The Association for Low Countries Studies (ALCS) promotes the scholarly study of the language, culture, history and society of the Low Countries.
As a subject organisation, the ALCS also represent the interests of Low Countries studies in the UK and Ireland.
The current Chair and Director of the ALCS are Associate Professor Christine Sas (UCL) and Dr Filip De Ceuster (University of Sheffield).
The 4th edition of the ALCS Dutch Summer School will take place at the University of Sheffield and is now open for enrolment! A summer course is a great opportunity to give your language learning a boost and put the language skills you have acquired into practice with learners from all over the UK and Ireland.
On 9 December 2024, the ALCS and UCL Dutch welcomed Raoul de Jong, author of ethe award winning novel Jaguarman and of the 2023 Books Week Essay Boto Banja, and writer Karin Amatmoekrim, winner of the Dutch Biography Prize for her biography of Anil Ramdas.
At the Dutch Centre at Austin Friars (London) De Jong and Amatmoekrim went into conversation with Dr Clive Nwonka, Associate Professor in Film, Culture and Society in the School of European Languages, Culture and Society at UCL, on Suriname. Both De Jong and Amatmoekrim explore the (his)story of Suriname by presenting underrepresented voices and fascinating, little known, stories.
This year's ALCS Essay Prize was awarded to Rebecca Nelsey (University of Sheffield) for their essay: “We See What We Did There”: The Successes and Shortcomings of the Acknowledgement of Wrongdoing in Rutte’s Apology for the Role of the Dutch State in the History of Slavery.
The winner of the 2024 Undergraduate Dissertation Prize is Charlotte Armett (University of Sheffield) for “Don’t screw it up!” Translating Dutch Kleinkunst Songs Het is over and Het is begonnen.
Wannes Dupont is Lecturer in History of Sexuality at the University of Edinburgh. He was Assistant Professor of History at Yale-NUS College in Singapore after postdoctoral fellowships at Yale University and for the Flemish Research Foundation at the University of Antwerp. His work, publications, and teaching primarily concern the European, and global sexual pasts, queer history, reproductive politics, and the intersections of biopolitics and religion.
Marrigje Paijmans is Assistant Professor in Dutch Literature at the University of Amsterdam. Her research focuses on the early modern literary roots of anti-colonialism and aims to bring marginalised voices to the fore, creating a more balanced understanding of the Dutch colonial past. For her work on seventeenth-century literature from postcolonial and ecocritical perspectives, she received the KNAW Early Career Award 2022.
For the 15th ALCS conference we would like to explore the theme of questioning the UN/KNOWN in the broadest sense in a Low Countries and comparative context. We take a particular interest in interdisciplinary approaches and papers that explore collaborations between Dutch Studies scholars, translators, authors and practitioners.
We invite individual 20-minute papers or themed 1.5-hour panels. We welcome contributions from emerging scholars and creative practitioners. Please send your proposal in the form of a 250 words abstract by 15 March.
Our confirmed keynote speakers are Dr Marrigje Paijmans (University of Amsterdam) and Dr Wannes Dupont (University of Edinburgh)
Davide Martino received a first grant from the ALCS to carry out archival research in Amsterdam and a second grant to go and present a paper on early modern machine books and hydraulic technologies at the Scientiae Conference in Prague. He reports on his experience. Read the full report here.
