekomst van herdenken’ of De Nieuwe Liefde, Amsterdam, 2018.

‘Confronting Colonial Pasts: Transformations in Dutch Heritage Narratives’, invited speaker at AHM Conference ‘Materialities of Postcolonial Memory’ of UvA, Amsterdam, 2017.

‘No past, no facts, no future: de betrokkenheid van de wetenschapper’, invited speaker at InScience Filmfestival, Nijmegen, 2017.

‘Holding on to the Past, Preparing for the Future: Heritage and Depots in Times of Crisis and Transformation’, keynote speaker at international conference Codart 20, Warsaw, 2017.

‘Self-inscription at the Hollandsche Schouwburg: the latent indexicality of in situ memorial museums’, speaker at international conference of POLIN Museum, Warsaw, 2017.

‘Cultural Studies research practices - Media and Memory Studies’, guest lecture RMA course ‘Research Practices in Media Studies’, UvA, 2016.

‘De Hollandsche Schouwburg als icoon van de Shoah’, guest lecture MA course ‘Shoah-icons in (Dutch) art and literature’, Leiden University, 2014.

‘Picturing the Shoah at a traumasite’, guest lecture MA course ‘History, Cultural Memory and Trauma’, UvA, 2012.

‘History, memory and heritage’, guest lecture BA course ‘Standard Methods in Historical Analysis’, AUC, 2012.

‘Negotiating Jewish Identity’, guest lecture MA course ‘Ethics of Art’, UvA, 2012.

‘The Hollandsche Schouwburg as heritage’, guest lecture BA course ‘The Art Market and Culture Industry’, AUC, 2011

 ‘De Hollandsche Schouwburg als plek van herinnering’, guest lecture BA course ‘Holocaust, History & Memory’, VU, 2010.

Selection of conferences

‘Hoe nieuwe generaties Indische Nederlanders zich tot hun verleden verhouden’, moderator panel discussion ‘Van zwijgzaamheid geen sprake’ of Spui25, Amsterdam, 2023.

‘Lost in Translation: Discussing Art’s Place in a Polarised Public Discourse’, moderator session at conference  ‘(un)Common Grounds. Reflecting on Documenta Fifteen’ of Framer Framed, Amsterdam, 2022.

‘Contemporary Jewish literature on Jewish Identity in the Netherlands and France’, moderator session at conference ‘The Politics of Jewish Literature and the Making of Post-War Europe’ of ACES Europe, Amsterdam, 2021.

‘De toekomst van het verleden’, invited speaker at conference ‘De toekomst van herdenken’ of De Nieuwe Liefde, Amsterdam, 2018.

‘Confronting Colonial Pasts: Transformations in Dutch Heritage Narratives’, invited speaker at AHM Conference ‘Materialities of Postcolonial Memory’ of UvA, Amsterdam, 2017.

‘No past, no facts, no future: de betrokkenheid van de wetenschapper’, invited speaker at InScience Filmfestival, Nijmegen, 2017.

‘Holding on to the Past, Preparing for the Future: Heritage and Depots in Times of Crisis and Transformation’, keynote speaker at international conference Codart 20, Warsaw, 2017.

‘Self-inscription at the Hollandsche Schouwburg: the latent indexicality of in situ memorial museums’, speaker at international conference of POLIN Museum, Warsaw, 2017.

‘Cultural Studies research practices - Media and Memory Studies’, guest lecture RMA course ‘Research Practices in Media Studies’, UvA, 2016.

‘De Hollandsche Schouwburg als icoon van de Shoah’, guest lecture MA course ‘Shoah-icons in (Dutch) art and literature’, Leiden University, 2014.

‘Picturing the Shoah at a traumasite’, guest lecture MA course ‘History, Cultural Memory and Trauma’, UvA, 2012.

‘History, memory and heritage’, guest lecture BA course ‘Standard Methods in Historical Analysis’, AUC, 2012.

‘Negotiating Jewish Identity’, guest lecture MA course ‘Ethics of Art’, UvA, 2012.

‘The Hollandsche Schouwburg as heritage’, guest lecture BA course ‘The Art Market and Culture Industry’, AUC, 2011

 ‘De Hollandsche Schouwburg als plek van herinnering’, guest lecture BA course ‘Holocaust, History & Memory’, VU, 2010.

Organisation of conferences

‘Van zwijgzaamheid geen sprake’, Spui25 panel discussion with AHM, Amsterdam, 2023.

‘Gender and Sexuality Studies Under Attack in Central-Eastern Europe’, Spui25 panel discussion with ACES Diverse Europe, Amsterdam, 2021.

‘Materialities of Postcolonial Memory’. International conference with AHM, Amsterdam, 2017.

‘Displaced memories in a Digital Age’, international seminars in Warsaw, Ljubljana, London & Amsterdam, 2016-2018.

‘Colonial Ruin: (In)Visible Sites of Postcolonial Memory’, workshop UvA, Amsterdam, 2015.

‘Travelling memories of terror and war’ symposium with NIAS, Wassenaar, 2012.

Cultural Memory and Trauma (MA Comparative Literature 12 EC, 2020-2023)

History, Cultural Memory and Trauma (MA Comparative Literature 12 EC, 2019-2020)

Intercultural Dialogues (MA Comparative Cultural Analysis 6 EC, 2018-2021)

Contexts and Frames (BA LCA 12 EC, 2016-2022)

Literary and Cultural Theory 1 (BA LCA 6 EC, 2016-2017, 2018-2021)

Research Workshop (BA LCA 6 EC, 2016-2018)

Introduction Literary and Cultural Analysis (BA LCA 12 EC, 2016-2017)

Introductie Literatuurwetenschap (BA Slavistiek 6 EC, 2016)

Seven Masterpieces (BA Literatuurwetenschap 12 EC, 2015-2017)

Wetenschapsfilosofie (BA Literatuurwetenschap 12 EC, 2015-2016)

Literature and Film (BA Literatuurwetenschap 6 EC, 2015-2016)

Term Paper (MA Comparative Cultural Analysis 6 EC, 2014-2016)

Literary and Cultural Theory before 1900 (BA Literatuurwetenschap 6 EC, 2014-2016)

Inleiding Literatuurwetenschap (BA Literatuurwetenschap 12 EC, 2014-2016)

Contexten (BA Literatuurwetenschap 12 EC, 2014-2016)

Term Paper (MA Comparative Literature 6 EC, 2014-2015)

Research Seminar (BA Literatuurwetenschap 6 EC, 2014-2015)

Literary and Cultural Theory after 1900 (BA Literatuurwetenschap 12 EC, 2014-2015)

Literary Theory: Studying Dutch Literature in a Global Context (BA Neerlandistiek 6 EC, 2012-2013)