Edwina Hagen is an Assistant Professor of Cultural History and Chair of the Programme Committee. She also teaches at the Amsterdam University College. At the VU, she teaches courses at BA and MA level on Early Modern European History, Cultural History, Revolutions and History of Emotions.

Office hours: due to the corona measures only on Tuesday, or contact her via email (her work days are from Monday to Wednesday).

Hagen's qualitative and biographical approach focuses on the interplay between culture and politics. She is an expert of the revolutionary period in the Netherlands (1780-1815). In a broader sense, her research explores (the historical problem of) individual agency, as evidenced by people’s changing practices, emotions and attitudes toward power and political authority. Her work highlights in- and exclusionary processes that are at play in the creation of political subjects, reinforced by religion (antipapism related to civic virtues and national identity) and changing cultural norms about gender and (political) emotions. Articles and chapters by Hagen on cultural political topics such as reputation politics (emotional self-fashioning), character assasination or the creative ways in which eighteenth century women lifted the barriers to their political involvement, have been published in peer reviewed journals and books as well as in popular historical magazines. Hagen is inspired by a diverse range of historical material, particularly personal letters, political print culture and (auto)biographies. 

Hagen’s PhD on Dutch Enlightened and Protestant Anti-Papism around 1800 received national coverage by the Dutch press and was praised by historians as ‘an exemplary dissertation’ (Professor Emeritus G.J. Schutte) and ‘Darntonian’ (Professor Emeritus A.W.F.M. van de Sande). In 2012 she attracted nation-wide media and public attention for her well-received and Libris History Prize nominated political biography on the statesman Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck (1761-1825) and his wife Catharina Nahuys (1770-1844). The Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Mark Rutte, received the first copy.

Hagen's latest publication has just been launched: a Special Issue of the Dutch Journal of History (Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis, 2021, jrg 134, no.2) on - a hot topic: 

Character Assassination and Media (together with Martijn Icks, UvA) 

https://www.aup-online.com/content/journals/00407518/134/2

Hagen is currently working on several article and book projects, which inlcude:

• a contribution to an interdisciplinary and international edited volume on Auto/Biography and Reputation Politics
• a book based on extensive archival research in New York - a case study on the Dutch revolutionary Adam Gerard Mappa (1754-1828)   

Hagen is also sometimes consulted by the media for expert views in relation to her research topics: 

https://www.npostart.nl/de-strijd-om-het-binnenhof/29-01-2021/VPWON_1309353

tv-recordings NTR, Paris (July 2020) 

Since 2013: Board Member of the Stichting (Foundation) Daendels (website: stichtingdaendels.nl)

Publicist Geschiedenis Magazine

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