Gerlov van Engelenhoven is a lecturer at the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society. Gerlov van Engelenhoven defended his PhD dissertation, entitled “Whereof one cannot speak…”, in December 2020, at the Justus-Liebig University in Giessen, Germany. The dissertation is a study of legal, political and cultural “voices” and “silences” in the articulation of postcolonial migrant identities, with a focus on the Moluccan community in the Netherlands. He supervises BA theses and teaches Transmedialiteit: Verhaal, Wereld, Multiversum and Tekst-beeld Analyse 2: Poëzie for Film and Literary Studies. Apart from his work for Leiden University, he also teaches and mentors for the BA Politics, Psychology, Law and Economics (PPLE) at University of Amsterdam, and teaches, coaches and supervises theses for the BA Photography and the MA Photography & Society at the Royal Academy of the Arts in Den Haag. Next to his MA in Art & Literature (2012), he also obtained a Master of Education at ICLON (2014). To him, education is the heart of academia. Therefore, research, especially in the humanities, should always be done in tandem with teaching.

More information about Gerlov van Engelenhoven

Fields of interest

• Postcolonial theory
• Collective memory
• Intersectionality
• Unlearning
• Embodied research
• Moluccans in the Netherlands Indonesian colonial history

Research

Legal, political and cultural “voices” and “silences” in the articulation of postcolonial migrant identities, with a focus on the Moluccan community in the Netherlands.

Grants and awards

2016-2020: Doctoral scholarship at GCSC (Giessen, Germany), funded by the German Universities Excellence Initiative 

2019: Subsidy awarded by the Justus Liebig University, Gießen, within the category “Lehraufträge mit Schwerpunkt Genderthematik” (“Lectureships with an emphasis on issues of Gender”), for self-designed seminar “Hashtag-feminists vs. mansplainers: the polarization of feminism in online discussion”

2016: BKO (Dutch Basis Qualification Certificate for University Education)

Curriculum Vitae

October 2016 - December 2020: PhD (Summa Cum Laude), Giessen

September 2013 - August 2014: ICLON Master of Education, Leiden

September 2010 - October 2012: MA Study of Art & Literature (Cum Laude), Leiden

September 2005 - March 2010: BA Literary Studies, Leiden

Key publications

Van Engelenhoven. "From Indigenous Customary Law to Diasporic Cultural Heritage: Reappropriations of Adat Throughout the History of Moluccan Postcolonial Migration." International Journal for the Semiotics of Law, 2020: 1-27.

Van Engelenhoven, Gerlov. “The Case of Telefilm De Punt’s Online Discussion Forum: Participatory Space for Societal Debate or Echo Chamber for the Polemical Few?” Violence and Trolling on Social Media (eds. Sara Polak, Daniel Trottier). Amsterdam University Press, 2020: 131-50.

Van Engelenhoven, Gerlov and Hannes Kaufmann. “When silence speaks louder than words: Tracing moments of Verfremdung in contemporary political protests.” ECIBS: Communications of the International Brecht Society, 2019.

Van Engelenhoven, Gerlov. “Towards an agentive understanding of political silence [Review on: Dingli, Sophia and Thomas N. Cooke (eds.). Political Silence: Meanings, Functions and Ambiguity. Abingdon/New York: Routledge, 2018]”. KULT_online, 2019.

Van Engelenhoven, Gerlov. “A Controversial, But Welcome New Perspective on Structural Racism in Dutch Society [Review on: Wekker, Gloria. White Innocence: Paradoxes of Colonialism and Race. Durham/London: Duke University Press, 2016]”. KULT_online 56, 2018.

Van Engelenhoven, Gerlov and Looi van Kessel. “Organizing Cultuur?Barbaar! – Some problems of creating concepts through art.” Barbarism Revisited: New Perspectives on an Old Concept (eds.: Maria Boletsi and Christian Moser). Amsterdam & New York: Rodopi (series: Thamyris/Intersecting), 2015: 329-42.

Publications