Universiteit Leiden

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Herman Paul

Academic director/ Professor History of the Humanities

Name
Prof.dr. H.J. Paul
Telephone
+31 71 527 2757
E-mail
h.j.paul@hum.leidenuniv.nl
ORCID iD
0000-0002-9365-6329

Herman Paul is Professor of the History of the Humanities. He currently serves a three-year term (2025–8) as academic director of the Leiden University Institute for History. In 2024, he was elected a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW).

More information about Herman Paul

Herman Paul is Professor of the History of the Humanities. He currently serves a three-year term (2025–8) as academic director of the Leiden University Institute for History. In 2024, he was elected a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW).

His research interests lie at the intersection of the history of the humanities, intellectual history, cultural history, and historical theory. With “Vidi” and “Vici” grants from the Dutch Research Council (NWO), Paul has done pioneering work on the history of scholarly virtues and vices. He is currently wrapping up this line of research while laying the foundations for a new project on the history of the humanities.


Paul’s English-language books include Hayden White: The Historical Imagination (2011), Key Issues in Historical Theory (2015, rev. ed. forthcoming), Historians’ Virtues: From Antiquity to the Twenty-First Century (2022), Dogmatism: On the History of a Scholarly Vice (2024, co-authored with Alexander Stoeger), Virtues and Vices in the Nineteenth-Century Humanities: Explorations of a Discourse (2025), and History of Humanities: A New Field of Study (forthcoming).

He also published several books in Dutch: Het moeras van de geschiedenis: Nederlandse debatten over historisme (2012), Als het verleden trekt: kernthema’s in de geschiedfilosofie (2014, rev. ed. 2024), and De deugden van een wetenschapper: karakter en toewijding in de geesteswetenschappen, 1850–1940 (2018).

Paul received his Ph.D. degree (2006, cum laude) from the University of Groningen, where he studied with Frank Ankersmit. He held visiting positions in Princeton (2006–7), Leuven (2008), Mainz (2009), and Berlin (2016) and was professor by special appointment at Groningen (2012–20). From 2013 to 2018, he was a member of The Young Academy (KNAW).

Paul has supervised Ph.D. projects in the history of scholarly virtues and vices, the history of the humanities, the philosophy of history, and the history of Christianity. Current Ph.D. projects deal with the history of the humanities and the history of medical ethics.

Academic director/ Professor History of the Humanities

  • Faculty of Humanities
  • Institute for History
  • Algemene Geschiedenis

Work address

Johan Huizinga
Doelensteeg 16
2311 VL Leiden
Room number 2.64B

Contact

Guest researcher

  • Faculty of Humanities
  • Centre for the Arts in Society
  • CAS Stafbureau

Activities

  • Huizinga Instituut: Netherlands Research School for Cultural History Lid bestuur
  • Stichting Historische Commissie voor de Leidse Universiteit bestuurslid
  • Journal of the Philosophy of History Editorial board member
  • Cambridge Elements in Historical Theory and Practice Member editorial board
  • History of Humanities Member editorial board
  • Studies in the History of Knowledge Series editor
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