Short biography

Dr. Leonie Schmidt is an Associate Professor in the Media Studies department of the University of Amsterdam and a researcher affiliated with the Amsterdam School of Cultural Analysis. Her research interests cover elemental media, ecomedia, green cultural studies, religion, popular culture & climate change. Leonie is the author of Islamic Modernities in Southeast Asia: Exploring Indonesian Popular and Visual Culture (Rowman & Littlefield, 2017). In her NWO Rubicon & Veni-projects, conducted at SOAS in London (2016-2019), she analyzed how Islamic popular culture negotiates and contests  ‘Islamic radicalisation', while complicating simplistic views of 'radicalisation'. Her current research explores cultural approaches to climate change, specifically focusing on the Global South, much of which is on the front lines of climate change. Leonie has been teaching a wide variety of courses in the Media Studies department since 2009. Leonie supervises several Ph.D. students. 

Books

Schmidt, Leonie (2017) Islamic modernities in Southeast Asia: Exploring Indonesian Popular and Visual Culture. Washington DC: Rowman & Littlefield.

Chow, Yiufai, Jeroen de Kloet, Leonie Schmidt (2024) It’s My Party’ - Tatming and the Postcolonial Politics of Popular Music in Hong Kong. Palgrave.

Kloos, David, Leonie Schmidt, Mark Westmoreland, Bart Barendregt (2023) Provocative Images in Contemporary Islam. Leiden: Leiden University Press.

ERC Consolidator Grant

Eco-Islam in Indonesia: Media, Institutions, Publics
Innovative solutions to the climate issue are often sought within the natural sciences - technical fixes such as geo-engineering, for example. But climate change is also a problem that the humanities must address. In her project, Schmidt will therefore conduct research into cultural approaches to climate change. She will focus specifically on the Global South, which is on the front lines of climate change, but has been largely ignored in research about cultural approaches while it is precisely in the Global South that we can find creative experiments and cultural approaches to climate issues. In Indonesia, for example, an eco-movement has emerged within Islam in which artists from the world of pop music, films, TV, and social media read the Koran as a ‘green’ book that calls on Muslims to be stewards of the earth. This and other cultural approaches from the Global South will be at the center of Schmidt’s research.

Individual grants

ERC Consolidator Grant, 2024-2029 
NWO VENI, 2016-2019 
NWO Rubicon, 2016 

Education

Ph.D. in Media Studies, 2014, University of Amsterdam. 
Research Master in Media Studies, cum laude, 2007-2009, University of Amsterdam.
Bachelor in Media & Culture, cum laude, 2004-2007, University of Amsterdam.

Ph.D. Supervision

2017-2023 (defended), Arnoud Arps, 'Remembering Violence: Cultural Memory, Popular Culture and the Indonesian War of Independence'. ASCA, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands

2019-present, Yvette Wong, ‘Wenyi and Its Discontents: A Study of Creative Practices and Politics in Hong Kong’, ASCA, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands

2022-present, Hannah Poon, ‘Suriving in Abeyance: Digital Networks and Resistance in Hong Kong after the Anti-Extradition Bill Movement’, ASCA, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands

2023-present, Timoteus Kusno,’Dismantling Nostalgia: Art Practices Dealing with Colonial Leftovers’, ASCA, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands

2023-present, Brian Trinanda, ‘Traditional Islamic Cosmology and the Making of Cosmological Music’, ASCA, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands

2024-present, Bogna Bochinska, 'Meanders of memory: The media archaeological study of environmental remembrance and transnationality along the river Oder', ASCA, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands

2024-present, Oscar Man, 'Noisy Commons: Identity, Community, and Locality in Hong Kong Indie Pop', ASCA, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands