Degrees and University Education

2012 PhD, University of Amsterdam

2006 rMA, History of International Relations, University of Amsterdam (cum laude)

2004 BA, History, University of Amsterdam (cum laude)

 

Academic Employment

2012-2015 Lecturer / research associate American Studies, University of Amsterdam

2011-2013 Lecturer in the History of International Relations, University College Utrecht

2011-2012 Lecturer History, Leiden University

2006-2011 Lecturer/doctoral candidate American Studies, University of Amsterdam

 

Administrative positions

2012-2015 Coordinator BA-track American Studies, University of Amsterdam

2012-2015 Member Curriculum Committee, History Department, University of Amsterdam

2008-2011 / 2012-2015 Member Education Committee, History Department, University of Amsterdam

2006-2011 Boardmember Netherlands American Studies Association (NASA)

 

Grants, Fellowships, and awards

2015 Faculty Teaching Award, University of Amsterdam

2013 Member of the Research Network ‘America in the World’, Amsterdam Institute for Humanities Research

2010 American Embassy Speakers Program Grant

2010 Netherlands American Studies Association Conference Grant

2010 Institute for Culture and History / Huizinga Institute Support Grant

2006 Doctoral Fellowship Institute for Culture and History

 

Conferences, events, organizations

2014 ‘Why we Bomb’, research symposium, Mercy College / University of Amsterdam

2013 Creation of the Amsterdam Americanist Society (AAS)

2010 ‘Whose Vietnam?’ Memories and Analogies of a Lost War, Conference, Amsterdam

My doctoral research (PhD 2012) explored the relationships between history, memory and policymaking in International Relations, particularly within the context of the legacy of the Vietnam War and American foreign policy in the 1980s. These broad themes triggered my research interest in the impact of perception and misperception in policymaking, and the connection between historical analogies and power.

 

My current project, ‘Cocaine Conundrums: Dutch-US-Suriname relations in the 1980s’ investigates the interaction between the War on Drugs and International Relations, allowing for research that includes questions on international jurisdiction, morality, post-colonialism and the notion of American empire. The central case in my research is the triangular relation between the United States, the Netherlands, and Suriname during the 1980s and early 1990s. Faced with moral, ideological, and political challenges stemming from conflicting interests in the War on Drugs and the Cold War, these three countries and their hinterlands form a pivotal case that illuminates the transnational and global dimensions of the War on Drugs in this period.

Books and book chapters

• “Whose Vietnam?”; The dynamics of history, memory and ‘lessons learned’ in American foreign policy (UvA-DARE 2012).
• “The Vietnam War” and “The Mayaguez crisis” in; van Dijk, Suri, Zhai eds., Encyclopedia of the Cold War (Routledge 2008).

 

Articles

• ‘De suggestieve kracht van de historische les: lessen van de Vietnamoorlog’, Openbaar Bestuur, (Feb. 2014).
• 'Inevitability and choice in Indochina’, review of Fredrik Logvall, Embers of War; The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam, in: Netherlands American Studies Association Newsletter, (fall 2013).
• “De verborgen hand van Eisenhower”, Geschiedenis Magazine (November 2013).
• “Het beste moet nog komen, maar Noord-Amerika is verdeeld”, Internationale Spectator (January 2013).
• “De spoken van Vietnam”, Geschiedenis Magazine (January 2013).
•  “De kracht van de veilige middenweg: Jimmy Carters verkiezingscampagnes.”, Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis 126.1 (2012). Review of Frans van Nijnatten, Tussen liberalisme en conservatisme: De verkiezingscampagnes van Jimmy Carter (1962-1980).
• “'Tricky Dick', de tragische antiheld”, Geschiedenis Magazine (October 2010).
• “Nog even geen zorgen over het system”, Folia (February 2007).
• “Ludendorff: de generaal, de dictator, de mens”, Skript Historisch Tijdschrift (July 2005).

 

 

Conference papers

• ‘Druglords and diplomats: The Dutch-Surinam-U.S. relations in the 1980s.’ Annual TSA conference, Middelburg, 07/07/2015
• ‘From ‘getting it right’ to ‘useful history’: academics and non-academics interpreting the Vietnam War,’ EAAS conference, The Hague, 04/04/2014
• ‘The Dark History of Cultural Diplomacy’, Annual conference on Public Diplomacy, Institute for Cultural Diplomacy, Berlin, 19/12/2012
• ’This is just like Vietnam! Memory and foreign policy’, UCD conference ‘Identities, Nationalism, and memory in American foreign policy’, University College Dublin, Ireland, 8/4/201
• ‘Looking at Baghdad, seeing Saigon: Neoconservatives and modernization theory’, Netherlands American Studies Association bi-annual Conference, Radboud University, 12/3/201
• ‘Learning, remembering, forgetting, denying’, Whose Vietnam? Memories and analogies of a lost war, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 9/10/2010
• ‘Contested memories, contested policies. Memories of the Vietnam War in the Reagan Administration’, Conference on American Foreign Policy and memory, University College Dublin, Ireland, 22/3/2009
• ‘Historiography, history, or memory?’, American Studies PhD-seminar, Roosevelt Study Center, The Netherlands, 12/06/2007
• ‘Do you remember? The Vietnam War and foreign policy’, Kennedy School of Government research symposium, Harvard University, USA, 24/2/2