This literature course introduces students to Dutch literature from the late Middle Ages to the present. The course offers a survey of the highlights of Dutch literature in relationship to gender and sexuality, and to the society and history of the Low Countries. Women authors have always contributed to Dutch literature, but their position and contribution has often been neglected. Students will learn to analyze this paradox by reading works by women writers and studying the mechanisms of (literary) history writing. Students will also study, discuss and practice gendered readings of Dutch literature, and read and analyze several works in which sexuality is a theme. Primary texts include a play by Dutch Golden Age dramatist Vondel, Multatuli’s Max Havelaar, The Diary of Anne Frank, and the work of contemporary writers. Since Amsterdam has been the literary center of the Low Countries from the seventeenth century onwards, students live and work in the perfect setting for this course. In addition to seminar lectures and discussions, students will also attend field study trips, including a walking tour through seventeenth century Amsterdam and a visit to the Anne Frank Museum.
Learning outcomes:
By the end of this course students will be able to:
Demonstrate knowledge of the literary history of the Low Countries, and detailed acquaintance with some canonic works of Dutch literature
Analyze the mechanisms of canonization
Analyze primary literary works with a focus on gender and sexuality
Present their findings in presentations and short papers, comparing what they have learned to their own literary history
Required work and form of assessment:
Class participation (10%).
Two presentations (10% each). For session 7, students prepare a presentation in which they choose one of the eighteenth century Dutch women writers from Women’s Writing from the Low Countries 1200-1875 and compare this writer’s life and work with a woman author from their own choosing. For session 10 the students prepare a short presentation on some aspect of the history of Anne Frank’s Diary in the United States, for example: theatre plays, movies, different English translations of the diary, book covers of the diary from 1945 till present, or literary critics.
Journal response (about 500 words) to the field study trip to the Anne Frank Museum in session 11 (10%).
A series of 6 essays (10% each). These essays are meant as preparation for sessions 1, 3, 5, 8, 10, and 12. Each should be about 1000 words. The teacher formulates statements based on the required literature, and the students react to these statements in their essays. The ‘recommended reading’ list can help students in their writings.
content:
Session 1 (NG&JW): An Introduction to Dutch Society and Literary History
The first session offers an introduction to Dutch society and history, in order to gain some primary knowledge of the context in which Dutch literature came into being and comes into being; and an introduction to the mechanisms of literary history writing and processes of canonization, focusing especially on the role of women authors and the gender aspect in literary history as well as gendered reading.
Reading:
Besamusca, Emmeline, and Jaap Verheul, “Introduction”, in Discovering the Dutch. On Culture and Society of the Netherlands. Ed. Emmeline Besamusca & Jaap Verheul. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press 2010, 11-16.
Verheul, Jaap. “In Foreign Eyes”, in Discovering the Dutch. On Culture and Society of the Netherlands. Ed. Emmeline Besamusca & Jaap Verheul. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press 2010, 2010, 267-277.
Dijk, Suzan van. “Foreword”, in Writing the History of Women’s Writing. Toward an International Approach. Ed. Suzan van Dijk, Lia van Gemert, and Sheila Ottway. Amsterdam: K.N.A.W, 2001, IX-XXI.
Session 2 (JW): Contemporary Women’s Literature
This class will discuss the contemporary literature of young Dutch women writers who play a remarkable role in the cultural and literary field. This class also includes a guest session by Alma Mathijsen. She is a young writer, and gender and sexuality is an important theme in her work. (Note to CC: this author’s schedule prevents her from presenting at the end of the course)
Reading:
Louwerse, Henriette. “‘I’m Good at Stories’. Naima El Bezaz (1974)”, in Women’s writing from the Low Countries 1880-2010: an anthology. Ed. Jacqueline Bel & Thomas Vaessens. Amsterdam/Manchester: Amsterdam University Press/Manchester University Press, 2010, pp. 241-243.
Heynders, Odile. “The novelist as Public Intellectual. Désanne van Brederode (1970)”, in Women’s writing from the Low Countries 1880-2010: an anthology. Ed. Jacqueline Bel & Thomas Vaessens. Amsterdam/Manchester: Amsterdam University Press/Manchester University Press, 2010, pp. 233-239.
Short translated stories of Alma Mathijsen (to be specified).
Session 3 (NG): Women’s Literature in the late Middle Ages
This class contains a brief examination of the Medieval Low Countries and the role women played in medieval ‘Dutch’ literature, devoting the second half of the session completely to one famous woman author from this period: Anna Bijns (1493-1575). Being a single Catholic woman in Antwerp, Bijns has become famous for her independence and her biting verses against Luther and his Reformation.
Reading:
Poel, Dieuwke van der, Hermina Joldersma. “Women’s Writing from the Low Countries 1200-1575”, in Women’s Writing from the Low Countries 1200-1875. A Bilingual Anthology. Ed. Lia van Gemert, Hermina Joldersma, Olga van Marion, Dieuwke van der Poel, and Riet Schenkeveld-van der Dussen, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2010, pp. 21-38.
Kristiaan Aercke, “Word as Weapon in a Holy Mission: Anna Bijns” and the selection of Anna Bijns’s poems, in Women’s Writing from the Low Countries 1200-1875. A Bilingual Anthology. Ed. Lia van Gemert, Hermina Joldersma, Olga van Marion, Dieuwke van der Poel, and Riet Schenkeveld-van der Dussen. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2010, pp. 160-175.
Session 4 (NG): The Dutch Golden Age
The Dutch seventeenth century gained world fame as the Dutch Golden Age. This is highlighted by its remarkable prosperity in commerce and the visual arts, but literature flourished during this period as well. During this session, we will discuss Dutch seventeenth century society and we will focus on literature’s role in society. We will take a walking tour through seventeenth century Amsterdam, which was then the political as well as the commercial center of the Dutch Republic and, moreover, the uncontested capital of the arts, including literature.
Reading:
Prak, Maarten. “The Golden Age”, in Discovering the Dutch. On Culture and Society of the Netherlands. Ed. Emmeline Besamusca & Jaap Verheul. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press 2010, pp. 97-107.
Schenkeveld-van der Dussen, Maria A. “Poets in Society”, in Maria A. Schenkeveld-van der Dussen, Dutch Literature in the Age of Rembrandt. Amsterdam/Philadelphia 1991, pp. 1-35.
Session 5 (NG): A Gendered Reading of Vondel’s Jeptha (1659)
This session will be devoted to the Dutch ‘Shakespeare’, Joost van den Vondel (1587-1679). Vondel’s 17th century contemporaries considered him as the uncontested patriarch of Dutch literature. He wrote plays and poems, and he received praise for both. After a short examination of Vondel’s life and works in general, as well as the reception of his works in other countries, we will focus on reading his plays with a gender approach. Our case study will be Jeptha (1659), an Aristotelian play about the biblical story of Jeptha sacrificing his daughter.
Reading:
Grootes, Eddy. “Vondel and Amsterdam”, in Joost van den Vondel (1587-1679). Dutch Playwright in the Golden Age. Ed. Jan Bloemendal & Frans-Willem Korsten, Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2012, pp. 101-114.
Vondel, Jeptha, transl. by Peter King in Dutch Crossing Vol. 26 (2002), pp. 248-302.
Steenbergh, Kristine. “Gender Studies – Emotions in Jephta”, in Joost van den Vondel (1587-1679). Dutch Playwright in the Golden Age. Ed. Jan Bloemendal & Frans-Willem Korsten. Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2012, pp. 407-426.
Session 6 (NG): Women’s Literature in the Dutch Golden Age
During the larger part of the Dutch Golden Age, there were few women writers. The few women who participated in the literary field became famous. They were viewed as exceptional. During the first half of this session we will discuss the lives and works of several of these famous women writers, while during the second half of the session we will focus on one case study: Katharina Lescailje (1649-1711). Lescailje is representative of the increase of women’s participation in the literary field and she is an interesting case because her work has fueled academic discussion about her (bi)sexuality.
Reading:
Gemert, Lia van. “A Life of Books: Katharina Lescailje” and the selection of Lescailje’s poems, in Women’s Writing from the Low Countries 1200-1875. A Bilingual Anthology. Ed. Lia van Gemert, Hermina Joldersma, Olga van Marion, Dieuwke van der Poel, and Riet Schenkeveld-van der Dussen. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2010, pp. 308-315.
Gemert, Lia van. “Hiding behind Words? Lesbianism in 17th-century Dutch Poetry”, in Thamyris: myth making from past to present Vol. 2, No. 1 (1995), pp. 11-44.
Session 7 (NG): Women’s Literature in the Eighteenth Century
The eighteenth century has been called, internationally, the women’s era: in this period, the number of women authors increased and successfully adapted to new genres, such as the novel and children’s literature. During this session, we will discuss this development in the context of two famous Dutch women authors, Betje Wolff and Aagje Deken. Students will also prepare a presentation for this session, in which they choose one of the eighteenth century Dutch women writers from Women’s Writing from the Low Countries 1200-1875 and compare that writer’s life and work to a woman author they know from their own literature experience or elsewhere. This will enable us to discuss Dutch women writers from a comparative, international perspective.
Reading:
Schenkeveld-van der Dussen, Riet. “Fast Friends: Elisabeth Bekker and Agatha Deken” and the selection of their works, in Women’s Writing from the Low Countries 1200-1875. A Bilingual Anthology. Ed. Lia van Gemert, Hermina Joldersma, Olga van Marion, Dieuwke van der Poel, and Riet Schenkeveld-van der Dussen. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2010, pp. 402-417.
Session 8 (JW): Sexuality in Nineteenth Century Literature
Although sexuality did not openly appear in the Dutch literature of the nineteenth century, a lot was hidden between the lines of the text. In this session we look at the double standards relating to sex and sexuality, in the personal and public life of the nineteenth century writer. By discussing several literary texts of different decades of this era, students will examine the double layer of what is actually said and meant.
Reading:
Mathijsen, Marita. “The underbelly of literature: pornography in the nineteenth-century Netherlands”, in The Low Countries: arts and society in Flanders and The Netherlands: a yearbook Vol. 16 (2008), pp. 38-49.
Pattynama, Pamela. “Secrets and Danger: Interracial Sexuality in Louis Couperus’s The Hidden Force and Dutch Colonial Culture around 1900”, in Domesticating the Empire. Race, Gender, and Family Life in French and Dutch Colonialism. Ed. Julia Clancy-Smith and Frances Gouda. Virginia: University Press of Virginia, 1999, pp. 84-107.
Couperus, Louis. The Hidden Force. Translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos. Revised and edited, with an introduction and notes by E.M. Beekman. Massachusetts: University of Massachusetts, 1990.
Session 9 (JW): A Gendered Reading of Multatuli’s Max Havelaar (1860)
This class will take place in the house where Eduard Douwes Dekker, better known as Multatuli (which means: I have suffered much) was born. In 1860 Multatuli entered the Dutch cultural and political scene with his satirical novel Max Havelaar or the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company, a critical essay about the Dutch colonial rule in what is now Indonesia. The impact of Multatuli's Max Havelaar in the Netherlands can be compared to Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe in the United States of America. This on-location literature class is followed by a guided tour of the Multatuli Museum that details Multatuli’s life and work. The session ends with a guided walk through Multatuli’s Amsterdam.
Reading:
Oostrum, Duco van. “Sneezes and Lies. Female Voices in Multatuli’s Max Havelaar”, in Male Authors, Female Subjects: The Woman Within/beyond the Borders of Henry Adams, Henry James and Others. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1995, pp. 47-69.
Multatuli. Max Havelaar or the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company. Translated and edited by Roy Edwards. Introduction by R.P. Meijer. London: Penguin Books, 1995.
Session 10 (JW): Autobiographic Writing in the Second World War
Diaries, letters and other self-narratives from the period of the Second World War are the focus of this session. In this class there is a short introduction on the Dutch history of the Second World War, and a global overview of autobiographic women’s writing about this specific period. The main focus lies on the emancipation and sexuality in the diaries of Etty Hillesum and Anne Frank. Students prepare a short presentation on one aspect of the history of Anne Franks Diary in the United States, for example: theatre plays, movies, different English translations of the diary, book covers of the diary from 1945 till present, or literary critics.
Reading (session 10 & 11):
Bel, Jacqueline. “War, Eroticism and Asceticism. Etty Hillesum (1914-1943)”, in Women’s writing from the Low Countries 1880-2010: an anthology. Ed. Jacqueline Bel & Thomas Vaessens. Amsterdam/Manchester: Amsterdam University Press/Manchester University Press, 2010, pp. 93-96.
Oever, Annie van den, Ernst Bruinsma. “The Persecution of the Jews as an Incredible Story. Marga Minco (1920)”, in Women’s writing from the Low Countries 1880-2010: an anthology. Ed. Jacqueline Bel & Thomas Vaessens. Amsterdam/Manchester: Amsterdam University Press/Manchester University Press, 2010, pp. 111-114.
Bel, Jacqueline. “War and Literature. Anne Frank (1929-1945)”, in Women’s writing from the Low Countries 1880-2010: an anthology. Ed. Jacqueline Bel & Thomas Vaessens. Amsterdam/Manchester: Amsterdam University Press/Manchester University Press, 2010, pp. 131-134.
Fenoulhet, Jane. “Intimate Emancipation: Mystical Experience in the Work of Carry van Bruggen and Etty Hillesum”, in Forum for Modern Language Studies, Vol. 42, No. 3 (2006), pp. 213-225.
Frank, Anne. Anne Frank’s Tales from the Secret Annex. Including her unfinished novel Cady’s Life. Eds. Gerrold van der Stroom and Susan Massotty. Translation by Susan Massotty. New York: Bantam Dell, 2003.
Hillesum, Etty. An interrupted life and Letters from Westerbork. Foreword by Eva Hoffman. Introduction by J.G. Gaarlandt. New York: Henry Holt & Company, 1996.
Session 11 (JW): Field Trip to the Anne Frank Museum
The visit includes a short introduction of a member of the group visit service of the museum, who will focus on the life of Anne Frank’s family in the Annex House, and on the diary she wrote during her stay there. The students write a short journal response to this field study trip, in order to let them confront their former knowledge of Anne Frank with their new experiences.
Session 12 (JW): Amsterdam in the Sixties & Seventies
In the sixties and seventies Amsterdam was the center where counterculture movements of the ‘Flower Power’ hippies and the Provo’s were based. During this period the Dutch capital was better known as the place of ‘sex, drugs and rock & roll’. In this class we look at the cultural transitions that took place in Amsterdam in these two decades, and in particular at the second feminist wave that followed. We will also compare the influence of the feminist movement in Dutch literature with examples of feminist writers from other countries. Central topic for discussion is Anja Meulenbelt’s book The shame is over (1976).
Reading:
Buikema, Rosemarie, Iris van der Tuin. “Three feminist waves”, in Discovering the Dutch: on culture and society of the Netherlands. Eds. Emmeline Besamusca & Jaap Verheul. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2010, pp. 190-201.
Meijer, Maaike. “A Political Life Story. Anja Meulenbelt (1945)”, in Women’s writing from the Low Countries 1880-2010: an anthology. Eds. Jacqueline Bel & Thomas Vaessens. Amsterdam/Manchester: Amsterdam University Press/Manchester University Press, 2010, pp. 175-178.
Meulenbelt, Anja. The Shame is over: a Political Life Story. Translation Ann Oosthuizen. London: Women’s Press, 1980.
Required readings:
Aercke, Kristiaan, “Word as Weapon in a Holy Mission: Anna Bijns” and the selection of Anna Bijns’s poems, in Women’s Writing from the Low Countries 1200-1875. A Bilingual Anthology. Ed. Lia van Gemert, Hermina Joldersma, Olga van Marion, Dieuwke van der Poel, and Riet Schenkeveld-van der Dussen. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2010, pp. 160-175.
Bel, Jacqueline. “War, Eroticism and Asceticism. Etty Hillesum (1914-1943)”, in Women’s writing from the Low Countries 1880-2010: an anthology. Ed. Jacqueline Bel & Thomas Vaessens. Amsterdam/Manchester: Amsterdam University Press/Manchester University Press, 2010, pp. 93-96.
Bel, Jacqueline. “War and Literature. Anne Frank (1929-1945)”, in Women’s writing from the Low Countries 1880-2010: an anthology. Ed. Jacqueline Bel & Thomas Vaessens. Amsterdam/Manchester: Amsterdam University Press/Manchester University Press, 2010, pp. 131-134.
Besamusca, Emmeline, and Jaap Verheul, “Introduction”, in Discovering the Dutch. On Culture and Society of the Netherlands. Ed. Emmeline Besamusca & Jaap Verheul. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press 2010, 11-16.
Buikema, Rosemarie, Iris van der Tuin. “Three feminist waves”, in Discovering the Dutch: on culture and society of the Netherlands. Eds. Emmeline Besamusca & Jaap Verheul. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2010, pp. 190-201.
Couperus, Louis. The Hidden Force. Translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos. Revised and edited, with an introduction and notes by E.M. Beekman. Massachusetts: University of Massachusetts, 1990.
Dijk, Suzan van. “Foreword”, in Writing the History of Women’s Writing. Toward an International Approach. Ed. Suzan van Dijk, Lia van Gemert, and Sheila Ottway. Amsterdam: K.N.A.W, 2001, IX-XXI.
Fenoulhet, Jane. “Intimate Emancipation: Mystical Experience in the Work of Carry van Bruggen and Etty Hillesum”, in Forum for Modern Language Studies, Vol. 42, No. 3 (2006), pp. 213-225.
Frank, Anne. Anne Frank’s Tales from the Secret Annex. Including her unfinished novel Cady’s Life. Eds. Gerrold van der Stroom and Susan Massotty. Translation by Susan Massotty. New York: Bantam Dell, 2003.
Gemert, Lia van. “A Life of Books: Katharina Lescailje” and the selection of Lescailje’s poems, in Women’s Writing from the Low Countries 1200-1875. A Bilingual Anthology. Ed. Lia van Gemert, Hermina Joldersma, Olga van Marion, Dieuwke van der Poel, and Riet Schenkeveld-van der Dussen. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2010, pp. 308-315.
Gemert, Lia van. “Hiding behind Words? Lesbianism in 17th-century Dutch Poetry”, in Thamyris: myth making from past to present Vol. 2, No. 1 (1995), pp. 11-44.
Grootes, Eddy. “Vondel and Amsterdam”, in Joost van den Vondel (1587-1679). Dutch Playwright in the Golden Age. Ed. Jan Bloemendal & Frans-Willem Korsten, Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2012, pp. 101-114.
Heynders, Odile. “The novelist as Public Intellectual. Désanne van Brederode (1970)”, in Women’s writing from the Low Countries 1880-2010: an anthology. Ed. Jacqueline Bel & Thomas Vaessens. Amsterdam/Manchester: Amsterdam University Press/Manchester University Press, 2010, pp. 233-239.
Hillesum, Etty. An interrupted life and Letters from Westerbork. Foreword by Eva Hoffman. Introduction by J.G. Gaarlandt. New York: Henry Holt & Company, 1996.
Louwerse, Henriette. “‘I’m Good at Stories’. Naima El Bezaz (1974)”, in Women’s writing from the Low Countries 1880-2010: an anthology. Ed. Jacqueline Bel & Thomas Vaessens. Amsterdam/Manchester: Amsterdam University Press/Manchester University Press, 2010, pp. 241-243.
Mathijsen, Marita. “The underbelly of literature: pornography in the nineteenth-century Netherlands”, in The Low Countries: arts and society in Flanders and The Netherlands: a yearbook Vol. 16 (2008), pp. 38-49.
Meijer, Maaike. “A Political Life Story. Anja Meulenbelt (1945)”, in Women’s writing from the Low Countries 1880-2010: an anthology. Eds. Jacqueline Bel & Thomas Vaessens. Amsterdam/Manchester: Amsterdam University Press/Manchester University Press, 2010, pp. 175-178.
Meulenbelt, Anja. The Shame is over: a Political Life Story. Translation Ann Oosthuizen. London: Women’s Press, 1980.
Multatuli. Max Havelaar or the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company. Translated and edited by Roy Edwards. Introduction by R.P. Meijer. London: Penguin Books, 1995.
Pattynama, Pamela. “Secrets and Danger: Interracial Sexuality in Louis Couperus’s The Hidden Force and Dutch Colonial Culture around 1900”, in Domesticating the Empire. Race, Gender, and Family Life in French and Dutch Colonialism. Ed. Julia Clancy-Smith and Frances Gouda. Virginia: University Press of Virginia, 1999, pp. 84-107.
Poel, Dieuwke van der, Hermina Joldersma. “Women’s Writing from the Low Countries 1200-1575”, in Women’s Writing from the Low Countries 1200-1875. A Bilingual Anthology. Ed. Lia van Gemert, Hermina Joldersma, Olga van Marion, Dieuwke van der Poel, and Riet Schenkeveld-van der Dussen, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2010, pp. 21-38.
Prak, Maarten. “The Golden Age”, in Discovering the Dutch. On Culture and Society of the Netherlands. Ed. Emmeline Besamusca & Jaap Verheul. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press 2010, pp. 97-107.
Oever, Annie van den, Ernst Bruinsma. “The Persecution of the Jews as an Incredible Story. Marga Minco (1920)”, in Women’s writing from the Low Countries 1880-2010: an anthology. Ed. Jacqueline Bel & Thomas Vaessens. Amsterdam/Manchester: Amsterdam University Press/Manchester University Press, 2010, pp. 111-114.
Oostrum, Duco van. “Sneezes and Lies. Female Voices in Multatuli’s Max Havelaar”, in Male Authors, Female Subjects: The Woman Within/beyond the Borders of Henry Adams, Henry James and Others. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1995, pp. 47-69.
Schenkeveld-van der Dussen, Maria A. “Poets in Society”, in Maria A. Schenkeveld-van der Dussen, Dutch Literature in the Age of Rembrandt. Amsterdam/Philadelphia 1991, pp. 1-35.
Schenkeveld-van der Dussen, Riet. “Fast Friends: Elisabeth Bekker and Agatha Deken” and the selection of their works, in Women’s Writing from the Low Countries 1200-1875. A Bilingual Anthology. Ed. Lia van Gemert, Hermina Joldersma, Olga van Marion, Dieuwke van der Poel, and Riet Schenkeveld-van der Dussen. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2010, pp. 402-417.
Short translated stories of Alma Mathijsen (to be specified).
Steenbergh, Kristine. “Gender Studies – Emotions in Jephta”, in Joost van den Vondel (1587-1679). Dutch Playwright in the Golden Age. Ed. Jan Bloemendal & Frans-Willem Korsten. Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2012, pp. 407-426.
Verheul, Jaap. “In Foreign Eyes”, in Discovering the Dutch. On Culture and Society of the Netherlands. Ed. Emmeline Besamusca & Jaap Verheul. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press 2010, 2010, 267-277.
Vondel, Jeptha, transl. by Peter King in Dutch Crossing Vol. 26 (2002), pp. 248-302.
Recommended readings:
Aercke, Kristiaan (ed.). Women Writing in Dutch. New York: Garland Science, 1994.
Bel, Jacqueline & Thomas Vaessens (ed.). Women’s writing from the Low Countries 1880-2010: an anthology. Amsterdam/Manchester: Amsterdam University Press/Manchester University Press, 2010.
Besamusca, Emmeline & Jaap Verheul. Discovering the Dutch: on culture and society of the Netherlands. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2010.
Bloemendal, Jan & Frans-Willem Korsten (eds.). Joost van den Vondel (1587-1679). Dutch Playwright in the Golden Age. Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2012.
Dacosta, Denise. Anne Frank and Etty Hillesum: Inscribing Spirituality and Sexuality. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1998.
Feldhay Brenner, Rachel (ed.). Writing as Resistance: Four Women Confronting the Holocaust: Edith Stein, Simone Weil, Anne Frank, Etty Hillesum. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997.
Fenoulhet, Jane. Making the Personal Political: Dutch Women Writers 1919–1970. 2007. London: Maney Publishing, 2007.
Gemert, Lia van, Hermina Joldersma, Olga van Marion, Dieuwke van der Poel & Riet Schenkeveld-van der Dussen (eds.). Women's Writing from the Low Countries 1200-1875. A Bilingual Anthology. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
Meijer, Maaike. “Introduction”, in The Defiant Muse. Dutch and Flemish Feminist Poetry from the Middle Ages to the Present. New York: The Feminist Press, 1998, pp. 1-19.
Oostrum, Duco van. “Male authors and Female Subjects: Professor X in “No Man’s Land”’, in Male Authors, Female Subjects: The Woman Within/beyond the Borders of Henry Adams, Henry James and Others. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1995, pp. 9-45.
Brief Biography of Instructor:
Janneke Weijermars earned a Ph.D. in Literature from the University of Antwerp in 2012. She works as a postdoctoral researcher at the Radboud University in Nijmegen and publishes about literary, (book-)historical and cultural issues. Janneke Weijermars taught/teaches different classes concerning Dutch language, literature and culture at the Universities of Brno (Czech Republic), Antwerp (Belgium), Amsterdam and Nijmegen. Her main publications are Het is pas feest als Harry is geweest (2007), a history of the Dutch Book Ball, a famous social event for writers, and Stiefbroeders (2012), a literary history of the period when Belgium, Luxemburg and The Netherlands were united under king William I (1814-1830).
Nina Geerdink earned a Ph.D. in Literature from VU University Amsterdam in 2012. Her dissertation about poets and earnings focuses on the Amsterdam poet Jan Vos (1610-1667) and is published in Dutch (Hilversum 2012). Nina Geerdink works as a lecturer and researcher at Radboud University Nijmegen and publishes about early modern Dutch literature, especially women’s literature, social and political poetry and theatre. She taught/teaches several classes concerning Dutch literature and culture at VU University, Utrecht University, Radboud University and University College Utrecht, among which courses for exchange students about the Dutch Golden Age and Dutch society and culture in general.
Gender And Sexuality In Dutch Literature From The Late Middle Ages To The Present
This literature course introduces students to Dutch literature from the late Middle Ages to the present. The course offers a survey of the highlights of Dutch literature in relationship to gender and sexuality, and to the society and history of the Low Countries. Women authors have always contributed to Dutch literature, but their position and contribution has often been neglected. Students will learn to analyze this paradox by reading works by women writers and studying the mechanisms of (literary) history writing. Students will also study, discuss and practice gendered readings of Dutch literature, and read and analyze several works in which sexuality is a theme. Primary texts include a play by Dutch Golden Age dramatist Vondel, Multatuli’s Max Havelaar, The Diary of Anne Frank, and the work of contemporary writers. Since Amsterdam has been the literary center of the Low Countries from the seventeenth century onwards, students live and work in the perfect setting for this course. In addition to seminar lectures and discussions, students will also attend field study trips, including a walking tour through seventeenth century Amsterdam and a visit to the Anne Frank Museum.
By the end of this course students will be able to:
Session 1 (NG&JW): An Introduction to Dutch Society and Literary History
The first session offers an introduction to Dutch society and history, in order to gain some primary knowledge of the context in which Dutch literature came into being and comes into being; and an introduction to the mechanisms of literary history writing and processes of canonization, focusing especially on the role of women authors and the gender aspect in literary history as well as gendered reading.
Reading:
Session 2 (JW): Contemporary Women’s Literature
This class will discuss the contemporary literature of young Dutch women writers who play a remarkable role in the cultural and literary field. This class also includes a guest session by Alma Mathijsen. She is a young writer, and gender and sexuality is an important theme in her work. (Note to CC: this author’s schedule prevents her from presenting at the end of the course)
Reading:
Session 3 (NG): Women’s Literature in the late Middle Ages
This class contains a brief examination of the Medieval Low Countries and the role women played in medieval ‘Dutch’ literature, devoting the second half of the session completely to one famous woman author from this period: Anna Bijns (1493-1575). Being a single Catholic woman in Antwerp, Bijns has become famous for her independence and her biting verses against Luther and his Reformation.
Reading:
Session 4 (NG): The Dutch Golden Age
The Dutch seventeenth century gained world fame as the Dutch Golden Age. This is highlighted by its remarkable prosperity in commerce and the visual arts, but literature flourished during this period as well. During this session, we will discuss Dutch seventeenth century society and we will focus on literature’s role in society. We will take a walking tour through seventeenth century Amsterdam, which was then the political as well as the commercial center of the Dutch Republic and, moreover, the uncontested capital of the arts, including literature.
Reading:
Session 5 (NG): A Gendered Reading of Vondel’s Jeptha (1659)
This session will be devoted to the Dutch ‘Shakespeare’, Joost van den Vondel (1587-1679). Vondel’s 17th century contemporaries considered him as the uncontested patriarch of Dutch literature. He wrote plays and poems, and he received praise for both. After a short examination of Vondel’s life and works in general, as well as the reception of his works in other countries, we will focus on reading his plays with a gender approach. Our case study will be Jeptha (1659), an Aristotelian play about the biblical story of Jeptha sacrificing his daughter.
Reading:
Session 6 (NG): Women’s Literature in the Dutch Golden Age
During the larger part of the Dutch Golden Age, there were few women writers. The few women who participated in the literary field became famous. They were viewed as exceptional. During the first half of this session we will discuss the lives and works of several of these famous women writers, while during the second half of the session we will focus on one case study: Katharina Lescailje (1649-1711). Lescailje is representative of the increase of women’s participation in the literary field and she is an interesting case because her work has fueled academic discussion about her (bi)sexuality.
Reading:
Session 7 (NG): Women’s Literature in the Eighteenth Century
The eighteenth century has been called, internationally, the women’s era: in this period, the number of women authors increased and successfully adapted to new genres, such as the novel and children’s literature. During this session, we will discuss this development in the context of two famous Dutch women authors, Betje Wolff and Aagje Deken. Students will also prepare a presentation for this session, in which they choose one of the eighteenth century Dutch women writers from Women’s Writing from the Low Countries 1200-1875 and compare that writer’s life and work to a woman author they know from their own literature experience or elsewhere. This will enable us to discuss Dutch women writers from a comparative, international perspective.
Reading:
Session 8 (JW): Sexuality in Nineteenth Century Literature
Although sexuality did not openly appear in the Dutch literature of the nineteenth century, a lot was hidden between the lines of the text. In this session we look at the double standards relating to sex and sexuality, in the personal and public life of the nineteenth century writer. By discussing several literary texts of different decades of this era, students will examine the double layer of what is actually said and meant.
Reading:
Session 9 (JW): A Gendered Reading of Multatuli’s Max Havelaar (1860)
This class will take place in the house where Eduard Douwes Dekker, better known as Multatuli (which means: I have suffered much) was born. In 1860 Multatuli entered the Dutch cultural and political scene with his satirical novel Max Havelaar or the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company, a critical essay about the Dutch colonial rule in what is now Indonesia. The impact of Multatuli's Max Havelaar in the Netherlands can be compared to Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe in the United States of America. This on-location literature class is followed by a guided tour of the Multatuli Museum that details Multatuli’s life and work. The session ends with a guided walk through Multatuli’s Amsterdam.
Reading:
Session 10 (JW): Autobiographic Writing in the Second World War
Diaries, letters and other self-narratives from the period of the Second World War are the focus of this session. In this class there is a short introduction on the Dutch history of the Second World War, and a global overview of autobiographic women’s writing about this specific period. The main focus lies on the emancipation and sexuality in the diaries of Etty Hillesum and Anne Frank. Students prepare a short presentation on one aspect of the history of Anne Franks Diary in the United States, for example: theatre plays, movies, different English translations of the diary, book covers of the diary from 1945 till present, or literary critics.
Reading (session 10 & 11):
Session 11 (JW): Field Trip to the Anne Frank Museum
The visit includes a short introduction of a member of the group visit service of the museum, who will focus on the life of Anne Frank’s family in the Annex House, and on the diary she wrote during her stay there. The students write a short journal response to this field study trip, in order to let them confront their former knowledge of Anne Frank with their new experiences.
Session 12 (JW): Amsterdam in the Sixties & Seventies
In the sixties and seventies Amsterdam was the center where counterculture movements of the ‘Flower Power’ hippies and the Provo’s were based. During this period the Dutch capital was better known as the place of ‘sex, drugs and rock & roll’. In this class we look at the cultural transitions that took place in Amsterdam in these two decades, and in particular at the second feminist wave that followed. We will also compare the influence of the feminist movement in Dutch literature with examples of feminist writers from other countries. Central topic for discussion is Anja Meulenbelt’s book The shame is over (1976).
Reading:
Janneke Weijermars earned a Ph.D. in Literature from the University of Antwerp in 2012. She works as a postdoctoral researcher at the Radboud University in Nijmegen and publishes about literary, (book-)historical and cultural issues. Janneke Weijermars taught/teaches different classes concerning Dutch language, literature and culture at the Universities of Brno (Czech Republic), Antwerp (Belgium), Amsterdam and Nijmegen. Her main publications are Het is pas feest als Harry is geweest (2007), a history of the Dutch Book Ball, a famous social event for writers, and Stiefbroeders (2012), a literary history of the period when Belgium, Luxemburg and The Netherlands were united under king William I (1814-1830).
Nina Geerdink earned a Ph.D. in Literature from VU University Amsterdam in 2012. Her dissertation about poets and earnings focuses on the Amsterdam poet Jan Vos (1610-1667) and is published in Dutch (Hilversum 2012). Nina Geerdink works as a lecturer and researcher at Radboud University Nijmegen and publishes about early modern Dutch literature, especially women’s literature, social and political poetry and theatre. She taught/teaches several classes concerning Dutch literature and culture at VU University, Utrecht University, Radboud University and University College Utrecht, among which courses for exchange students about the Dutch Golden Age and Dutch society and culture in general.