Joep Leerssen

Who is Joep Leerssen?

Joseph Theodoor "Joep" Leerssen is a Dutch comparatist and cultural historian. He is professor of European studies at the University of Amsterdam, where he also holds a Royal Netherlands Academy Research Professorship. He was awarded the Spinozapremie in 2008.

Leerssen studied Comparative literature in Aachen and Anglo-Irish Studies at University College Dublin, and received his doctorate from Utrecht University in 1986. He was appointed lecturer in European Studies in Amsterdam in 1986 and was given a professorial chair in the same subject in 1991. In addition, he has held guest professorships and visiting fellowships in Harvard, Cambridge and Göttingen. He headed the Huizinga Institute, the Dutch National Research Institute for Cultural History, from 1996 until 2005.

Leerssen has worked in the fields of Irish Studies, imagology and European studies. His main research focus is on the relationship between national stereotyping and nationalism, and on the historical development of cultural and romantic nationalism in nineteenth-century Europe, using literary texts as a source for the history of ideas.