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Dutch literature - Flemish literature; History - Klassieke mythologie was een geliefd onderwerp bij de rederijkers van de zestiende eeuw. Deze 'fabulen' werden bewerkt tot spelen van zinne waarin herkenbare liefdeskwesties aan de orde kwamen. Er zijn negen van deze zogeheten mythologisch- amoureuze spelen overgeleverd, geschreven en opgevoerd vanaf het einde van de vijftiende eeuw. De teksten maken duidelijk hoe de omgang met klassieke mythologie veranderde in de periode die de overgang vormt van middeleeuwen naar moderne tijd. Deze studie gaat in op de verhouding tot de oorspronkelijke teksten, op de dramaturgie en opvoering van de spelen en op de overlevering in handschrift en druk. De mythologie, heidens en fictioneel van aard, bood ruimte om te experimenteren met de uitbeelding van erotiek en emoties, terwijl de dramaturgie een didactisch kader vormde dat tegemoet kwam aan de sociale en ethische behoeften van die tijd. De mythologisch-amoureuze spelen droegen daarmee bij aan de introductie, verspreiding en acceptatie van antieke mythologie in de volkstalige cultuur en aan de ontwikkeling van een effectieve liefdesdidactiek.

Peace operations became the core focus of many Western armed forces after the Cold War. The wish amongst political and military leaders during the 1990s to hold on to the classical identity of the armed forces as an instrument of force made them pursue a strict separation between military operations and the civilian aspects of peacekeeping, such as policing, administrative functions, and political and societal reconstruction. In his book Soldiers and Civil Power, Thijs Brocades Zaalberg argues that this policy failed to match up to reality. Supporting civil authorities, and at times even substituting them (de facto military governance), became the key to reaching any level of success in Cambodia, Somalia, Bosnia and Kosovo. As a result of the false segregation between the civilian and the military domain, this was accomplished mostly by improvisation and creativity of commanders who probed for the limiting boundaries of their original mandate by reaching ever further into the civilian sphere. - Vredesoperaties werden na de Koude Oorlog de hoofdtaak van de Nederlandse en veel andere westerse krijgsmachten. De wens om de klassieke identiteit van de krijgsmacht als geweldsorganisatie in stand te houden zorgde er in de jaren negentig voor dat politieke en militaire leiders een strikte scheiding nastreefden tussen enerzijds de militaire operatie en anderzijds de civiele aspecten van een vredesmissie, zoals politieoptreden, bestuurlijke verantwoordelijkheden, en politiek-maatschappelijke wederopbouw. Thijs Brocades Zaalberg beargumenteert in zijn boek Soldiers and Civil Power dat dit beleid niet strookte met de realiteit. Het ondersteunen en soms zelfs het vervangen van civiele autoriteiten (de facto militair gezag) door militairen werd de sleutel tot het behalen van enige mate van succes in vredesoperaties in Cambodja, Somalië, Bosnië en Kosovo. Als gevolg van de valse scheiding tussen het civiele en het militaire domein was dit succes meestal afhankelijk van improvisatie en durf van commandanten die de uiterste grenzen van hun mandaat verkenden en daarbij steeds verder de civiele sfeer betraden. 'Het betreft hier een indrukwekkend werk, zowel door zijn zeer gedegen vraagstelling, als door zijn gedurfde comparatieve benadering, door het enorme en veelzijdige onderzoek (in archieven in alle hoeken van de wereld) dat eraan ten grondslag ligt én door zijn heldere, verhalende stijl (met oog voor de juiste anekdotiek en met een rake typering van personen).' Marnix Beyen, Universiteit Leuven Thijs Brocades Zaalberg is geïnterviewd in de Groene Amsterdammer: kijk op "http://www.groene.nl">www.groene.nl

Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus has been controversial from its beginning in the life of the French Visitationist nun Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647-1690), who established the devotion after a series of mystical visions of Christ. Under the leadership of Sister Sophie Barat, founder of the Society of the Sacred Heart in 1800, the devotion was taken around the world in the course of the nineteenth century. Wherever it went, the devotion took the shape of an evolving visual culture. Even during Alacoque's lifetime, imagery was a fundamental part of practicing the devotion. The Sacred Heart of Jesus traces the unfolding visual biography of the Sacred Heart, showing how imagery and visual practice document the history of the devotion and the remarkable range of its evolution. - Devotie aan het Heilige Hart van Jezus is al vanaf het eerste ontstaan controversieel. De Franse non Marguerite-Marie Alacoque (1647-1690) begon met deze Heilige-Hart-verering na een opeenvolging van openbaringen van Christus te hebben gehad. Jezuïeten, spirituele goeroes en priesters tot op de dag van vandaag maken deze verering tot het centrum van hun theologische studie en beleving. The Sacred Heart of Jesus is een uitgebreide visuele biografie van het Heilige Hart. Het laat de opmerkelijke evolutie van dit fenomeen zien, maar ook hoe beeldende kunst en rituelen deze geschiedenis documenteren.

This article explores discussions in the Nederlandsch Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde (NTvG), the Dutch Journal of Medicine, over the limits of medical confidentiality during the First World War. In the early twentieth century, physicians in the Netherlands struggled with the socio-legal limits of the 'physician's oath' (i.e. 'artseneed'), the vow of secrecy sworn by Dutch medical doctors since 1878 at Dutch universities upon the acceptance of their profession. While the 1865 codification of medical confidentiality in the Netherlands had significantly contributed to the socio-legal status of the profession vis-à-vis 'quacks', it became clear in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century that the traditional ideal of the secret absolu did not fit well with the growth of modern state structures. With the development of elaborate bureaucratic institutions and the subsequent need for population statistics and formalized accountability mechanisms, Dutch physicians were asked more and more often to provide information which had traditionally fallen within the realm of medical confidentiality to third parties. This article examines this 'dilemma of modernity' by looking into discussions in the NTvG over the respective identities of military and civilian physicians between 1914 and 1918, and argues that, during the war years, the professional identity of the health officer – with his explicit double function as doctor and as servant – came to function as a projection screen for civilian physicians in the Netherlands to debate existing anxieties regarding their role in the modern Dutch state.

The mobilization and involvement of chemists in the First World War revealed the protean nature of science. This harsh knock to the pre-war optimistic views on the societal role of science reverberated the following decade in the deeply divided international scientific community. In the dark shadows of the war and the breakdown of scientific internationalism, the Utrecht chemists Ernst Cohen and Hugo Kruyt attempted to lighten up the international sphere of chemistry. This study focusses on their main informal effort to reunite chemists from former belligerent nations at the 1922 'International Chemical Reunion Utrecht'. This is the first detailed empirical elaboration of the thesis that reconstruction in the 1920s proceeded most importantly through unofficial contact. Despite recent scepticism about this historiographical image in general and the impact and political insight of these Dutch mediators in particular, this article argues that they acted empathically and achieved a unique success in the scientific world. Although science failed to take a moral leading role in European society, the continuous and subtle activity of the Utrecht chemists in the informal and formal networks of chemistry ultimately led to the only complete restoration of an international scientific community before the advent of the Second World War.

This review article discusses Yves Cohen's recent book Le siècle des chefs: Une histoire transnationale du commandement et de l'autorité (1890-1940 ). Cohen provides an extensive analysis of discourses on leadership in France, the Soviet Union, Germany and the United States. He also studies how leadership was practiced, by French and Soviet factory directors as well as by Stalin himself. While giving due credit to the scope and sophistication of his book, the review article asks whether Cohen's focus on scientific discourses and highly structured organisations leaves sufficient room for contingency. It argues that interwar political leadership in interwar Europe was not least about seeing and seizing opportunities in unforeseeable circumstances, often thriving on a positive fascination with crises and states of emergency. It also points out that, contrary to what the combined title and subtitle suggest, "le siècle des chefs" hardly ended in 1939, and that the quest for leadership continues to preoccupy present-day societies, cultures and polities.

In 1625 Joost van den Vondel published Palamedes, a play that is usually readas an allegory on the execution of Johan van Oldenbarnevelt. When reading Spinoza's Theological-Political Treatise (1670) it appears that the history of thisexecution still was relevant. Because the two authors share this topic one would suppose a certain connection. Yet, in the factual Vondel and Spinoza studies, the dominant theory states there is little that binds the two authors. With my analyses of their texts I would like to show that it could be useful to approach their connection from another perspective.

Bringing History Home: Postcolonial Immigrants and the Dutch Cultural ArenaThree Dutch-language monographs published in 2008-2009 by Ulbe Bosma, Lizzy van Leeuwen and Gert Oostindie in the context of the interdisciplinary research programme Bringing History Home, present a history of identity politics in relation to 'postcolonial immigrants'. This term refers to some 500,000 people who since 1945 arrived in the Netherlands from Indonesia and the former Dutch New Guinea, Suriname or the Antillean islands in the Caribbean. Bosma traces the development of postcolonial immigrant organizations. In interaction with government policies, these organizations moved from mere socioeconomic emancipation struggles to mere cultural identity politics. Van Leeuwen takes such cultural identity politics as the starting point for her analysis of Indo-Dutch and Dutch Indies cultural initiatives and the competing interests at stake in the Indies heritage discourse. Oostindie discusses these developments in terms of community development and change within Dutch society at large. He introduces the notion of a 'postcolonial bonus'. In postcolonial Netherlands, this bonus was available to immigrants on the grounds of a shared colonial past. Today, this bonus is (almost) spent. The review discusses the three monographs, as well as the coherence of Bringing History Home as a research programme. Legêne argues, that notwithstanding valuable research outcomes, the very category of postcolonial immigrants does not constitute a convincing category of analysis.

Klep, Christ, Somalië, Rwanda, Srebrenica. De nasleep van drie ontspoorde vredesmissies (Dissertatie Utrecht 2008; Amsterdam: Boom, 2008, 385 blz., ISBN 978 90 8506 668 2)In his dissertation, Dr. Klep concentrates on peace operations and their aftermath as fairly domestic matters in Canada, Belgium and the Netherlands. These three peace operations also fit, however, into an international development at the end of the Cold War. Classic, 'blue' peacekeeping was largely replaced by more robust 'green' international interventions that are not only more dangerous, but during which much more is expected of the peacekeeping forces. New 'affairs' surrounding peace operations have not occurred. The un and national governments are less inclined to begin such missions (namely Daurfur). Presumably the armed forces of several countries have drawn lessons from the peace operations that went off the rails. Also the public is less shocked by accusations of misconduct under difficult circumstances.

Klep, Christ, Somalië, Rwanda, Srebrenica. De nasleep van drie ontspoorde vredesmissies (Dissertatie Utrecht 2008; Amsterdam: Boom, 2008, 385 blz., ISBN 978 90 8506 668 2)When the Home Front meets Foreign Parts. The Aftermath of Commissions of Inquiry into derailed Peace MissionsPeace Missions take place in difficult and volatile circumstances. It is therefore hardly surprising that some peace missions become 'derailed'. Christ Klep zooms in on three 'derailed' missions in his book and focuses on the value of Commissions of Inquiry which are subsequently set up as a result of public and political pressure. Do they succeed in revealing the 'how' and the 'why' of such derailments and – above all – identifying those who are responsible? Based on a broad spectrum of questions and extensive source materials, Klep concludes that 'the number of escape routes from the labyrinth of responsibility is practically infinite'; a clear message for all those taking part in international and domestic politics. It is here that the author skillfully and expertly succeeds: exposing the complex entanglement of domestic and foreign policy, even concerning events that sometimes happen away from the capital city.