Utrecht humanities scholars contributed to Flemish encyclopaedia
Several humanities scholars and students from Utrecht University have contributed to the latest (and digital) edition of the Encyclopedie van de Vlaamse Beweging (Encyclopaedia of the Flemish Movement). The reference work, which will eventually include some 4,000 lemmas online, provides an overview with scholarly knowledge on the Flemish Movement.
Hundreds of scholars collaborated on the megaproject, including several lecturer-researchers and former students of the Research Master’s in Dutch Literature and Culture at Utrecht University’s Faculty of Humanities. Professor Geert Buelens, former students Ulrike Burki and Camilla Pargentino, and former student and current lecturer Hidde Slotboom (co)authored dozens of lemmas, on subjects including literature, culture, and Congo. Assistant Professor Sarah Adams was involved as a reviewer.
What is the Flemish Movement?
“The Flemish Movement is a nationalist emancipatory movement,” Geert Buelens explains. “Just like those in Scotland, Catalonia, and Friesland, for example. In its most extreme form, the Movement advocates Flemish independence, but not everyone who is or was involved is or was a separatist.”
“Writers played a major role in the Movement, particularly in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Encyclopedie van de Vlaamse Beweging was created to provide reliable information on individuals, organisations, journals, and the like that were and are important to the Movement.”
The Encyclopedie van de Vlaamse Beweging
The first Encyclopedie van de Vlaamse Beweging was printed in the 1970s and had a clear nationalist slant. Since revision in 1998, that has changed, Buelens says. “It became a scholarly work, set up and conducted by scholars and subject to peer review. So today it is no longer a nationalist vehicle, but a source of knowledge for anyone with an interest in the Flemish Movement.”
The edition that is now published consists of a comprehensive website and a book with several major synthesis articles. “The main shift in this issue is the expanded view on the Flemish Movement, in line with the changes in international Nationalism Studies. Cultural Studies has a big impact now and so the new Encyclopedie also covers the importance of popular music, Flemish food culture, and cycling – the Tour of Flanders!”
“In our Research Master’s in Dutch Literature and Culture, we have a major module: Comparative Nationalism. In this we compare all kinds of forms of nationalism, those in the Netherlands, Flanders, Indonesia, and Suriname, for example. It is mainly thanks to this course and what students themselves researched for it that there is a relatively large number of Utrecht contributions in the new Encyclopedie.”