December/Décembre 2005

NEWS FROM CHAPTERS - AANS NEWS - AADAS - FROM THE JOURNALS

NEWS FROM CHAPTERS

VANCOUVER

Het einde van de zomervakanties betekent dat onze CAANS-avonden weer gaan beginnen. We hebben een interessant programma en hopen dat U allemaal een goede zomer hebt gehad, in goede gezondheid verkeert en dat U weer paraat bent voor onze gezellige en leerzame avonden.

Op zaterdag 18 juni j.l. hadden we onze laatste bijeenkomst in de vorm van een enorm gezellige avond ten huize van ons medelid Yvonne Kolstee (voorheen Gibson) . Het eten dat iedereen meegenomen had was verrukkelijk en bleek ook heel goed bij elkaar te passen, dankzij Saskia’s coordinatie. Dank je wel Saskia! Daar het weer meewerkte konden we allemaal gezellig binnen en buiten zitten. Het sprankelde overal van levendige gesprekken. Hierbij willen we onze hartelijke dank betuigen aan onze gastvrouw voor het zo genereus openstellen van haar gezellige huis! Zeker een avond waard om te herhalen.

Op 2 juli j.l. vond de “Celebration of Life” plaats voor ons geliefde medelid Toni Drewes. Vele leden waren aanwezig bij de ontroerende dienst en de ontvangst in haar tuin en huis. Vele leden hebben bijgedragen aan een boom die geplant gaat worden in de Van Dusen Garden in haar naam.

Op 15 september hadden we een voordracht door Barber van de Pol over haar boek ‘Lieve Erasmus’ dat zij in opdracht van de uitgever schreef. Zij had de gelegenheid om mee te reizen met een televisieploeg naar al de plaatsen die Erasmus had bezocht.

Wie was Erasmus?

Hij is geboren in 1466 in Rotterdam als zoon van een priester en zijn huishoudster, en gestorven in het protestanse Basel in 1536. Hij gaat naar de Latijnse school in Deventer, maar moet deze verlaten vanwege de pest, die het leven neemt van zijn bijde ouders. Door zijn broer en voogt het klooster ingepraat legt hij zelfs de ede af als priester, maar dit voelt hij al snel als een strop. Als 18 jarige vertrekt hij uit Nederland om nooit meer terug te komen uit angst het klooster weer in te moeten.

Hij was een wereldburger, vrijdenker, theoloog, philoloog, vooral een hervormer, en verreweg de bekendste geleerde van zijn tijd. Vorsten en pausen vroegen hem om raad en vonden het een eer met hem te corresponderen. Hij kreeg zelfs een kardinaalsfunctie aangeboden, die hij weigerde, want hij wilde zich absoluut niet binden (hij kwam later op de index vanwege zijn roep op hervormingen). Hij was enorm populair, vooral in Italie, zijn lievelingsland, waar hij gezien werd als de rebel van het noorden. Hij was een “networker”, wist precies welke contacten hij wilde: vorsten, pausen, geleerden en vooral drukkerijen waar de belangrijkste mensen uit die tijd bijeenkwamen. Als bijbelvertaler had hij ook invloed op Luther. Zij werden vrienden, maar later wende Erasmus zich van Luther af, daar hij hem te radicaal vond. Erasmus was altijd de “betrokken” waarnemer. Hij bleef altijd op een afstand.

Zelfs voor de niet westerse wereld is hij nu een ongelofelijke figuur. Een Libanese schrijfster, Armin Malouf, schreef: “L’Islam a besoin d’un Erasme!” Onderwerpen waarover hij schreef en die hij bevocht waren o.a. onderwijs, gelijkheid voor de vrouw, verlicht regeren, de verantwoordelijkheid van de staat voor de gezondheidszorg, onderwerpen waarvoor wij nog steeds blijven vechten. De schrijfster constateerde dat we als Nederlander allemaal wel iets van hem meedragen: we zijn individueel ingesteld, verlicht en gematigd. Eigenlijk is de Nederlander een “Erasmiaan.”

Op 13 october sprak voor ons Dr. Janet Danielson over haar opera “Mariken of Nimmegen” . Hier volgt een beknopte samenvatting van haar zeer interessante lezing in haar eigen woorden:

“In a tradition of Canadian women composing operas that dates back more than a century, I was commissioned by Music in the Morning to write two acts of "The Marvelous History of Mariken of Nimmegen," an operatic refashioning of a Medieval Dutch play full of dramatic action (an innocent girl seduced by the promise of intellectual powers, the suicide of a malevolent aunt, a conversion inspired by a wagon-play, and the young woman's eventual return to wholeness), earthy humour, grand themes, and sensitive character portrayal.  Each of the acts was performed for the Music in the Morning  audience together with a composer's talk and question period. 

“I decided to translate the play myself so I could stay faithful to the rhyme scheme of the original and to ensure an intimate connection between text and music.  Some of the untranslatable Middle Dutch terms were replaced with some earthy equivalents from Shakespearean or older English.  Each character in the play was assigned a tetrachord: a series of tones bounded by a perfect four (a 3:4 ratio), though in the case of the three Satan figures, a tritone (diabolus in musica or square root of two ratio) formed the bound of their melodic motif. The heartless aunt correspondingly had the outer bounds, but lacked the inner tones.  The structure of the play itself includes a 3:4 ratio marking the line number of Mariken's moment of conviction and repentance. The play has much to say to our contemporary situation, and is a literary landmark;  it is the first Faust-type play, and includes a play-within-a-play (frequently considered a post-modern innovation). It deserves much wider currency in the English-speaking world, and I hope my opera may contribute to the appreciation of this fine example of the liveliness and sophistication of Medieval Dutch culture.”

Doeshka Timmer, secretaresse


AANS

The AANS newsletter no. 64 (October 2005) adds a detail to the previous announcement of the ICNS conference in Albany next June: proposals for papers and sessions must be sent in electronically, by going to and completing the application form. Incidentally, volumes of proceedings for previous ICNS conferences, in the PAANS series, are still available for the years 1994 through 2002.

Besides the ICNS, there are also announcements of:  the Dutch session at the MLA this December, at the Washington DC Hilton, on the theme of “Lost innocence: defining Dutch liberalism in times of political extremism;” the Association for Low Countries Studies in Great Britain and Ireland, to be held at UC London on January 5 - 7; the Society for Netherlandic History’s third international conference in New York, on June 5 - 6, 2006, on the theme “Myth in History, History in Myth;” and the 16th Colloquium Neerlandicum of the IVN in Ghent on August 20 - 26, 2006.

The art exhibitions announced are mostly over in December, but at the Philadelphia Museum of Art the show of landscapes by Ruisdael continues till February 5.

It is not too early to think of attending, or recommending someone to attend, next summer’s Dutch courses. They are offered by the University of Minnesota (, the University of Michigan ( or and by the Nederlandse Taalunie at Ghent, Zeist and Hasselt)

In our last newsletter we were kindly allowed to carry Herman de Vries’s obituary notice for Walter Lagerwey. It appears in this AANS newsletter together with one by Ton Broos for the no less regretted Martijn Zwart. When Holland was invaded and occupied by the Nazis, he was in the US on assignment; he stayed and broadcast to Holland as the Voice of America. When the war ended he worked for a Dutch press agency covering the United Nations, and thereafter began his university career. Readers will remember the anthology of Dutch poems in translation which he produced in collaboration with Ethel Grene, Kaleidoscope; he also contributed to two volumes of English translations from German and wrote a monograph called Landbouwcrisiswet. An endowment in his name has been established at the University of Michigan.


AADAS

The latest issue of their newsletter (Fall 2005) announces two conferences. The fifth triennial conference of the International Society for the Study of Reformed Communities (ISRCC) will be held at Princeton on July 9 - 12, 2006. Proposals should be submitted by December 1st to Corwin Smidt at Calvin College ( Acceptance will be notified by December 31st, or faster if the speaker needs a US visa. Advance notice is also given that Hope College in Holland, MI will be hosting the 2007 conference of the Association for the Advancement of Dutch-American Studies (AADAS). The issue also contains the first of two instalments of the abstracts of the papers given at the 2005 AADAS conference, as well as biographical notes about the Association’s new board members. More than one of them writes about the experience that led them to study this field, in terms such as “something clicked” or “I was hooked.”


FROM THE JOURNALS

FLANDERS

Issue no. 66 (June-July-August 2005) features a new generation of artists who have revived oil painting: Michaël Borremans, Jan van Imschoot, Vincent Geyskens, Karin Hanssen, Tina Gillen, Pieter Vermeersch and Ronny Delrue. All renew this old tradition by adding to it such aspects as narrative uncertainty, a disturbing undertone in the scene depicted, faceless figures evoking painful memories or loss of memory, art which stays the same in a constantly changing space... These artists have no doubt been seen in the Flanders Centre in Osaka, created 30 years ago to acquaint Japan with Flemish culture and art, and to rectify the Japanese image of Flanders as a quaint old place. (Apparently this image comes from a novel called “The Flemish Dog,” just as Canada’s image in some countries comes from the Whiteoaks novels). Flanders was represented at the world’s fair held in Japan this year. No doubt some Japanese visitors will see the cultural events this year in Mechelen, entitled “City in Female Hands” - a reference to the women who governed the Spanish Netherlands as regents from the palace in that city.

Flanders is internationally active in other fields than the artistic, of course. It has subsidized an initiative to improve the lives of disabled and socially excluded children in a province of Romania, by training their educators and caregivers. The Institute for Tropical Medicine has been at work for a century. It trains 250 doctors, nurses and vets a year, does research on tropical diseases of people and livestock worldwide, and offers advice and consultations. Notable among the diseases it is fighting are sleeping sickness, TB, malaria and AIDS - a former professor at ITM, Dr. Peter Piot (who was on the team which identified the Ebola virus), is now head of the UN AIDS program. The world also comes to Flanders: the oceanographic commission of UNESCO, a global network to exchange data and information about the world’s oceans, is now located in Ostend.

Flanders also sees itself as a good citizen of Europe. An agreement has been signed with the Netherlands to deepen the Scheldt in order to handle the newest and biggest container ships. The Flemish government is undoubtedly sad to see the rejection of the proposed new European constitution by French and Dutch voters. The proposal, so an article here asserts, actually ensures greater powers to nations and regions than they have now.

Business plays a smaller role in this issue than it sometimes does. There is a workshop in Antwerp called Betet Skara (“the weaving mill”) where refugees hand-weave material for major Flemish fashion houses. More than 80% of Flemish goods are exported; the annual Leeuw van de Export awards were given out recently, both to high-tech firms.

Issue no. 67 (September-October-November 2005) has on its cover a striking artwork: a large metal sculpture showing a man astride a tortoise going down to the sea. Permanently installed on the beach at Nieuwpoort, it was featured on posters all over Avignon this year, because its creator Jan Fabre was the Associate Artist of the Festival, at which five of his plays were performed. He is interviewed in the issue. His work is about more than forswearing speed and machines; it is about our conficting instincts to destroy and to survive, about our body’s ability to transcend itself, about transformation. Another artistic achievement is also celebrated in this issue, that of the classically trained Kolacny brothers, who are best known for their combined rock band, string quartet and girls’ choir Scala, “for whom they reduce classic rock songs to their essence and then rework them until aspects of the songs emerge that no-one has ever heard before.”

On the economic front, a new container dock has been opened in Antwerp, with 5 km of quays. Another international phenomenon is worldwide investment. The GIMV company was created to be a state-owned development bank for Flanders, but now it is privatized and looking for opportunities abroad. Telindus, a “provider of total communication networks ... speech-data-video,” sets up and manages networks in several countries. A similar story can be told of Omega Pharma, an ambitious producer of over-the-counter personal care products.

As usual, there also articles about international co-operation. Flanders and Chile have collaborated since 1995 in such fields as the environment and technical support for Chilean universities. Flanders cannot finance massive projects, but it does offer expertise in various fields, from water management and planning in Latvia - where the way planning is done has changed from bureaucratic to participatory - to the thirty or so initiatives in reforestation and sustainable management of the land currently being supported in South America.

SEPTENTRION

Si aucune couverture de Septentrion n’est banale ou ennuyeuse, celle du nº 3 pour 2005 est frappante. On reconnaît la personne représentée, c’est Émile Verhaeren tel qu’on le voit dans la peinture La Lecture de Théo van Rysselberghe, mais il en est découpé et placé sur fond blanc. On ne voit plus le manuscrit qu’il lit, on ne sait plus pourquoi il fait ce geste emphatique de la main. Le tableau entier est reproduit à la p.17, dans un article sur les rapports franco-belges. Ces rapports, toujours tendus sur la scène politique - la France a montré plus d’une fois la volonté d’annexer son petit voisin - ont pourtant été très amicaux dans le monde littéraire et artistique, où le prestige français était incontesté.

L’article de tête est consacré à l’auteur J.F.H. Grönloh (1882-1961), qui a adopté le pseudonyme Nescio (en latin, “je ne sais pas”). Pendant sa vie, il n’a publié qu’un volume de trois nouvelles, mais aujourd’hui un public nombreux apprécie son romantisme, son cynisme et son don de “dire les choses compliquées avec des mots simples.” Par contraste, un roman de Paul Verhaeghen paru l’année dernière, Omega minor, a plus de 600 pages. L’extrait qu’on en traduit pour nous présente des voyous vivant à Berlin à l’époque communiste.

On nous apprend que le vieux centre de Paramaribo, la capitale du Surinam, figure sur la liste du patrimoine mondial dressée par l’UNESCO; tous les habitants, de quelque origine que ce soit, tiennent à le conserver. Tout y est en bois, même la vaste cathédrale. Des bâtiments dans d’autres parties du pays devraient également être préservés. Un autre article parle au contraire des oeuvres d’art contemporains qui ornent les villes des Pays-Bas. Depuis 1951 une loi exige que 1 à 1,5% du coût de tout projet de bâtiment public soit dépensé sur une oeuvre d’art, et les commanditaires privés ont emboîté le pas. Résultat: beaucoup d’oeuvres frappantes, mais aussi “beaucoup d’art superflu et de vrais ratés,” dit l’auteure de l’article. On s’y attendrait.

Terminons avec Adriaan van Dis. Il nous offre encore des réflexions sur son séjour à Paris, qu’il prolonge. Il nous parle des complexités bureaucratiques d’un déménagement international, de l’attitude envers les immigrants (la même qu’aux Pays-Bas), du Salon de l’agriculture, rêve glorieux d’une industrie qui disparaît (il affirme qu’il reste seulement 86 000 paysans en France!), et du fait que chaque escalier qu’on monte exige un rythme propre et vous oblige de fredonner un morceau de musique particulier...