Mirjam van Veen is one of the Netherlands’ leading scholars of the Dutch Reformation, with books and articles on Calvin and Calvinism, spiritualism, Coornhert and Castellio to her credit. Beginning with her published dissertation of 2001 entitled Verschooninghe van de roomsche afgoderye (Whitewashing of Rome’s idolatry) on Calvin’s polemics against the spiritualists, and especially Coornhert, van Veen has explored the broad and long term influence of spiritualists and their attitudes, as well as the vociferous attacks of their orthodox opponents. Her current research (undertaken together with Jesse Spohnholz from Washington State University) focuses on “External Threats to Dutch Tolerance? Religious Fugitives from the Rhineland (1550-1618).” The research question of the Rhineland project is to investigate under what conditions refugees became radicalized, what what effects their religious and political engagement had in the development of the young Republic. She will contribute to the “Amsterdamnified!” project through her ongoing work on the history of religious attitudes, tolerance and polemics, and by helping to trace the networks among spiritualists and their audiences.
Congratulations to Mirjam and Jesse! Their Rhineland project has been funded by the Dutch NWO to the tune of 750,000 euros!
For more on her work, see http://www.mirjamvanveen.nl/Mirjam_van_Veen/Welkom.html and http://www.vu.nl/nl/nieuws-agenda/nieuws/2015/jan-mrt/vu-hoogleraar-kerkgeschiedenis-mirjam-van-veen-ontvangt-750.000-van-nwo.asp.
