NWO grant for four humanities projects
The Dutch Research Council (NWO) has granted four grants to Leiden humanities scholars. They get to spend this money on research on a topic of their choice, without thematic preconditions.
In total, the NWO Domain Social Sciences and Humanities granted 22 million euros from the Open Competition-SSH in 2020. Per project a maximum of 750.000 euros is made available. The following are the selected Leiden humanities projects.
Monika Baár – Disability and Self-Governance: a Global Microhistory of Het Dorp Community and its Cultural Heritage from the 1960s
The project undertakes the first comprehensive study of the history of Het Dorp, a self-governing, accessible residential community for approximately 400 people with severe physical disabilities near Arnhem. It uncovers its national significance as well as its hitherto unrecognized international impact and it contributes to the preservation of its heritage.
Eric Jorink – Visualizing the unknown
Facing previously unknown structures as insect-anatomy, bacteria and semen, seventeenth-century pioneers of microscopy had to develop new techniques of preparation, observation, representation and communication. The strategies they developed still form the basis of scientific practice. This project aims at analysing the complexity behind seemingly self-evident scientific images of the micro-world.
Sybille Lammes - Playing Politics: Media platforms, making worlds
Play and politics have always been closely related, as they are both driven by a desire to create worlds. Yet the emergence of current media platforms has challenged the familiar dynamics between play and politics and has put play at the heart of politics. This project examines this shift.
Hilde De Weerdt - The Lives and Afterlives of Imperial Material Infrastructure in Southeastern China
Chinese material infrastructures including roads, bridges, and city walls have in the European imagination played an important role in political unity, economic integration, and domestic security. We will map these infrastructures digitally and explain regional processes of and differences in infrastructural development and contraction.