The Bastion of Liberty

Leiden University was conceived as the embodiment of specifically academic ethics which sought to improve society through a cumulative process of knowledge acquisition. Drawing on the idea of Leiden as a 'bastion of liberty', the renowned historian Willem Otterspeer proposes that concepts such as 'equilibrium' and 'mediation' are key to understanding the university as an institution. Modernity and scale expansion have made Leiden University a different institution in the twentyfirst century, one scarcely comparable to what had gone before. As this lively and erudite study shows, a university is a form of social capital, one of Western society's answers to the dilemma of collective action, an instrument for preserving and restoring equilibrium, and hence for fostering continuity. From this vantage point, a university is a confidence-building mechanism that generates solutions to the serious problems facing society today. Also available in Dutch: "http://www.aup.nl/do.php?a=show_visitor_book&isbn=9789087280246">ISBN 978 90 8728 024

Edele wijze lieve bijzondere : een bondige geschiedenis van de Leidse universiteit

'Edele wijse discrete lieve besundere,’ zo luidde de aanvang van de brief die Willem van Oranje op 28 december 1574 vanuit Middelburg aan de Staten van Holland en Zeeland schreef. Hij deed er het voorstel in om een universiteit op te richten. Het zou het eerste archiefstuk worden van de Leidse universiteit. Aan die brief ontleende Willem Otterspeer de titel voor deze beknopte geschiedenis. Het is het verhaal van vier eeuwen, waarin de universiteit van Leiden de lotgevallen van Nederland deelde en representatief was voor de belangrijkste ontwikkelingen in de wetenschap. Het is tegelijk ook een beetje een liefdesverklaring aan een van de mooiste instellingen op aarde.Uitgave naar aanleiding van het 88ste lustrumjaar van de Universiteit Leiden9789400602144 (epdf)Populariserende publicati

Metamorphosis. Jolles and Huizinga and Comparative Literature

This essay gives an outline of a shared “intellectual constitution”, the spiritual bioi parallelloi that united two Dutch scholars, André Jolles and Johan Huizinga, in their endeavour of cultural analysis and cultural criticism. First, it presents the background of their effort, the world of learning they shared with philologists such as Ernst Robert Curtius, Leo Spitzer and Erich Auerbach. It explains, in particular, the idea of cultural harmony and of methodological notions like that of the possibility to extrapolate from small facts to large issues, and of cultural criticism as a counteroffensive against the loss of harmony. Next, the essay focuses on the common creativity of Jolles and Huizinga and their views on metamorphosis as the inner mechanism of cultural change. For both of them, the notion of form was a trait d’union between mutable life and immutable human nature. Forms, that existed in a limited number, in typological series of social identities or cultural genres, were their main tool in cultural analysis and criticism.Cet essai se veut l’esquisse d’une « constitution intellectuelle » partagée, de bioi paralelloi spirituels, qui ont uni deux savants néerlandais, André Jolles et Johan Huizinga, dans leurs efforts d’analyse et de critique culturelle. D’abord, il présente le contexte de cette aspiration, c’est-à-dire le monde de savoir que ces deux hommes ont partagé avec des philologues comme Ernst Robert Curtius, Leo Spitzer et Erich Auerbach. Ainsi sont expliquées l’idée d’harmonie culturelle et des notions méthodologiques comme le lien tissé entre les petits faits et les grandes questions, et est présentée l’idée de la critique culturelle en tant que contre-offensive contre la perte d’harmonie. Ensuite, l’essai fait le point sur la créativité commune de Jolles et Huizinga, et de leurs interprétations de la métamorphose comme un mécanisme interne de changement culturel. Pour ces deux hommes, la notion de forme a constitué le trait d’union entre la vie muable et la nature humaine immuable. Ces formes, qui se produisent en nombre limité et en séries typologiques d’identités sociales ou de genres culturels, étaient leur principal outil d’analyse et de critique culturelle

The bastion of liberty : Leiden University today and yesterday

Leiden University was conceived as the embodiment of specifically academic ethics which sought to improve society through a cumulative process of knowledge acquisition. Drawing on the idea of Leiden as a 'bastion of liberty', the renowned historian Willem Otterspeer proposes that concepts such as 'equilibrium' and 'mediation' are key to understanding the university as an institution. Modernity and scale expansion have made Leiden University a different institution in the twentyfirst century, one scarcely comparable to what had gone before. As this lively and erudite study shows, a university is a form of social capital, one of Western society's answers to the dilemma of collective action, an instrument for preserving and restoring equilibrium, and hence for fostering continuity. From this vantage point, a university is a confidence-building mechanism that generates solutions to the serious problems facing society today. Also available in Dutch: "http://www.aup.nl/do.php?a=show_visitor_book&isbn=9789087280246">ISBN 978 90 8728 024

Russian Students at Leyden University : The Case of the Kurakin Brothers

オランダ, ライデン, 1999年10月 27日-29

Good, gratifying and renowned : a concise history of Leiden University

This is the story of four centuries during which Leiden University shared the fate of the Netherlands, and became representative of the most important advances in academic research. At the same time it is a declaration of adoration to one of Europe’s most leading international universities. On 28 December 1574, William of Orange wrote a letter to the States General of the provinces of Holland and Zeeland from the town of Middelburg. He came to the representatives with a proposal, a dream actually, with the plan for founding ‘a good, gratifying and renowned school or university’. This letter would become the first document in the archives of Leiden University, offering an apt title for this concise history.Translated from the Dutch by John R.J. Eyck9789400602267 (e-pdf)Populariserende publicati

Het bolwerk van de vrijheid : De Leidse universiteit in heden en verleden

Leiden University was conceived as the embodiment of specifically academic ethics which sought to improve society through a cumulative process of knowledge acquisition. Drawing on the idea of Leiden as a 'bastion of liberty', the renowned historian Willem Otterspeer proposes that concepts such as 'equilibrium' and 'mediation' are key to understanding the university as an institution. Modernity and scale expansion have made Leiden University a different institution in the twentyfirst century, one scarcely comparable to what had gone before. As this lively and erudite study shows, a university is a form of social capital, one of Western society's answers to the dilemma of collective action, an instrument for preserving and restoring equilibrium, and hence for fostering continuity. From this vantage point, a university is a confidence-building mechanism that generates solutions to the serious problems facing society today.ISBN : 978908728024

A History of Universalism: Conceptions of the Internationality of Science from the Enlightenment to the Cold War

That science is fundamentally universal has been proclaimed innumerable times. But the precise geographical meaning of this universality has changed historically. This article examines conceptions of scientific internationalism from the Enlightenment to the Cold War, and their varying relations to cosmopolitanism, nationalism, socialism, and 'the West'. These views are confronted with recent tendencies to cast science as a uniquely European product