Public Engagement
Affiliates of the Cultural History group are open to advise on or give guest presentations about:
- The role of history in topical debates
- The representation of groups of people in historical debates
- The management of heritage
- The cultural history of modern Europe
- The history of humanities, natural sciences, knowledge and of universities
- The historical role of scientific expertise in society
- The digital humanities
- The Canon of the Netherlands
- Teaching history in secondary education
- Early modern knowledge networks
Does your organisation or company want more information about commissioned research or related activities? Please contact Dr Joost Dankers.
We consistently seek to co-operate with the public at large and reach out in particular to marginalised groups who are underrepresented in history. Below, we give a number of examples of how we seek to connect to larger audiences outside academia:
Podcast on American politics
Dr Rutger van der Hoeven is not only an assistant professor, he is also a journalist working for De Groene Amsterdammer. In the podcast series Radio Amerika he comments every couple of weeks on American politics, together with Caspar Thomas.
History of book distribution
Dr Marijke Huisman, after producing with the help of students a book about Savanah Bay, a long-standing feminist bookshop in Utrecht, and its network of employees, authors, customers and campaigners, has just finished a monograph about the history of the Centraal Boekhuis, commissioned by this national distribution centre for books.
Discussing and exploring decolonisation
Dr Rachel Gillett and Dr Eva Schalbroeck participate in the Decolonisation Group at Utrecht University, that brings together faculty and graduate students from different departments within Utrecht University and beyond. Amongst other projects, the group has created a podcast series.
Crowdsourcing project SKILLNET
The SKILLNET team runs a crowdsourcing project in which everyone can help to gather data for studying early modern knowledge networks. Members of the audience draw boxes about relevant data on printed pages of the 16th and 17th centuries, and are asked to transcribe what is in those boxes, to help reconstruct the social network of the scientific community. Since the languages of the sources are in French, English, Latin, Italian, Dutch and Spanish, the free participation is international.
Historical Streetname project
Dr Britta Schilling was instrumental in guiding students in the Historical Streetname project, an initiative started by the working group Grauwe Eeuw and commissioned by the City of Utrecht through the Academy of Utrecht. The goal was to study the colonial past of Utrecht through what is often seen as difficult or controversial heritage. In cooperation with the Working Group Gepeperde Straten, the students set out an English language walking trail, providing critical historical context with the street names in Utrecht’s Lombok neighbourhood.
Podcast about the history of Utrecht
Dr Pim Huijnen was a driving force behind DOMcast, a podcast about the history of Utrecht, in which students carry out and present research to anwers questions raised by the listeners. This podcast won the 2020 prize of Bijzondere en Bestuurlijke Maatschappelijke Diensten.
Making the Canon of Dutch History more inclusive
Dr Hanneke Tuithof was member of the committee that renewed the Canon of Dutch History – a program of 50 significant topics in the history of the nation that all school students in the country need to know about. The committee was assigned to make the Canon more inclusive; they replaced some of the topics and updated the contextual information about all of them. Hanneke is also the department’s liason with history school teachers across the country.