Ton van Kalmthout has been appointed professor by special appointment of International Exchange of Dutch Literature in Historical Perspective on 1 September. Van Kalmthout, senior researcher of literary history at the Huygens Institute for Dutch History of the KNAW and part of the research group NL Lab, will also teach at Leiden University.

Prof. Dr. Ton van Kalmthout will work at the Leiden University Center for the Arts in Society (LUCAS). LUCAS is dedicated to ground-breaking research that explores the multifaceted relationships between the arts and society. Van Kalmthout will be concerned with how Dutch literature spreads and is read outside the Dutch-language area. And vice versa, he also looks at how foreign-language literature comes to the Netherlands.

According to Van Kalmthout, it is important to research this: ‘In the Netherlands we overestimate the role of originally Dutch literature, while the vast majority of what we read in the Netherlands is translated literature,’ says Van Kalmthout. ‘Dutch literature is consumed much more abroad than we think. And not just on paper, but often also in the form of a film or theater piece.’