Internal Research-Internship: Into the Archives
What to do when more than forty boxes, filled to the brink with archival materials from the study of religion ranging all the way from the 1960’s up until contemporary times, ‘surfaces’? This may not be a typical question that you ask yourself on an average weekday. However, it is a question that must be answered considering the upcoming 150-year anniversary of comparative religious study at Leiden University in 2027.
Dr. Nathal Dessing took it upon herself with the assistance of two research interns, to find an answer to this question. The two interns in question are fellow student Carlijn Land and myself. The goal of the internship: to give advice about what to do with the surfaced materials, catalogue the materials and gain further insights about the history of the study of religion in Leiden.
This may come as a surprise to you: one does not simply sort archival materials. The boxes are filled to the brink with letters of correspondence between professors, study programs, entire student dossiers with grades, newsletters written by students and everything in between. There is even an entire sub-archive present pertaining to a feminist women’s network for theology/religious studies and stacks of final theses written by students. As a result of the variety of encountered materials, Dr. Dessing organised an intensive week in which experts from DIA, LUB and university historian Pieter Slaman joined in the fray to help the research team get up to speed.
The archival materials had to be sorted along time periods of changing organizational structures called “cut-of-points”. The cut-off-points for the study of religion are present by existing as its own faculty of “Godsgeleerdheid” up to 2008, continuing as LIRS from 2008 until 2014 and changing into LUCSoR from 2014 onwards. The various materials belonged to research groups, study groups, students, staff members, the student administration etc. The report written by Carlijn and I offers various solutions to what should happen to the materials. Besides offering this report, the both of us got the opportunity to present the findings at the LUCSoR conference in May.
The internship also involved writing an independent research paper. Carlijn focused on the Women’s Network in theology that was active in the 1970’s. She discovered that the faculty was actively discouraging attempts to create a study group about feminist approaches. My research compared various student theses written in a time before comparative religion became standard in Leiden. Fokke Sierksma is viewed as one of the main catalysts for popularizing comparative methodologies of the study of religion at Leiden University. In my research Benedikt Hartmann surfaced as another catalyst for implementing this approach by letting his own students conduct comparative research.
The inquiry by Dr. Dessing is still ongoing. The results of the internship hopefully support Dr. Dessing to shed more light on the the history of Religious Studies at Leiden University. Who knows what is in store for future research?