dr. Edwina Hagen

Edwina Hagen is an Assistant Professor of Cultural History and Undergraduate Coordinator of the VU History Department. She also teaches at the Amsterdam University College and the Radboud University Nijmegen. 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 research focuses on the connection between culture and politics during the revolutionary period in the Netherlands (1780-1815). Her qualitative and biographical approach reflects a particular historical interest in human agency and the individual, as evidenced by people’s changing practices, emotions and attitudes toward power and political authority. Her work highlights revolutionary efforts to reshape cultural norms about femininity, masculinity, gender and power relations, as well as religious and civic virtues and national identity. Hagen is inspired by a wide range of sources, from democratic print culture, parliamentary papers to clothing and portraits and political expressions in writings such as personal letters, autobiographies and diaries, theater plays and novels.

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). Articles by Hagen on the image-creation and emotional self-fashioning of Dutch revolutionaries have been published in peer reviewed journals as well as in popular historical magazines. 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 is currently working on several article and book projects, which include:

• (with Martijn Icks, UvA): a special issue of the Dutch Journal of History on Character Assassination throughout the Ages
• a book which explores the relationship of culture to politics through the lens of personal relationships between Dutch and American revolutionaries, in the context of the Age of Revolutions, 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

No ancillary activities

Ancillary activities are updated daily