About the Huizinga Institute

The Huizinga Institute was formally established as a Research Institute and Graduate School in February 1995. It provides postgraduate tuition and encourages research in the field of cultural history. The institute is named after a figure who can be regarded in many respects as the founder of Dutch cultural history: Johan Huizinga.

Within the broad field of cultural history, the Institute's programme has its specific focal points. These emerge from the research traditions within the various member faculties and are determined by recent developments in the discipline both in the Netherlands and abroad. The main premises are historicity and interdisciplinarity: culture is studied in its historical manifestations and dynamics, and from a variety of (mutually complementary) perspectives. The programme covers the period from the end of the Middle Ages.

One of the central tasks of the Huizinga Institute is the training and supervision of PhD students and research master students in the field of cultural history. The teaching programme has two objectives. In the first place, without prescribing a uniform methodology, it serves to familiarise the trainee researcher with various forms of cultural historical research and the methods used in them. Secondly, it is intended to provide further training for trainee researchers and PhD candidates in the skills and techniques of the discipline which forms his or her background.

Member institutions

University of Amsterdam
University of Utrecht
Radboud University Nijmegen
Erasmus University Rotterdam
University of Leiden
University of Maastricht
University of Twente
Free University Amsterdam
Huygens Institute The Hague