Lieke Smits is a researcher at the Centre for the Arts in Society.

More information about Lieke Smits

Research

Lieke Smits is a postdoctoral researcher in the ERC-StG project ‘Pages of Prayer. The Ecosystem of Vernacular Prayer Books in the Late Medieval Low Countries, c. 1380-1550’. Her project is focused on the function of images in prayer books as spiritual instruments and their relation to the texts they accompany and to the wider material culture. Her previous postdoctoral work, funded by the Stichting Elise Mathilde Fonds/Leids Universiteits Fonds and the Research Foundation Flanders, conceptualized a late medieval devotional practice she has termed ‘spiritual role-play’, analysing its imaginative, relational, and transformative aspects. In her research she combines her background in medieval art history with expertise in Middle Dutch devotional literature and theories from reception studies, anthropology, and cognitive studies. She has an interest in contemporary medievalism, is part of the editorial boards of Madoc. Tijdschrift over de Middeleeuwen and Over de Muur – blog voor historische vernieuwing, and enjoys sharing her research with a wide audience.

Fields of interest

• Medieval art history
• Middle Dutch devotional literature
• Religious imagination and practices
• Living matter
• Medievalism

Curriculum vitae

Lieke Smits obtained her PhD from Leiden University in 2020. Her dissertation, titled ‘Performing Desire: Bridal Mysticism and Medieval Imagery in the Low Countries (c. 1100-1500),’  was awarded the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society Dissertation Prize. She has previously held postdoctoral research positions at Leiden University and the University of Antwerp, worked as developer and coordinator of educational programmes at the University of Amsterdam, and has taught courses in academic skills and on the art, literature, and culture of the medieval and early modern periods.

Key publications

Lieke Smits, Veerle Fraeters, and Kees Schepers, eds., Religious Imagination in the Late Medieval Low Countries: Theories and Practices, special issue of OGE: Journal for the History of Spirituality in the Low Countries 94.1–3 (2024).

‘Out of Sight, but Not Out of Mind: A Middle Dutch Religious Allegory as Guide Towards the Absent Christ,’ Postmedieval 14 (2023), 179–201: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41280-022-00259-7.

‘Small Pipe-Clay Devotional Figures: Touch, Play, and Animation,’ Getting the Sense(s) of Small Things, ed. by Karen Dempsey and Jitske Jasperse, special issue of Das Mittelalter 25.2 (2020), 397–423: https://doi.org/10.1515/mial-2020-0044.

Selected outreach activities

‘NIET AANRAKEN: Hoe kunst iets werd om vanaf te blijven,’ OVT, NPO Radio 1, 2024.

‘Manieren van kijken: De blik in tijd en ruimte,’ De Nederlandse Boekengids 9.2 (2024), 17–19.

‘Middeleeuwse toestanden, donkere verlichting en de rol van de historicus,’ Over de Muur, 2019.

Activities