Research

Bart van der Steen’s research focuses on the history of labour and social movements from the late 19^th century to the present. Departing from more traditional political approaches to the history of  social movements, his writings focus on the internal dynamics of movements and the experiences and memories of individual activists.

Van der Steen’s  research on social movements deals foremost with European squatter and autonomist movements. He edited a volume on squatter movements in Europe since the 1970s (The City is Ours, 2014), as well a volume on radical youth movements in Europe during the 1980s (A European Youth Revolt, 2016). Furthermore, he published several articles on the history of squatters in Amsterdam and Hamburg.

His research on labour movements concentrates on dissident currents within Dutch and German socialism. He has extensively written on interwar socialist movements such as Revolutionary Socialism, Trotskyism and Council Communism. He published a volume on Dutch Trotskyism since 1938 (Een banier waar geen smet op rust, 2015), as well as a collection of egodocuments by Dutch Revolutionary Socialists (Wij gingen onze eigen weg, 2011) and various articles on Henk Sneevliet, Jef Last and Anton Pannekoek.

Currently, Van der Steen works on a history of the Leiden chapter of the Socialist Party during the 1970s, as well as the construction of an online archive of squatting in Leiden. Next to various book, he published articles in journals such as Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis, Tijdschrift voor Stadsgeschiedenis, Brood en Rozen, and Socialist History Journal.

Curriculum vitae

Bart van der Steen (1983) studied history at Leiden University and wrote his PhD at the European University Institute in Florence. Since 2014, he teaches Dutch and Modern History at Leiden University.

Teaching activities

Bart van der Steen teaches Modern History at Leiden University. His courses include first year’s introductions to Dutch History and to Modern History. Furthermore, he has given BA courses on the history of Social Movements since 1968 and MA courses on interwar labour movements in Europe.

Van der Steen has developed courses on historical methodologies, including courses on Oral History and Reading Visual Sources. He has taught both BA and MA courses, and has given courses at Leiden University’s History Department, The Hague’s International Studies program and Leiden University College.

In 2015, he co-organized an MA Summer School on Transnational Social Movements, in cooperation with the Research School of Political History and the Huygens Institute for Dutch History.

Conferences

Bart van der Steen has co-organized two conferences, in 2014 and 2016. Selected papers from both conferences were published, by Palgrave and Amsterdam University Press respectively.

In 2014, Bart van der Steen co-organized a conference on European Youth Movements in the 1980s, together with Knud Andresen. The conference was organized in cooperation with the International Institute of Social History (Amsterdam), the Hamburg Institut für Zeitgeschichte, and the Institut für SozialeBewegungen (Bochum), with support from the Hans Böckler Stiftung. Selected papers were published in 2016 under the title: A European Youth Revolt: Perspectives on Youth Protest and Social Movements in the 1980s (Palgrave).

In 2016, Bart van der Steen co-organized a conference on Anton Pannekoek and the links between his scientific (astronomy) and political (socialist) work. The conference was organized by the Royal Netherlands Academy and the Anton Pannekoek Institute for Astronomy of the University of Amsterdam, in collaboration with the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. Selected papers will be published in a single volume by Amsterdam University Press.

Publications