The visiting professor for the academic year 2024-2025 is Johan Heilbron, Professor Emeritus of Historical Sociology at the Centre européen de sociologie et de science politique (CESSP-CNRS-EHESS) in Paris and Erasmus University Rotterdam.

After professors Joseph Theodoor Leerssen (2017-2018), René Boomkens (2018-2019), Gloria Wekker (2019-2020/2020-2021), Nicoline van der Sijs (2021-2022), Frank van Vree (2022-2023) and Margriet van der Waal (2023-2024), the visiting professor for the seventh edition of the King Willem-Alexander Chair for Dutch Studies is Johan Heilbron.

Johan Heilbron is a historical sociologist, trained at the University of Amsterdam and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris. In the 1980s he was affiliated with Pierre Bourdieu’s Centre de sociologie européenne (CSE) to which he returned after 1996 when he was recruited by the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). Aside from visiting scholarships from European institutions like the Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin (1985-86) and the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study (1988-89), he was visiting professor at the University of Michigan (2009), New York University (2015), and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton (2017-18). He held the Norbert Elias chair, initially at Utrecht University (2000-2004), then Erasmus University (2004-2008). Recently guest professor at Uppsala University (2018-23), he is professor emeritus at the Centre européen de sociologie et de science politique (CESSP-CNRS-EHESS) in Paris and Erasmus University Rotterdam.

Heilbron has been involved in numerous editorial activities and co-directed three large international research projects funded by the European Commission. A laureate of the Georg Sarton Medal for the history of science of the University of Gent (2014), he received a Distinguished Publication Award from the American Sociological Association (2016) and a honorary doctorate from Uppsala University. He is a member of the Academia Europaea.

His research is concentrated in three areas. Studying processes of transnational exchange and globalization his empirical focus has been on the world-wide flows of book translations, globalizing fighting sports, and widening circles of scholarly collaboration. Inquiries into the social sciences have concerned long-term developments, discipline formation, as well as persisting national traditions. Research on economic transformations has concerned the financialization of market economies and the increasing power of shareholders.

Book publications:

The Rise of Social Theory (1995, also in Dutch, French, Portuguese)

Waarin een klein land: Nederlandse cultuur in internationaal verband (co-authored, 1995)

The Rise of the Social Sciences and the Formation of Modernity (co-edited, 2001)

Pour une histoire des sciences sociales (co-edited, 2004)

Transnational Cultural Exchange and Globalization (2010)

French Sociology (2015, also in French)

Nederlandse kunst in de wereld (co-authored, 2015)

New Directions in Elite Studies (co-edited, 2018)

The Social and Human Sciences in Global Power Relations (co-edited, 2018)

De zaak Organon: geneesmiddelen in de greep van bedrijvenpoker (with J. Burgers, 2018)

Dictionnaire International Bourdieu (co-edited, 2020, various translations forthcoming)

Pierre Bourdieu et l’art de l’invention scientifique (co-authored, 2022)

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.