Universiteit Leiden

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Renske Janssen

Researcher

Name
Dr. K.P.S. Janssen
Telephone
+31 71 527 2727
E-mail
k.p.s.janssen@hum.leidenuniv.nl
ORCID iD
0000-0002-3020-064X

Renske Janssen is a postdoctoral researcher in Classics and Ancient History, with a particular interest in Roman law, administration and religion.

More information about Renske Janssen

Fields of interest

  • Roman law and administration
  • Ancient legal thinking
  • Roman Imperial politics
  • Religion in the Ancient world
  • Early Christianity and Ancient Judaism
  • Greek and Latin literature and culture

Research

Renske Janssen's research is positioned at the intersection of law, classics and ancient history, and is characterised by a focus on the ways in which people in the ancient world perceived, and engaged with, systems of law, morality and power. She was awarded a Dutch Research Council (NWO) Rubicon Postdoctoral Fellowship in early 2022, for which she is currently based at the University of Edinburgh Centre for Legal History.

Her research project, titled "More laws, more problems? The role of (Roman) law in society according to Cornelius Tacitus", is focussed on legal thinking in the works of the Roman author and magistrate Tacitus, which provide invaluable insights into the ways in which educated Romans could perceived the law, and how they viewed its role in wider society. The project will analyse the way in which Tacitus discussed the origins and role of the law, its beneficiaries and its application, and connect this thinking to the wider legal discourse of his time. This interdisciplinary approach will shed a light on legal thinking among educated non-experts in the Roman Imperial Period, and will as such look beyond the professional sphere of the jurists, whose specialist work has long dominated scholarship in the field. As such, it allows for new insights into wider societal thinking about the role of law during a period in which attitudes towards the Roman legal system were starting to change in both the provinces and the imperial administration.

Curriculum vitae

Dr. Janssen obtained her MA in Classics at Leiden University, and defended her PhD on the legal position of marginalised religious groups in the Roman Empire ("Religio Illicita? Roman Legal Interactions with Early Christianity in Context") at the same university in September of 2020. From 2019 to 2022, she was active as a lecturer in Ancient History at Leiden University and VU Amsterdam. She is also the initiator and editor in chief of the blog- and vlog series "Roads to Rome" ("Wegen naar Rome") which is organised alongside the annual Week of the Classics ("Week van de Klassieken") and is focussed on representations of the Ancient World in popular culture.

Researcher

  • Faculty of Humanities
  • Centre for the Arts in Society
  • Griekse T&C

Work address

Arsenaal
Arsenaalstraat 1
2311 CT Leiden

Contact

Publications

  • Rijksmuseum van Oudheden Hoofdredacteur 'Wegen naar Rome'
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