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Lotte van Hasselt MA

PhD candidate

E-mail: l.j.m.vanhasselt@uva.nl

Area(s) of interest: Early Modern History, European History, Religious History & Theology

Cohort/Start PhD: 2018-2019

Protestant and Catholic Exile in Early Modern Europe

University of Amsterdam
Project: The Invention of the Refugee in Early Modern Europe
Promotor(es): Prof. dr. Geert Janssen
Aanstelling: vanaf februari 2019

As part of the project The Invention of the Refugee, I will focus on Protestant and Catholic refugees in Early Modern Europe. This project seeks to explain what exactly a refugee is and when, why and how societies created them. Of specific interest to me is to what extent Protestant and Catholic refugees created a transnational space. What were the differences and similarities between the ways they constructed these transnational spaces? How and why were they constructed? By studying references in pamphlets and church papers to the refugee communities in Geneva, London, Cologne and Amsterdam and examining the ways they identified with other refugee communities, I want to map which groups were active in advocating refugee protection, organizing charity and lobbying for humanitarian intervention.
Additionally I will include the study of material culture. My point of departure is that objects and the decorative schemes they carried were highly mobile. Goods, ideas, and images were constantly moved across (national) boundaries. In this study I will further examine to what extent the study of material culture of the different refugee communities could give us an insight in how transnational networks were constructed and maintained.