Jan Wim Buisman is a retired University Lecturer at the Leiden University Centre for the Study of Religion.

More information about Jan Wim Buisman

Dr. Jan Wim Buisman was Lecturer of the History of Christianity, with a special focus on the early modern period. He retired per 1-8-2020 and is now affiliated to LUCSoR as a guest researcher.

Fields of interest

As a scholar of early modern religious mentalities, Jan Wim Buisman is particularly interested in the impact of natural disasters on views of God, man, and nature, especially during the Age of Enlightenment. His current research entails a broad study of the history of the introduction of Benjamin Franklin’s lightning-rod in Europe and its important consequences for the perception of thunderstorms on a cultural, technical, ethnological, and religious level.

During recent years, a further research interest was collective biography and historical criminology.

Education

Jan Wim Buisman studied modern history in Leiden and Paris. Subsequently, he obtained his Ph.D. from Leiden University in 1993, with an interdisciplinary dissertation on the social influence of Enlightened ideas in the Dutch Republic (  Tussen vroomheid en Verlichting, 2 vols., Zwolle 1992).

Teaching

Humanities Lab: Religion and enlightenment (Honours College)

Selected publications

Books

• Jan Wim Buisman, Lightning in the Age of Benjamin Franklin. Facts and Fictions in Science, Religion, and Art. Leiden University Press 2023. ISBN 9789087283872.

• Jan Wim Buisman, Marjet Derks, and Peter Raedts (Eds.),  Episcopacy, Authority, and Gender. Aspects of Religious Leadership in Europe, 1100-2000. Brill, Leiden/Boston 2015
• J.W. Buisman (Ed.),  Verlichting in Nederland 1650-1850. Vrede tussen rede en religie? Nijmegen 2013
• With C. Houtman et al. (Eds.),  Biografisch lexicon voor de geschiedenis van het Nederlandse protestantisme, vol. 6, Kampen 2006
• Tussen vroomheid en Verlichting. Een cultuurhistorisch en -sociologisch onderzoek naar enkele aspecten van de Verlichting in Nederland (1755-1810), 2 vols., Zwolle 1992 (PhD Thesis)

Articles and contributions

• ‘Der rastlose Repetent Johannes Nicolaus Reinar (ca. 1713-1792). Eine Fallstudie zur Instrumentalisierung der christlichen Aufklärung‘,  Das Achtzehnte Jahrhundert 35 (2011) 38-57
• ‘Unfähig zu einzig Gutem? Einige Anmerkungen zu den Veränderungen in der Anthropologie der späten niederländischen Aufklärung’,  Zeitschrift für Religions- und Geistesgeschichte 57/3 (2005) 265-272
• 'Some considerations on the social diffusion of Enlightenment ideas in the Netherlands', in:  Studies  on  Voltaire  and  the  eighteenth  century, vol. 346-348 (Oxford 1996) 354-357 (  Trans­actions  of  the  Ninth  International  Congress  on  the Enlighten­ment,  Münster  23-  29  July  1995)
• 'Quelques aspects sociologiques de la sécularisation dans les Pays-Bas septentrionaux pendant la seconde moitié du dix-huitième siècle: une approche singulière', in:  Actes  du  sixième  congrès  international  des  Lumières,  Bruxelles1983 (Oxford 1983) 50-51
• 'Het bevend Nederland. De Republiek en de aardbeving van Lissabon 1755-1756',  Tijdschrift  voor  Geschiedenis 92 (1979) 20-42 (Fibula van Dishoeck-prize 1978)

Editorial work

• As of 2007, Jan Wim Buisman is Book Review Editor of the international journal  Church History and Religious Culture. Since 2011, he is Editor-in-Chief of this journal as well (with Aza Goudriaan and Ward Holder)
• Editor of Brill’s Studies in Church History (since 2013)
• Member of the Board of Editors  De Achttiende Eeuw (since 2007)

Publications