Herman Hendriks commemorated with window poetry

From 2 March, people passing by will see white letters behind the window of Drift 13 that form the following sentence: 'literal is figurative for verbal'. A line from a poem by Hans Faverey? A cryptic clue from a cryptogram?

It is a quote from university lecturer Herman Hendriks, who died last October at the age of 62. He was associated with the Philosophy and Liberal Arts and Sciences programmes. In the field of Theoretical Philosophy, he taught students about logic and the philosophy of language. Within the LAS programme, he was a lecturer for the course De Denkacademie, a tutor, supervised theses and assessed final portfolios. In addition, Hendriks contributed to the Artificial Intelligence programme with his knowledge of language and philosophy.

Hendriks studied Dutch and Philosophy at the University of Amsterdam. In 1993 he obtained his doctorate with a dissertation on a subject taken from the field of logical semantics. The statement 'literal is figurative for verbal' was a thesis accompanying his dissertation. By placing this sentence on the window of the common room of the Language and Culture Studies and Liberal Arts and Sciences programmes at Drift 13, the university is commemorating his life and work.

For Herman, thinking about language was at the core of science

Professors Berteke Waaldijk (TCS) and Iris van der Tuin (LAS) took the initiative. They explain: "For Herman, thinking about language was at the core of science. We recognise this fascination for language in our programmes - and it connects our LAS and TCS programmes and our students with the Faculty of Humanities. We hope that his words will also make passers-by think."