New visiting professor Frank van Vree

About Professor Frank van Vree

The visiting professor for the academic year 2022-2023 is Frank van Vree (1954), emeritus professor of History of War, Conflict and Memory Studies at the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Amsterdam and associated researcher at the NIOD Institute of War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies of the Royal Academy of Sciences (KNAW) in Amsterdam. During 2022 he is also Senior Research Fellow at the Moritz Stern Institute for Intellectual History, Modern Jewish Studies and Enlightenment Culture of the Universität Göttingen.

Van Vree studied modern history and philosophy at the University of Groningen and received his PhD from the University of Leiden. Previously he also held a chair in Media History at the Erasmus University (Rotterdam). In 2010-2011 he was visiting scholar at New York University and, previously, visiting professor at various other institutes abroad. His research and publications articles - in scholarly journals as well as newspapers and weeklies – focus on two main fields:  history and memory of war and violence in the 20^th century and the history of Dutch media and journalism culture.

Until last year Van Vree was director of the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies (2016-2021). Previously he had been Dean of the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Amsterdam (2012-2016) and Professor of Media Studies (2001-2016). Together with prof. José van Dijck he laid the foundations of the now famous Medias Studies department as well as its Journalism program of the Amsterdam university.

As NIOD director Van Vree had the final responsibility over the program Independence, Decolonisation, Violence and War in Indonesia 1945-1950, a joint project of the NIOD, the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV) and the Netherlands Institute for Military History (NIMH). This research program focused on the use of extreme violence by the Dutch armed forces during the Indonesian War of Independence, the consequences it had, and the extent to which political and legal responsibility was taken for the extreme violence both at the time and later, all viewed in a wider historical, political and international context. The research was conducted by thirty Dutch academics, in parallel with two international projects: a project by the Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) with eleven Indonesian researchers, and a project with six international experts, resulting in in fourteen separate studies in total, some in various languages. The final conclusions of the program were presented on 17 February 2022, generating great attention in the media as well as political debates; it also led to official apologies by the Dutch government to the Indonesian people for the widespread use of extreme violence during that war.

Van Vree’s work in the field of history, memory and historical culture dates back to the early 1990’s, leading to a path-breaking study on the memory of the Second World War, In de schaduw van Auschwitz. Herinneringen, beelden, geschiedenis (‘In the shadow of Auschwitz. Memories, Images, History’; 1995). Together with Rob van der Laarse (UvA) he initiated a major research program, The Dynamics of War Heritage, Memory and Remembrance, which was granted eleven research positions in 2008-2009 by NWO and ten (semi)public and private funds.

Over the years Van Vree published a great number of books and articles on the history of Dutch media and journalism as well as a number of essays and articles in the field of historical representation and historical culture, in scholarly journals as well as newspapers and weeklies, among them the leading newspaper de Volkskrant and the weekly de Groene Amsterdammer; he was one of the founders and editors of Feit & fictie, a journal on the history of representation (1991-1997). He was co-editor of important scholarly volumes, such as History of Concepts - Comparative Perspectives (AUP Amsterdam 1998; also in Chinese translation) and Performing the Past, Memory, History, and Identity in modern Europe (with Jay Winter and Karin Tilmans, AUP Amsterdam 2010).  

Over the years Frank van Vree has been a member of numerous boards and committees, both in academia and in society. He was the driving force of the project Quality and Relevance in the Humanities, which successfully developed assessment standards that would do justice to the nature of humanities research; subsequently he was appointed member of the committee that designed the national Strategy Evaluation Protocol 2021-2027 for all universities and research institutes in the Netherlands.

Outside academia he was, among others, member of the board of the prestigious Praemium Erasmianum (2007-2015), the Netherlands Press Museum (2002-2009), the Amsterdam Expertise Centre of Journalism (2009-2013), the National Biography Series (1995-2003) and the National Cultural Broadcast Fund (Mediafonds 2001-2005).

Key publications

• Forthcoming 13 September 2022: Martin van Gelderen & Frank van Vree (eds.), ‘Een joods kind dat weet van eeuwen heeft’. Anne Frank als vluchtelinge, schrijfster en icoon. Amsterdam: Prometheus 2022 (400 pp.).
• Gert Oostindie a.o., Over de grens. Nederlands extreem geweld in de Indonesische onafhankelijkheidsoorlog, 1945-1949. English edition: Beyond the pale. Dutch extreme violence in the Indonesian War of Independence, 1945-1949. Amsterdam University Press 2022 (578 pp.).
• Jona Mooren, Klaas Stutje & Frank van Vree, Clues. Research into provenance history and significance of cultural objects and collections acquired in colonial situations. Amsterdam 2022 (98 pp.).
• ‘Besatzung, Verfolgung und Vernichtung: Die Niederlande unter deutscher Gewaltherrschaft 1940-1945’ in: Fotografien der Verfolgung der Juden: Die Niederlande 1940-1945, eds. Rene Kok & Erik Somers. Berlin 2019, pp. 12-23.
• Conny Kristel, Boudewijn Smits & Frank van Vree (eds.), Jodenvervolging in Nederland, 1940-1945: Wat Loe de Jong schreef over de Sjoa in "Het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden in de Tweede Wereldoorlog", Hilversum: Verbum 2018 (2.746 pp.).
• Frank van Vree, David Duindam, Hetty Berg, Site of Deportation, Site of Memory. The Amsterdam Hollandsche Schouwburg and the Holocaust. Amsterdam: AUP 2017 (204 pp.).
• Karin Tilmans, Frank van Vree & Jay Winter (eds.), Performing the Past. Memory, History, and Identity in modern Europe, Amsterdam University Press 2010 (368 pp.).
• Frank van Vree & Rob van der Laarse (eds.), De dynamiek van de herinnering. Nederland en de Tweede Wereldoorlog in een internationaal perspectief, Bert Bakker Amsterdam 2009 (327 pages + 16 ill.).
• ‘Kamienie Treblinki’, in: Porta Aurea. Instytut Historii Sztuki Uniwersytetu Gdańskiego 7/8 (2009; ISSN 1234-1533) 433-451, also published in other volumes/languages, a.o. as ‘The Stones of Treblinka’, in: A. Bartetzky, M. Dmitrieva, S. Troebst (Hs.), Neue Staaten – neue Bilder? Visuelle Kultur im Dienst staatlicher Selbstdarstellung in Zentral- und Osteuropa seit 1918, Böhlau Verlag, Keulen 2005, pp. 199-208 + ill. (3p.).
•  ‘Bilder/Gegenbilder. Kolonialgeschichte und visuelle Erinnerungskultur 1945-1995’, in: Helma Lutz & Kathrin Gawarecki (Hrsg.), Kolonialismus und Erinnerungskultur. Die Kolonialvergangenheit im kollektiven Gedächtnis der deutschen und niederländischen Einwanderungsgesellschaft, Waxmann Verlag Münster 2005, pp. 181-201.
• ‘Auschwitz and the Origins of Contemporary Historical Culture. Memories of World War II in European Perspective’ in Attila Pók, Jörn Rüssen & Jutta Scherrer (eds.) European History: Challenge for a Common Future, Hamburg 2002, pp. 202-220.
• ‘Auschwitz liegt im Polen: Krieg, Verfolgung und Vernichtung in polnischen Kino 1945-1963’ in: W. Wende (Hrsg.), Geschichte im Film. Mediale Inszenierungen des Holocaust und kulturelles Gedächtnis, Stuttgart/Weimar 2002, pp. 44-66.
• Martijn Eickhoff, Barbara Henkes & Frank van Vree (eds.), Volkseigen. Ras, cultuur en wetenschap in Nederland 1900-1950. Zutphen: Walburg 2000 (254 pp.).
• De politiek van de openbaarheid. Journalistiek en publieke sfeer, Historische Uitgeverij Groningen 2000 (71 pp.).
• Iain Hampsher-Monk, Karin Tilmans & Frank van Vree (eds.), History of Concepts. Comparative Perspectives, Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam 1998 (293 + ix pp.); 比较视野中的概念史 (Chinese edition: East China, Normal University Press, 2010).
• In de schaduw van Auschwitz. Herinneringen, beelden, geschiedenis, Historische Uitgeverij, Groningen 1995 (207 pp.).

About the Chair

The King Willem-Alexander Chair was created at the University of Liège in June 2017 as the result of a collaboration between the ULiège and the Embassy of the Netherlands. It aims to promote the study of Dutch language, literature and culture, and allows the University of Liège to invite eminent Dutch academics of international stature to give scientific lectures and seminars.