Dr Renske Hoff is assistant professor of Middle Dutch Literature. Her research is concerned with religious book culture around 1500, with a special focus on the use and users of biblical texts. Her PhD research at the University of Groningen and the University of Leuven resulted in a dissertation titled Involving Readers: Practices of Reading, Use, and Interaction in Early Modern Dutch Bibles (1522-1546). In this thesis, she describes by whom and how early Dutch printed Bibles were read and used. She includes the textual, paratextual, visual, and material characteristics of books and book use. She was awarded the Mgr. Charles de Clercq price for religious history by the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts (KVAB).
She is currently researching the use and the material transmission of handwritten and printed psalm books in the fifteenth and sixteenth century. She is particularly interested in the active role played by users in appropriating and reshaping these texts. In her research, she combines approaches from the fields of book history, literary studies, and religious studies. She has been awarded several research grants, including a Junior Fellowship of the Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel, a Short Term Fellowship of the Bibliographical Society of America, and a fellowship of the Tiele-Stichting.
Renske Hoff values science communication. She participated in an episode of Het Klokhuis and the podcast 'De Ongelooflijke Podcast', created a digital exhibition about reader traces, and regularly shares examples and insights from her research on Twitter.