Sophie van Romburgh is a University Lecturer at the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society.

More information about Sophie van Romburgh

Fields of interest

• Experiential imagining, affective response, and poetic thinking in Septentrional philology
• Possibilities for enactive criticism; sensory-kinesic effects of imagery in a reader-beholder
• Septentrional philology: early modern humanist studies of medieval North European literatures; Septentrional etymology
• Artistic research on the interactions of words, materiality, and experience

Research

A philologist and artist, I research scholarly practice, imaginative thinking and the affective, embodied, materialist dynamics of experience in Septentrional philology – early modern humanist scholarship on medieval North European literatures. My interests concern the philologists’ intertwining of scholarship steeped in humanist Latin culture and the medieval Septentrional past, with some emphasis on the word studies of Francis Junius (1591–1677), and Ole Worm (1588–1654) on runes. In part the reflexive practice of a philologist researching philologists, my examinations find inspiration in Junius’s early modern art theory, in tandem with current cognitive criticism, philosophy of animation, and enactive approaches to cognition.

I coordinate, and have co-developed, the LUCAS cross-cluster research theme “The Role of Experience in Arts of Criticism, Rhetoric and Aesthetics.” In a reading group and occasional other meetings, we examine affective, embodied-enactive, and new materialist perspectives to explore the role of experience in the arts of criticism, rhetoric and aesthetics that we study across LUCAS, and explore ways for doing so analytically, empirically, and experimentally. For theme details, see PARC and LUCAS.

In my essays, I consider how humanist scholars sought to make the ancient Septentrional materials present in their philology; I reflect on the generative force of embodied, imaginative thinking in their erudition; and I explore possibilities for enactive imagining and criticism.

My essay “Imagining Septentrional Etymology” presents a first theorization of the vital role that affective, experiential understandings play in Septentrional etymology. Its theoretical underpinnings include philosophy of animation, enactive approaches to cognition, and cognitive criticism on the neuroaesthetic, sensory-kinesic effects of images and imagery in a reader-beholder. Involving these theories, I explore how to conceive of Septentrional etymologies as experiential images that actualize as live moments via an experiential philological process, which I conceptualize as “etymological rhyme.” Early modern etymological practice is, I suggest, an ongoing conversation that plays out live; therefore, we must evaluate it for its significance as a live event. As scholars, we, too, are implicated and thus have a responsibility for how our experiencing shapes our studies.

These studies in Septentrional philology and the role of experience intersect at times with an artistic research practice. In ongoing work, I research the commonplace routine of walking a trail. My performance-lecture for JRD24 explored conversations between materiality and experience in my walks (trails, rhythms, the sand in my shoes), drawings (ink, brush, paper, seawater, gestures), a medieval riddle poem and text-to-image AI, underwater footage, and a 17th-century scholar’s live imaginings of words.

Additionally, over the years, I have assisted researchers and applicants across LUCAS with the editing and fine-tuning of their research proposals for various NWO and ERC grants, including the VENI scheme, VIDI scheme, ‘Vrije Competitie’, KIEM, Humanities–Creative Industries, Rubicon, PhD scheme ‘duurzame geesteswetenschappen’, and the ERC starting grant.

Curriculum Vitae

• university lecturer, LUCAS, and visual artist/artistic researcher (2011–ongoing)
• BFA (Fine Arts) student, Royal Academy of Arts, The Hague (2007–2012, graduation 2012)
• university lecturer in English Philology, Leiden English Department (2003–2010)
• coordinator of the Medieval Studies minor, Leiden Faculty of Humanities (2004–2007)
• postdoctoral researcher, “Renaissance Ideas and Early Germanic Literature: Interconnections between Germanic Studies and Humanist Scholarship and Ideology,” NWO VENI grant, Pallas Institute, Leiden (2003–2007)
• junior lecturer in Historical English Literature, Department of English/American, Catholic University Nijmegen (now Radboud University) (2000–2003)
• Doctorate ‘cum laude,’ an edition of the complete correspondence of Francis Junius, Leiden (2002); published 2004
• developer of computer-assisted teaching projects for Philology, Leiden English Department (1998–2001)
• PhD candidate (‘Aio’), Pallas Institute, Leiden (1994–1998)
• teaching assistant and adjunct instructor in Philology and Language Acquisition, Leiden English Department (1994–1998)
• student in English Language and Literature, Leiden (1988–1994, graduation ‘cum laude’)
• Erasmus exchange student, University College London (1993)
• teaching assistant in Linguistics, Leiden English Department (1991–1992)
• ‘propedeuse’ (first year) in Theatre and Film Studies, Utrecht University (1987–1988)
• primary and secondary school (‘VWO with Latin and Greek’), Baarn

Forthcoming publications

“How to Make the Past Age Present: Some of Ole Worm’s and Francis Junius’ Humanist Efforts,” in Alessandra Molinari and Michael Dallapiazza, eds, Mittelalterphilologien heute. Eine Standortbestimmung. Teil 1: Die germanischen Philologien (Würzburg: Verlag Königshausen und Neumann) [in print].

“Le jeu de l’hybridité des poèmes de circonstance scaldiques et anglo-saxons modernes,” in Anne-Pascale Pouey-Mounou and Paul Smith, eds, Langues hybrides et expérimentations littéraires (XVIe–début XVIIe siècles)/ Hybridsprachen: Linguistische und literarische Untersuchungen (16.–Anfang 17. Jh.) (Geneva: Droz) [accepted].

“Hyperboreo sono: an exploration of erudition in early modern Germanic philology,” Erudition and the Republic of Letters [accepted].

Teaching activities

Currently, I am a second evaluator of BA theses for the Leiden BA in English Language and Culture (mostly philology and literature).

Key publications

“Hyperboreo sono: an exploration of erudition in early modern Germanic philology,” Erudition and the Republic of Letters [accepted].

“How to Make the Past Age Present: Some of Ole Worm’s and Francis Junius’ Humanist Efforts,” in Alessandra Molinari and Michael Dallapiazza, eds, Mittelalterphilologien heute. Eine Standortbestimmung. Teil 1: Die germanischen Philologien (Würzburg: Verlag Königshausen und Neumann) [in print].

Alicia C. Montoya, Sophie van Romburgh and Wim van Anrooij, eds, Early-Modern Medievalisms: The Interplay between Scholarly Reflection and Artistic Production, Intersections: Interdisciplinary Studies in Early Modern Culture 15 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2010).

“For My Worthy Freind Mr Franciscus Junius.” An Edition of the Correspondence of Francis Junius F.F. (1591-1677), Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History 121 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2004).

“Why Francis Junius (1591–1677) Became an Anglo-Saxonist, or, the Study of Old English for the Elevation of Dutch,” in T.A. Shippey, with Martin Arnold, eds, Appropriating the Middle Ages: Scholarship, Politics, Fraud, Studies in Medievalism 11 (Cambridge [etc.]: D.S. Brewer, 2001), 5–36.

Publications