Seminar The Cultural Cold War: The Low Countries in a Global Network

Organized by Frank Keizer and Laurens Ham, NWO Open Competition XSproject The Secret Life of Writers: Dutch Intelligence Agencies and the Literary World during the Cold War

Tuesday 23 April 2024, 13.15-17.00
Utrecht University, Janskerkhof 2-3, room 0.19

This symposium aimsto shed light on the formation of global cultural and intellectual cultural networks during the Cold War, by zooming in two seemingly minor players: The Netherlands and Belgium. How did artists, intellectualsand institutionsin these countries position themselves in the cultural and geopolitical scene? We discuss the relations between the Low Countries and Indonesia, the Caribbean, African countries, and Western and Eastern Europe.

Please register via l.j.ham@uu.nl

 Papers by:

• Chelsea Schields (University of California Irvine), North by South or South by South? Sorting Out Cultural Liberation in the Cold War Caribbean
• Frank Keizer & Laurens Ham (Utrecht University), International Allure or Covert Communism: The Visual Arts and the Binnenlandse Veiligheidsdienst between 1947 and 1952
• Michał Wenderski (Adam Mickiewicz University Poznań), Dutch Cold War Cultural Policy towards Eastern Europe: A Case Study of Poland
• Frank Gerits (Utrecht University), Belgian Public Diplomacy in Defense of Empire
• Vincent Kuitenbrouwer (University of Amsterdam), Dutch Speaking to Dutch: Broadcasts from the Netherlands to Indonesia during the Decolonization War (1945-1949)

Responses by:

• Geert Buelens (Utrecht University)
• Giles Scott-Smith (Leiden University College The Hague)
• Eleni Braat (Utrecht University)
• Kim Christaens (KU Leuven)
• Taufiq Hanafi(KITLV Leiden)