The publication is a co-production of authors Maartje Janse and Anne-Lot Hoek, with contributions from musician Ernst Jansz and filmmaker Sjoerd Sijsma. Biographical information about the authors and contributors is presented here. The editorial committee of Bridging Humanities guided the co-creation process and developed the design of the website.
Photo: Authors at the launch of the Bridging Humanities platform, June 2018.
Maartje Janse is a lecturer in Dutch history in transnational context at Leiden University. She is a scholar of protest, social movements and popular politics, currently writing a transnational history of the ‘invention’ of the pressure group in the nineteenth century. She coordinates the Global Abolitionisms Network that is linked to the Leiden Slavery Studies Association. In 2009 she was awarded a Veni Grant from the Dutch Council for Scientific Research (NWO) for her project ‘Organizing the Masses: The Contested Nature of Early Irish, British and American Pressure Groups, 1825-1845’. After that she coordinated, with Henk te Velde, the programme ‘The Promise of Organization: Political Associations, 1820-1890, Debate and Practice’.
Anne-Lot Hoek is a research journalist with a background in contemporary history. She has been working on issues concerning human rights violations and liberation movements in Namibia and the history of development aid in Africa at the Africa Study Centre in Leiden. More recently she has been involved in the Dutch media on issues relating to the Dutch military performance in Indonesia in 1945 – 1949. She participated in a research fellowship at NIAS (Amsterdam), and is currently working on a PhD/book about the Indonesian independence war on the island of Bali under the supervision of Peter Romijn (Niod/University of Amsterdam) and Remco Raben (Utrecht University/University of Amsterdam). She is also involved in the government-sponsored project ‘Decolonization, violence and war in Indonesia 1945-1950’ at the KITLV in Leiden.
Ernst Jansz represents an important part of Dutch pop history. In the 1960s he was part of the legendary hippie band CCC Inc. And later he made history by establishing the renowned band Doe Maar. Following his departure from Doe Maar he remained active. His father, born in Semarang on Java, is an Indo (Dutch-Indonesian), who went to the Netherlands in 1932 to continue his higher education after finishing his studies at the Batavia HBS. Much of the literary work of the author Jansz is based on his Indo identity and his father’s heritage. His father became one of the few Indo advocates for an independent Indonesia.
Sjoerd Sijsma is a filmmaker and founding member of the Voice4Thought organization. He holds a BA in Tropical Land and Water Management, and has used film for monitoring and evaluation purposes, as well as for making promotional and educational video content. His production company, ‘Eyeses’, is collaborating currently in a project of the African Studies Center and the University of Leiden on how new technology impacts African societies under duress. He is interested in how voices and visuals can be connected to help understand polarizations.