Coen van 't Veer is a university lecturer at the Centre for the Arts in Society. He specialises in (post)colonial literature and history, especially that of Indonesia. He focuses on how colonial strategies of inclusion and exclusion still permeate our post-colonial society. From colonial literature we can learn how these mechanisms work. He produces articles, books and podcasts on this subject (The Postcolonial Podcast).

More information about Coen van 't Veer

Fields of interest

• Literary Criticism
• Literature of the Dutch East Indies
• Colonial & Postcolonial literature

Research

Coen van ’t Veer is doing research on (post)colonial literature. He has written a dissertation called De kolonie op drift (The colony adrift) In this dissertation he describes and analyses representations in contemporary fiction of the travels by mail steamer between The Netherlands and The Dutch-Indies in the period of 1850-1940. The crew and passengers of those mail steamers form a micro colony: a compressed version of the colonial society. Taking the postcolonial theories as a starting point Coen van ‘t Veer worked out a new structured method of analyzing fiction to disclose the colonial discourse that lies hidden in it. His PhD-thesis was rewarded with the LUCAS Dissertation Prize 2020.

Teaching activities

Lecturer: Dutch language, literature and history

Curriculum vitae

• 2014-2020 PhD candidate, Dutch Language and Culture, University of Leiden
• 2014 NWO Scholarship for teachers
• 2012-2014 Visiting fellow at KITLV, Leiden
• 1996-present Teacher of Dutch language and literature at Secundary School, Ridderkerk and Schiedam
• 1995-1997 Master in teaching Dutch, HR&O Rotterdam
• 1988-1993 Dutch language and literature, Leiden University
• 1980-1986 vwo, Csg De Lage Waard, Papendrecht
• 1968 Born in Zierikzee

Activities