Professor Susan Legêne

htpps://www.let.vu.nl/en/staff/s.legene
Susan Legêne is professor of Political History at VU University, Faculty of Arts/History Department. Prior to this, she was head of the Curatorial Department of the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam. Her work focuses on the ways in which material and visual collections from the colonial past provide valuable sources to explore processes of cultural canon formation through past academic research traditions and exhibition practices. In this context, PhotoCLEC is also linked to her international research programme Sites, Bodies and Stories; the dynamics of heritage formation in colonial and postcolonial Indonesia and the Netherlands (2008-2013).
Colonialism and processes of decolonization in relationship to nation building and (transnational) citizenship, both in Europe and in the once colonial countries.
2008. Collection policies and approaches (2008- 2012) of the Tropenmuseum, With Koos van Brakel Amsterdam KIT Publishers (Bulletin 381).
2009. 'Dwinegeri -- Multiculturalism and the Colonial past (or: The Cultural Borders of Being Dutch).' In: Benjamin Kaplan, Marybeth Carlson, Laura Cruz (eds.), Boundaries and their Meanings in the History of the Netherlands. Leiden/Boston: Brill, pp. 223--242.
2008. ‘Flatirons and the Folds of History: On Archives, Cultural Heritage and Colonial Legacies’ In Travelling Heritages: New Perspectives. Askant, pp 47-64.
2007. 'Mission Interrupted: Gender, History and the Colonial Canon,' with Berteke Waaldijk,. In: M. Grever and S. Stuurman (eds), Beyond the Canon. History for the Twenty-first Century. New York:Palgrave Macmillan,pp. 188-204.
2007. ‘Enlightenment, Empathy, Retreat: The Cultural Heritage of the Ethische Politiek’, in P. ter Keurs (ed.), Colonial Collections Revisited. (Leiden CNWS Publications), 22. 220-245. (Mededelingen van het Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde Leiden no. 36).
2007. From India to Suriname: A journey into the future narrated by two photograph albums (1913-1930). Allahabad: Manav Vikas Sangrahalaya – GB Pant Institute, [Bidesia Occasional papers Series no. 2).
2004. ‘Photographic Playing Cards. Teaching the Dutch Colonialism.’ In: E. Edwards and J.Hart (eds.), Photographs Objects Histories. On the Materiality of Images. London: Routledge, pp. 96-112.
2003. ‘De mythe van een etnisch homogene nationale identiteit Kanttekeningen bij de verwerking van
het koloniale verleden in de Nederlandse geschiedenis’ in Tijdschrft voor Geschiedenis 116(4), pp.
553-560.