Daný van Dam
University Lecturer
- Name
- Dr. H.D.J. van Dam
- Telephone
- +31 71 527 2727
- h.d.j.van.dam@hum.leidenuniv.nl
Daný van Dam is a university lecturer at the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society.
Fields of interest
My main area of interest is neo-Victorian studies: critical returns, especially through literature and film, to the Victorian past and its traces in the present. Within that, I focus specifically on postcolonial neo-Victorianism, the inheritance of the Victorian empire in present-day art and culture, and on neo-Victorianism’s representation of minority identities more broadly. A second area of interest concerns minority identities in science fiction.
Research
My current research builds on my work in postcolonial neo-Victorianism and expands this into historical fiction about other time periods, for example by looking at the (in)visibility of race in English-language novels about the Dutch Golden Age.
Teaching
I teach in the BA English and the BA International Studies. I am also involved in the North American Studies programme and the new minor on Disinformation and Strategic Communication in Global Media. Some courses I have (co)taught are:
- Literature 4B: British Literature: The Nineteenth Century (2023)
- Literature 5A: American Literature, 1917-present (2021, 2022)
- Thesis seminar International Studies (2021, 2022)
- Thematic Seminar: Posthumanism in Science Fiction (2022, 2023)
- Disinformation and Digital Media in a Global Context (coordinator) (2022)
I am also available for thesis supervision at different levels. I am happy to discuss projects engaging with topics such as: neo-Victorianism, Victorian literature and culture, adaptation (including rewritings, prequels/sequels, comics, film/series, and other art forms), postcolonialism/race/gender/intersectionality in contemporary fiction/film, postmodernism, (popular) historical fiction/film.
Before coming to Leiden, I taught courses on postcolonial and ‘world’ literature, on literary theory, and on nineteenth-century literature, as well as academic skills courses.
Publication
Curriculum Vitae
2021-present: University Lecturer English and International Studies, Leiden University
2021: Lecturer English, VU Amsterdam
2019-2021: Lecturer English, University of Amsterdam
2019-2020: Lecturer Cultural Studies, Open University
2017-2019: Lecturer Literary Studies, Utrecht University
2017: EFL teacher, ONCAMPUS Amsterdam
2013-2016: PhD researcher English Literature, Cardiff University
2010-2013: Research Master Art and Literature, Leiden University
2003-2010: BA History, Leiden University
2006-2009: BA English, Leiden University
Grants
2022 Johanna van Nijland grant
2013-2016 Cardiff University President’s Scholarship
Ancillary Activities
British Association for Victorian Studies (BAVS) European Representative (2017-present)
University Lecturer
- Faculty of Humanities
- Centre for the Arts in Society
- Moderne Engelstalige letterkunde
- Dam H.D.J. van (2022), An Instrumental Thing: Pianos Extending and Becoming Postcolonial Bodies in Jane Campion’s The Piano and Daniel Mason’s The Piano Tuner. In: Maier S.E., Ayres B. & Dove D.M. (Eds.), Neo-Victorian Things Re-imagining Nineteenth-Century Material Cultures in Literature and Film. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. 91-110.
- Dam H.D.J. van & Polak S.A. (2021), Owning Gilead: franchising feminism through Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and The Testaments, European Journal of English Studies 25(2): 172-189.
- van Dam H.D.J. (2018), Sea Travel and Femininity in Gail Jones's Sixty Lights: The Female Global Citizen, Partial Answers: Journal of Literature and the History of Ideas 16(1): 109--124.
- Dam H.D.J. van (2017), A Conscious Failure to Pass: Dressing across Sexual and Racial Borders in Neo-Victorian Fiction, Neo-Victorian Studies 9(2): 154-182.