This is an event not be be missed by anybody with an interest in Dutch Literature.

The evening will celebrate the many novels, stories, travel books and poetry written by Cees Nooteboom. Professor Jane Fenoulhet, Emeritus Professor of the Department of Dutch, and author of Nomadic Literature: Cees Nooteboom and his Writing (Peter Lang, 2013), will interview the author about his work.

Nooteboom will read poems from the 2014 anthology Light Everywhere and from his most recent collection, Monk’s Eye (2016). The conversation will range across the author’s many works in English. There will be an opportunity for members of the audience to ask questions, followed by the opportunity to buy books and have them signed by the author, and a wine reception.

Tuesday 3 September, 6pm at UCL  Cees Nooteboom will receive an honourary doctorate from UCL and this is the public event attached to that momentous occasion.

Register for this free event.

For all information about the ALCS Conference at UCL please go to the conference website.

ALCS 2019 provisional programme

The Flemish-Dutch cultural institution Ons Erfdeel vzw has launched a new websites for the English speaking world:  www.the-low-countries.com. Ons Erfdeel aims to provide even more context on culture from the Low Countries.

Ons Erfdeel says:

At Ons Erfdeel vzw we’ve been telling stories about Flanders and the Netherlands in three languages for years, with sharp-witted pens representing trustworthy voices. Those stories deserve a bigger, broader, younger audience. That’s why on 1 April we’re launching as many as three websites, in English, French and Dutch. Websites with a unified style but offering different content.

As you have been accustomed to from us for many years, on this platform too you will be able to read in-depth articles on art, language, literature, history and society in the Low Countries. For this purpose we are appealing to established names and young talent, from the Dutch-speaking region and far beyond. They supply the cultural context, in contemplative stories, columns and interviews, but also in photo reports, podcasts and videos.

To name just a few of our new columnists: Peter Vandermeersch (soon to be former editor in chief of NRC), Gaston Durnez (icon of Flemish journalism), Hind Fraihi (research journalist), Thomas Heerma van Voss (author) and Fieke Van der Gucht (linguist).

The ALCS says:

We congratulate Ons Erfdeel with this fantastic initiative. We are looking forward to working together to raise the international profile of Dutch Studies. And we’d like to add that one of the contributors will be our own Anna Geurts.

You will all be aware of the importance of 2019 for Dutch Studies in the UK and Ireland: it is the Centenary Year of Dutch Studies at UCL and, by extension, of the discipline in the UK.

• ‘Time for Business: The Next Hundred Years of Dutch Studies in the UK‘
• ‘Neerlandistiek in tijden van Brexit’ (in Dutch) 

13th ALCS International Conference:
Worlding the Low Countries

University College London, 6–8 November 2019

Marking the occasion of the Centenary of Neerlandistiek in the Anglophone world (the first Chair for Dutch Studies was founded in 1919 at University College London, with historian Pieter Geyl as its first incumbent), the 13th international and interdisciplinary Conference of the Association for Low Countries Studies (ALCS2019) will be held at UCL from Wednesday to Friday, 6–8 November 2019.

This means that with our biennial conference will be a year early. Not only is a centenary too good to pass on, this also this puts the ALCS conference in alternate years with the INCS conference of the American AANS. Colleagues will be in a better position to visit each other’s Conferences.

The full Call of Papers can be found on the Conference website.