King Willem-Alexander Chair for Dutch Studies

New visiting professor: Margriet van der Waal

November 2023

The visiting professor for the academic year 2023-2024 is Margriet van der Waal, Associate Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of Groningen.

After professors Joseph Theodoor Leerssen (2017-2018), René Boomkens (2018-2019), Gloria Wekker (2019-2020/2020-2021), Nicoline van der Sijs (2021-2022) and Frank van Vree (2022-2023), the visiting professor for the sixth edition of the King Willem-Alexander Chair for Dutch Studies is Margriet van der Waal, Associate Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of Groningen, where she is also Director of Studies for the Erasmus Mundus master's programme Euroculture. She also holds the Chair in South African Literature, Culture and History at the University of Amsterdam, endowed by the Stichting Zuid-Afrikahuis Nederland.

In her research, Van der Waal analyses European and South African cultural imaginaries (colonial and postcolonial) and the ways in which these imaginaries are inscribed in the public sphere. Her focus is on how these cultural expressions can be understood as part of the politics of recognising rights and negotiating social subject positions. Van der Waal’s research combines several disciplines and approaches, while explicitly seeking collaboration with the cultural sector and social and artistic partners.

The King Willem-Alexander Chair for Dutch Studies was created at the University of Liège in June 2017 as the result of a collaboration between the ULiège and the Embassy of the Netherlands. It aims to promote the study of Dutch history, society, culture, language and literature, and allows the Dutch Studies section of the Department of Modern Languages to invite eminent Dutch academics of international stature to give scientific lectures and seminars in their fields of expertise. More information on the events taking place in 2023-2024 will be made available on the website in due course.

International, peer-reviewed academic/scholarly journal articles and book chapters

Van der Waal, Margriet. “A letter to Jan van Riebeeck: (new) Afrikaans poets in conversation with Europe and its legacies of settler colonialism in South Africa”. Complit: Journal of European Literature, Arts and Society (accepted, forthcoming)

Van der Waal, Margriet. "Having the Right to Speak: On Culture and the Public Sphere in South Africa." Narrative Values, the Value of Narrative. Edited by Barend van Heusden and Sjoerd-Jeroen Moenandar. De Gruyter (accepted, forthcoming)

Van der Waal, Margriet. "Dirty Politics: The Stories of Soap in South Africa." Frontiers of Narrative Studies, (2023), volume 8.2: 206-223. https://doi.org/10.1515/fns-2022-2021

Van der Waal, Margriet. "Enticed to settle elsewhere: Magic lantern slides and the transnational creation of European colonial citizens”. Journal of European Studies, volume 52.3-4 (2022), pp. 289-313. DOI: 10.1177/00472441221115

Van der Waal, Margriet. "Rewarding an Imagined South Africa: Literary Prizes in South Africa before and after 1994." Literary Prizes and Cultural Transfer. Edited by Petra Broomans, Mathijs Sanders and Jeanette den Toonder. Studies in Cultural Transfer & Transmission, Volume 9. Barkhuis, 2021, pp. 131-158. ISBN 9789493194380

Van der Waal, Margriet and Rieke Böhling. "In Their Shoes: A Plurality of Voices in Refugee Reality TV: Categorizing Identities, Creating Citizens." European Journal of Cultural Studies, 24.1 (2021):314-332. DOI: 10.1177/1367549419869355

De Jong, Janny, Marek Neuman, Senka Neuman-Stanivuković, and Margriet van der Waal. "Introduction". European Studies and Europe: Twenty Years of Euroculture. Edited by Janny de Jong, Marek Neuman, Senka Neuman-Stanivuković, and Margriet van der Waal. European Studies: Twenty years of Euroculture. Universitätsverlag Göttingen, 2020. ISBN: 978-3-86395-431-4

De Jong, Janny, James Leigh, Ine Megens, Marek Neuman, Senka Neuman-Stanivuković, and Margriet van der Waal. "Introduction." Where is Europe? Respacing, Replacing, and Reordering Europe. Edited by Janny de Jong, Marek Neuman, Senka Neuman Stanivuković and Margriet van der Waal. Euroculture Consortium, 2019, p. 1-3, ISBN: 978-94-034-1794-3

Van der Waal, Margriet. "The Social Imaginary of Europe's 'Losers': Representing European Precarity." Politique Européenne. 2019/4 (number 66), page 170-193. DOI: 10.3917/poeu.066.0170

Van der Waal, Margriet. "Making Precarious Lives Visible: Imagining Europe's Marginalized 'Others'.” Visions and Revisions of Europe. Edited by Marcin Galent et al. Universitätsverlag Göttingen, 2018, p. 129-141, ISBN: 978-3-86395-382-9

Van der Waal, Margriet. "13 Uur van Deon Meyer as leidraad vir sosiale identiteit in a stedelike konteks: om 'n burger in Kaapstad te wees en daar tuis te hoort.” Tydskrif vir Nederlands & Afrikaans. 24.1 (2017): 53-68

Van der Waal, Margriet. "Long Distance Afrikaners. Afrikaans Literature and Dislocated Identity in a European Context." Journal of Postcolonial Writing 52.2 (2015): 196-207, DOI: 10.1080/17449855.2015.1011848 (Republished in Imaginary Europes: Literary and Filmic Representations of Europe from Afar. Edited by Elisabeth Bekers, Maggie Bowers and Sissy Helff. Routledge, 2017, p. 70-81 - Reprint of the special issue of the Journal of Postcolonial Writing 52.2 (2015) on "Imaginary Europes") ISBN: 978-1-138-22331-8

Van der Waal, Margriet. "'Deeply Racist, Superior and Patronising': South African Literature Education and the 'Gordimer-incident'.”Print, Text and Book Cultures in South Africa. Edited by Andrew van der Vlies. WITS University Press, 2012, p. 369-385, ISBN: 978-1-86814-566-9

Van der Waal, Margriet. "A Rose by Any Other Name Does NOT Smell as Sweet: A Literary Sociological Approach to Literary Disputes." Stilet 20.2 (2008): 103-124

Van der Waal, Margriet. "Crossed Borders? The Debate about Culture and Art in South Africa During the Period of Political Transformation." Aesthetic Autonomy: Problems and Perspectives. Edited by Barend van Heusden and Liesbeth Korthals Altes. Peeters, 2004, p. 87-112, ISBN: 978-9-042915-79-4

Journal articles and chapters in edited books (academic, non peer-reviewed)

Henkes, Barbara, André Paijmans, and Margriet van der Waal. “Introduction: Absent Presences”. Absent Presences: Critical Viewings of Items in the Collections of the Zuid-Afrikahuis. Forthcoming. Volume 3 in Zuid-Afrikahuis Series, Amsterdam: Stichting Zuid-Afrikahuis.

Van der Waal, Margriet, Astrid Van Weyenberg and Sabine Volk. “Introduction: Heritage and the Making of ‘Europe’” Journal of European Studies (Special double issue on European Heritage), 52.3-4: 163-169. DOI: 10.1177/00472441221115859.

Van der Waal, Margriet. "Enticed by the Colonies?” Magic Visions. Portraying and Inventing South Africa with Lantern Slides. Edited by Jeltsje Stobbe, Rosa Deen and Margriet van der Waal. Stichting Zuid-Afrikahuis, 2022, pp. 251-256. ISBN: 978 90 830385 3 7 (https://www.zuidafrikahuis.nl/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/MAGIC-VISIONS-Portraying-and-inventing-South-Africa-with-lantern-slides_114mb.pdf)

Van der Waal, Margriet. "'Ons is meer Suid-Afrikaners as enigiemand anders in hierdie land': Hybriditeit en die Frontier in Zuid-Afrika." Edited by Michiel van Kempen. Het andere postkoloniale oog. Onbekende kanten van de Nederlandse (post)koloniale cultuur en literatuur. Verloren, 2020, pp. 167-174. ISBN: 978 90 8704 865 5

Tamcke, Martin, Janny de Jong, Lars Klein, and Margriet van der Waal. "Introduction". Europe - Space for Transcultural Existence?Edited by Martin Tamcke, Janny de Jong, Lars Klein and Margriet van der Waal. Göttingen University Press, 2013, ISBN: 978-3-86395-062-0

Van der Waal, Margriet. "Contesting Cultural Memory. Rethinking Postcolonial Identities in Europe." Europe - Space for Transcultural Existence. Edited by Martin Tamcke, Janny de Jong, Lars Klein and Margriet van der Waal. Universitätsverlag Göttingen, 2013, p. 125-132, ISBN: 978-3-86395-062-0

Van der Waal, Margriet. "A 'Paranoia of Identity Crisis'? Recent South African Literary Historiography and the Discourse of Cultural and Political Transformation." Representation, Expression and Identity: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Edited by Tina Rahimy. Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2009, p. 244-264, ISBN: 978-1-90471-081-3

Van der Waal, Margriet. "Being Thrown into Each Other’s Arms: Cultural Studies, Cultural Citizenship and the Phenomenon of Global Literature in the Netherlands." Basque/European Perspectives on Cultural and Media Studies. Edited by Maria Pilar Rodriquez. University of Nevada Press, 2009, p. 295-312, ISBN: 978-1-877802-86-7

Van der Waal, Margriet. "Die uurwerk kantel [The timepiece tumbles]: Different Conceptions of Literature as Contested Terrains." Kiez211.1 (May 2005): http://www.kiez21.org/articles/4/kiez21-VanderWaal.pdf.

Van der Waal, Margriet. "The Universe is Made of Stories, Not Atoms: Constructions of South African Identity in Recent South African Fiction, with Specific Reference to David’s Story by Zoë Wicomb." Family Fictions. Edited by Irene Visser and Heidi van den Heuvel. Groningen Centre for Development Studies (2005), p. 93-107, ISSN: 1385-9218

Van der Waal, Margriet. "We Can Only Remind Each Other of It: The Farm as South African ‘lieu de mémoire’ in the Process of Building a National Collective Memory." Frame 18.1-2 (2005): 70-87.

Van der Waal, Margriet. "'Deeply Racist, Superior and Patronising': The Story of the Stories Children Were Supposed to Read at School." Experience and Identity in Recent South African Literature. Edited by Margriet van der Waal and Helen Wilcox. Groningen Centre for Development Studies, 2004, p. 31-47, ISSN: 1385-9218

Van der Waal, Margriet and Helen Wilcox. "Introduction." Experience and Identity in Recent South African Literature. Edited by Margriet van der Waal and Helen Wilcox. Groningen Centre for Development Studies, 2004, p. 5-8, ISSN: 1385-9218

Edited books and edited Special Issues of academic journals (both peer-reviewed and non-peer reviewed)

Arts and the European public sphere. Special issue for Continuum, edited together with Jesse van Amelsvoort (foreseen to be ready by 2nd half 2024; international, peer-reviewed).

(Un)learning Europe through a decolonial lens: Epistemologies, theories, praxes. Special issue for Politique européenne, edited together with Alvaro Oleart and Astrid van Weyenberg (foreseen to be ready by 2^nd half of 2024; international, peer-reviewed).

Absent Presences: Critical Viewings of Items in the Collections of the Zuid-Afrikahuis. Barbara Henkes, André Paijmans and Margriet van der Waal (eds.) (Forthcoming). Volume 3 in Zuid-Afrikahuis Series, Amsterdam: Stichting Zuid-Afrikahuis.

Heritage and the making of ‘ Europe’. Special issue (double issue) for Journal of European Studies on European cultural heritage, editor together with Astrid Van Weyenberg and Sabine Volk. Volume 52.3-4 (international, peer-reviewed). https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/jesa/52/3-4.

Magic Visions. Portraying and Inventing South Africa with Lantern Slides. Edited by Jeltsje Stobbe, Rosa Deen and Margriet van der Waal. Stichting Zuid-Afrikahuis, 2022. ISBN: 978 90 830385 3 7 (https://www.zuidafrikahuis.nl/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/MAGIC-VISIONS-Portraying-and-inventing-South-Africa-with-lantern-slides_114mb.pdf) (non peer-reviewed)

NOTA BENE: This publication won the annual Mervyn Heard Award 2020 (of the Magic Lantern Society, UK)

European Studies: Twenty years of Euroculture. Edited by Janny de Jong, Marek Neuman, Senka Neuman-Stanivuković and Margriet van der Waal. Universitätsverlag Göttingen, 2020. ISBN: 978-3-86395-431-4 (international, peer-reviewed, downloads: 86 per 19 June 2021)

Inequality and Solidarity: Selected Texts Presented at the Euroculture Intensive Programme 2019. Edited by Simon Fink, Lars Klein, Janny de Jong and Margriet van der Waal (eds.) Euroculture IP Publication number 6. Euroculture Consortium, 2020 (international, peer-reviewed, downloads: 734 per 19 June 2021)

Where is Europe? Selected Papers Presented at the Euroculture Intensive Programme 2018. Edited by Janny de Jong, Marek Neuman, Senka Neuman-Stanivuković and Margriet van der Waal. Euroculture IP Publication number 5. Euroculture Consortium, 2019 (international, peer-reviewed, downloads: 1329, per 19 June 2021)

European Environments: How a New Climate is Changing the Old World. Selected papers presented at the European Studies Intensive Programme 2016. Edited by Ben G. Martin, Janny de Jong, Ine Megens and Margriet van der Waal. Euroculture IP Publication number 4. Euroculture Consortium, 2016 (international, non peer-reviewed, downloads: 1804, per 19 June 2021)

Europe – Space for Transcultural Existence? Edited by Martin Tamcke, Janny de Jong, Lars Klein and Margriet van der Waal. Universitätsverlag Göttingen, 2013. ISBN: 978-3-86395-062-0 (international, non peer-reviewed)

Peripheral Feminisms. Selection of papers presented at a symposium in Groningen. Edited by Petra Broomans and Margriet van der Waal. Groningen Global Studies Centre, 2012 ISSN: 2213-8455 (international, non peer-reviewed)

Walking the tightrope: Europe between Europeanisation and Globalisation. Selected papers presented at the European Studies Intensive Programme 2010. Edited by Janny de Jong, Ine Megens and Margriet van der Waal. Euroculture IP Publication number 1. Euroculture Consortium, 2011 (international, non-peer reviewed, downloads: 9998, per 19 June 2021)

Experience and Identity in Recent South African Literature. Edited by Margriet van der Waal and Helen Wilcox. Groningen Centre for Development Studies, 2004. ISSN: 1385-9218 (international, non peer-reviewed)

(Academic) book reviews

Van der Waal, Margriet. “Vergiftigde levens”. Review of The Promise by Damon Galgut for Indies Tijdschrift (2021, #2): 26.

Van der Waal, Margriet. "Catherine M. Cole. Staging South Africa’s Truth Commission." L’Homme 23.1 (2012): 161-164

Van der Waal, Margriet. "'Over de grenzen heen van ruimte en talen': Nederlandse en Afrikaanse poëzie in gesprek." Recensie van Over Grenzen/Oor Grense. Een vergelijkende studie van Nederlandse, Vlaamse en Afrikaanse poëzie. Edited by Ronel Foster, Yves T’Sjoen and Thomas Vaessens. Spiegel der Letteren, 53.1 (2010): 114-117

Van der Waal, Margriet. "Een aanvulling op de Nederlandse literatuurgeschiedenis." Recensie van Heerengracht, Zuid-Afrika. Samengesteld door Eep Francken en Olf Praamstra. VakTaal 21.3 (2008): 19-20

Van der Waal, Margriet. "Kulturele identiteit en die Suid-Afrikaanse cinema." Recensie van Encountering Modernity: Twentieth Century South African Cinemas. Keyan G. Tomaselli. Zuid-Afrika, 84.3 (2007): 52-53

Professional publications

Van der Waal, Margriet and Esther Wils. “Bijzonder hoogleraar Zuid-Afrikaanse literatuur, cultuur en geschiedenis”. Indies Tijdschrift (2021, #2): 27.

Van der Waal, Margriet. "Krotoa van de Kaap: Moeder van de Regenboognatie." Maand van de Geschiedenis October 2019, p. 26-27.

Van der Waal, Margriet. Stemgerechtigd: Over cultuur en de Zuid-Afrikaanse publieke sfeer. Vossiuspers, 2018

[published version of my inaugural lecture].

Van der Waal, Margriet. "Entangled Histories: South Africa and the Netherlands in a Globalizing world." Tell Freedom. 15 South African Artists. Edited by Nkule Mabaso and Manon Braat. Kunsthal Kade, 2018. ISBN: 978 94 90153 27 4.

Chaire du Roi Willem-Alexander

pour l’étude des Pays-Bas