As a historian and a religious studies scholar, Tom-Eric Krijger has an expertise on the history of (Dutch) Christianity from the sixteenth century to the present, from a comparative European and global perspective. His focus is not limited to the Netherlands in the strict sense, but also focuses on the former Dutch colonies and all other areas of the world where the Dutch have settled in the past centuries. He approaches Christianity not only as an ecclesiastical and theological phenomenon, but studies it in interaction with culture, social relations, ethics, politics, science, art and international relations. Although he does much research on Protestantism, he teaches academically on all movements within Christianity - including Roman Catholicism and Eastern (Orthodox) Christianity - on all continents from the year 0 to the present.

More information about Tom-Eric Krijger

Research

Krijger has published on a wide variety of themes relating to the history of early modern, modern, and contemporary Dutch Christianity. His dissertation (The Eclipse of Liberal Protestantism in the Netherlands: Religious, Social, and International Perspectives on the Dutch Modernist Movement (1870-1940), Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2019) offers a new interpretation of the development of Dutch liberal Protestantism in church, state, society, and culture, in the context of global liberal religiosity, in the decades around 1900.

Ongoing (long-term) lines of research include the Dutch neo-Calvinist diaspora (1894-1978), liberal Protestantism (1870-1940), Christian politics (19th – 20th centuries), Dutch embassy chapels (17th – 18th centuries), and the impact of epidemics and pandemics on Christianity (mid-19th century – present).

Curriculum Vitae

Tom-Eric Krijger has a BA in History (cum laude, Utrecht University, 2008), a Research MA in History (cum laude, Utrecht University, 2010), an MA in Religious Studies (cum laude, Utrecht University, 2011), and a PhD in the History of Christianity (University of Groningen, 2017). He was a visiting student at the Faculty of Protestant Theology in Brussels in 2009-2010, a visiting PhD student at Harvard Divinity School in 2015, and Scaliger Fellow at Leiden University in 2016.

The thesis with which Krijger completed his MA in Religious Studies in 2011, dealing with Dutch Protestant migrant cultures in Europe and the Americas, was awarded with the national, triennial Prof S. van der Linde Thesis Award 2009-2011.

Krijger lectured at the University of Groningen (2013-2015, 2019-2020) and Leiden University (at LUCSoR and the PRE College, 2016-2020) before becoming an Assistant Professor of the Cultural History of Christianity at LIAS/LUCSoR in 2020.

Krijger is an Associate Fellow of the HDC Centre for Religious History at VU University Amsterdam, an Associate Member of the Institute for Philosophical Studies at Coimbra University, and an Associate Researcher of the Centre of Religious History Studies at the Catholic University of Portugal. In addition, he is a member of the editorial boards of Historisch Tijdschrift GKN (2011–) and Jaarboek voor de geschiedenis van het Nederlands protestantisme na 1800 (2017–).

Publications

For a full list of publications, please click on the tab ‘Publications’.

Activities