Dr Henriette Louwerse

Senior Lecturer in Dutch

email : h.louwerse@sheffield.ac.uk

I was born in De Lier, a village near The Hague in the Netherlands. I studied English Language and Literature at the University of Groningen and moved to the UK in 1990, when I started working in the Department of Germanic Studies here in Sheffield as a Lector in Dutch. I soon realised that I had to broaden my focus to include Dutch literature and I wrote my PhD-thesis on the literary works of the contemporary Dutch author Hafid Bouazza. My monograph Homeless Entertainment was published in 2007.

I enjoy reaching beyond the academic community and I am involved in a European Culture project called citybooks, an extensive literary project that seeks to develop alternative, principally literary travel guides to European cities. The follow-up project, WordSurge, ran in September 2012 as part of the University's Festival of the Mind and involve students, local writers and amateur dramatics performing poetry in and around the city. The current external project I am involved in is called High Impact and involves a literary tour of six authors from the Netherlands and Flanders.

Research

My research interests lie in the area of migration and literature, issues of multiculturalism, and women´s writing in Dutch. I am currently working on a project investigating the ambivalent attitude towards the notion of community as expressed in contemporary Dutch literature. For this project I collaborate with Dr Liesbeth Minnaard from Leiden University.
At Sheffield I am involved in the SLC Research Cluster Migration, Culture and Community  and the Centre for Dutch Studies. I am a founding editor for the Amsterdam University Press open access Journal of Dutch Literature.

List of Publications
Seminars, Lectures and Public Engagements

• Director of Studies in Dutch
• Year Abroad Coordinator
• Level One Coordinator for Germanic Studies
• Coordinator SLC and Department Open Days
• I teach beginners and Advanced Language
• I teach literature and culture modules for Level 2 and Level 3
  
• I teach the MA modules Postcolonial and Migration Literature in Dutch and Approaches to Dutch Literature since 1945
• For the collaboration Virtual Dutch, I coordinate the annual Writer in Residence UK Scheme funded by Dutch Foundation for Literature

In 2008 I was awarded a Senate Award for Excellence in Teaching and Learning.

• I am the Chair of the Association for Low Countries Studies (ALCS). From 3-5 April 2012 I organised and hosted the ALCS Biennial Conference at Sheffield.
• I am a member of the executive board of the Internationale Vereniging van Neerlandistiek (IVN).
• I am an International Fellow at the department of Contemporary Dutch Literature at the University Utrecht in the Netherlands
• From December 2009 until April 2011 I presented two series of five cultural encounters on Cultural Parenthood and on Heroes for deBuren Flemish-Dutch House deBuren in Brussels
• I coordinate three cultural projects: a local project called WordSurge, a national event, High Impact, and an EU-project citybooks.

I am Sheffield University's local partner for citybooks, an extensive EU-funded European project coordinated by the Flemish-Dutch House deBuren. Sheffield is the only UK city involved in this multimedia project which aims to create an artists' view on the city of Sheffield. Thus far, five authors, a photographer, a video artist and a group of Second Year students in Germanic Studies have contributed their portrait of the Sheffield. The result is an alternative travel guide, a combination of fact, image and the imaginary. The full citybook of Sheffield as one of fifteen other remarkable cities of Europe can be experienced here. An overview of citybook Sheffield is on display in the Foyer of Jessop West throughout July 2012.

There are various student activities associated with this project including Sheffield students writing and recording their view on Sheffield in a Student citybook: Beyond Sheffield Train Station. Sheffield students of Dutch have together with their colleagues at UCL, Cambridge and Nottingham translated a citybooks into English: Abdelkader Benali's Skopje citybook, Warrior on a Horse

I am the project leader for wordSurge, a word-image-performance project that brings poetry in unexpected forms in unexpected places. Together with poet Carolyn Waudby and visual artist Mike Hutchinson we have put together a project that draws on Sheffield writers, visual artists, and performers. The work of Sheffield writers and Sheffield Students of Dutch will be performed and displayed during the Festival of the Mind between 20-30 September 2012. For a full overview of activities, please check the wordSurge website