In memoriam Wiljan van den Akker (1954-2026)

The Faculty of Humanities has received news of the passing of Wiljan van den Akker, Emeritus Faculty Professor and former Dean of the faculty (2006-2014). With his sudden passing, we lose an influential scholar and administrator, and a distinctive colleague. Close colleagues have written a personal tribute.

An advocate for the humanities

As Dean, Van den Akker was a tireless advocate of the humanities. They deserved to be taken seriously and properly funded. He expected the wider public to understand that one cannot on the one hand extol the cultural value of literature, art, language, history and ethics, while on the other cutting off funding for the disciplines that study them. He pushed for the major national funding programme Duurzame Geesteswetenschappen and for nationwide collaboration between faculties to strengthen the disciplines. Within the university, too, he demanded that the humanities be accorded full recognition.

Neerlandistiek

Van den Akker was born in Oss in 1954. His father was a businessman and banker; his mother came from a family of educators. The young Wiljan attended the Gymnasium B in Den Bosch and showed a flair for the sciences. Despite expectations that he would go on to study Medicine, he chose to study Dutch in Utrecht.

In Utrecht, Professor Guus Sötemann made a deep impression on him. But above all, it was his student mentor Frits van Oostrom, then a senior student, who opened windows onto Dutch literature that the young Wiljan had not even known existed. The bond between the two endured throughout their lives.

Modern Dutch literature

In 1985, Van den Akker completed his doctorate on the work of Martinus Nijhoff. Less than three years later, at just 32, he was appointed Professor of Modern Dutch Literature. It took some getting used to, sitting in a chair that placed him above several of his former teachers.

Van den Akker succeeded in bringing the department along with him towards a greater openness to new directions in literary scholarship. He fostered collaboration with Dutch studies scholars in Germany and the United States, among other countries. He published on Roland Holst, Van Schendel, Leopold, and Lodeizen. Only last year, he and Gillis Dorleijn published the substantial volume Een nieuw geluid: De geboorte van de moderne poëzie in Nederland.

Building the academy

In 1994, the Faculty of Arts asked Van den Akker to lead the newly established Research Institute for History and Culture (OGC), a task he took on together with Frans Ruiter.

He brought the institute into line with the organisational structures that were becoming dominant in the then newly established national research schools. In his view, this made it possible for researchers to continue operating from their own identity across different contexts, a principle he held to be of fundamental importance in academic governance.

After eight years at the OGC, he became chair of the Humanities board of NWO. He took particular pride in his work on the nationally introduced Aspasia grants, which for decades promoted the careers of women in academia. As director of the institutes of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), he then turned his attention to questions of data storage in an increasingly digitalised world. The outcome was DANS, the national centre of expertise and repository for research data.

Dean of the Faculty of Humanities

When Van den Akker was appointed Dean of the newly formed Faculty of Humanities in 2006, he returned to his principle of recognising identity. Parts of the former faculties of Arts, Theology, and Philosophy were brought together in robust departments that continue to exist to this day.

Van den Akker was pleased to see the Faculty of Humanities take on, over many years, a prominent role in strategic themes such as Institutions for Open Societies. He may have been prouder still of the visibility of humanities themes in European funding programmes with an emphasis on societal impact. Impact was a cause close to his heart, not least during his time representing Utrecht University across Europe as Vice-Rector for Research.

As Dean, Van den Akker also found himself compelled to take unpopular decisions, such as closing the degree programmes in Portuguese and Theology due to declining student numbers.

He sometimes seemed to expect everyone to bring the same boundless energy to their work as he did, which did not make him the easiest colleague for everyone. But he stood by his people, he was a warm-hearted man with a deep sense of loyalty and an equally strong sense of humour.

Poetry

Alongside his work as a scholar and administrator, Wiljan van den Akker was a poet, writer, and translator. He also served on the juries of the P.C. Hooft Prize and the Prize for Dutch Literature. For his first poetry collection, De afstand, he received the C. Buddingh Prize in 2008.

Together with his wife Esther Jansma, he published the novel De messias in 2015 under the pseudonym Julian Winter. Jansma, herself a distinguished poet, passed away last year. Between them they had five children from previous relationships.