Geldermalsen, Gelderland, Netherlands
Since September 2023, I am curator of printed works at the Special Collections of Utrecht University Library. As a book historian and communications specialist I have a keen interest in early modern and present-day multimedia and knowledge transmission. My expertise and fascination concern especially book illustrations, reading practices and the emergence of print culture (15th-16th centuries), as well as digital humanities solutions to aid the analysis of these cultural phenomena. My PhD dissertation, successfully defended at Utrecht University in 2022, was published in a slightly revised version in 2023 by Amsterdam University Press: 'Woodcuts as Reading Guides: How Images Shaped Knowledge Transmission in Medical-Astrological Books in Dutch (c. 1500-1550)'. Areas of expertise: early printed books - early modern visual culture - early modern popular print - vernacular knowledge cultures - reading practices - life and work of Jacob Cornelisz. van Oostsanen (c. 1465-1533) - the legend of St. Brendan in word and image - Middle Dutch - science communication - editing - web development, design and usability - databases - photography.
De Werkgroep Middelnederlandse Artesliteratuur (Wemal) bestaat uit een enthousiaste groep vrijwilligers die (digitale) edities vervaardigen van middeleeuwse arteshandschriften, om ze beter toegankelijk te maken voor onderzoekers en het brede publiek. Artesteksten zijn teksten met een nuttig en instructief doel, bijvoorbeeld recepten en verhandelingen over chirurgie, magie, astrologie en alchemie. - Redacteur, mede-auteur en coördinator van een boek over beeldmateriaal op het gebied van de artes. Project begonnen in maart 2011; het eindresultaat 'Kennis in beeld, denken en doen in de Middeleeuwen' verscheen in 2014 bij Uitgeverij Verloren. - Meegewerkt aan de transcriptie van het omvangrijke handschrift Hattem C5, een 15e-eeuws verzamelhandschrift met o.a. magische recepten en medische traktaten. Transcriptiewerkzaamheden begonnen in september 2010, digitale editie naar verwachting gereed in 2016. - Tot 2014: webmaster van de Wemal-website.
Board Member of the Dutch Book Historical Society (NBV), the last two years as Co-Chair
Within the project European Dimensions of Popular Print Culture, led by Dr. Jeroen Salman, I contribute to the development of a virtual research environment that makes it possible to analyse metadata and selected full texts and images of early modern popular print from various collections. We work together with Utrecht University's Digital Humanities Lab.
In my PhD project ‘Woodcuts as reading aids: Illustrations and knowledge transfer in printed books in Dutch on the natural world, c. 1480 - c. 1550’, funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), I analyse how woodcuts in early printed books in Dutch contributed to knowledge transfer. In the early decades of the printing press, both producers and consumers of the printed book were only gradually getting acquainted with the new medium’s possibilities. Printers attempted to attract new audiences, of varying ranges of literacy, with ‘user-friendly’ books containing new reading aids such as title pages, explanatory prologues and captions. This project studies a type of reading aid of which the impact is not yet fully understood: book illustrations. Focusing on Dutch vernacular books about the natural world and the cosmos, I analyse how they are illustrated and how the woodcuts are related to the text. I also examine who were the intended and the actual users of these multimedia books in the vernacular.
I temporarily replaced a colleague as advisor on external communications and public engagement.