Evelyne Shamier is a literary and cultural scholar working at Utrecht University’s cluster Modern Dutch Literature of the Faculty of Humanities, where she is preparing a PhD dissertation on representations of the sea. 

Research project

What can writings on the sea tell us about worldviews and interconnections between humans, nature and culture?

Through the prism of blue ecocriticism, Evelyne Shamier seeks to capture how literary sea-themed texts from and on the various areas around the world where Dutch is a (former) language, relate to the planet’s actual seas – and to the roles these bodies of water play in history and contemporary culture. Analytical practices on conducting this research entail the advancing of an academic groundwork at the intersections of postcolonial and decolonial theory and the interdisciplinary field of Environmental Humanities. With its initiation of a systematic transcontinental perspective on ‘Neerlandophone’ literatures, this research project employs a new inclusional approach to Dutch Studies.

Bio

Evelyne Shamier teaches courses in literary studies and Dutch literature at Utrecht University, and Dutch language & culture (NT2) at University College Utrecht. In 2018-2020 she worked at Université catholique de Louvain, where she lectured Dutch literary history. Her resume includes a prior career as an organization leader in tourism, travel and hospitality. Shamier is registered as a yoga teacher with advanced YTT-500 credentials, as well as a certified MBCT/MBSR mindfulness trainer. As for educational proficiency in academia, she holds a full BKO University Teaching Qualification. Evelyne Shamier is a co-founder and editor of Leest, the open science platform on Dutch literature and culture, and she co-produces the podcast ‘Leest spreekt’.

Research affiliations and memberships:
- Institute for Cultural Inquiry (ICON)
- Network for Environmental Humanities (UNEH) 
- Internationale Vereniging voor Neerlandistiek (IVN)