Dr. Marco de Waard
Background
Dr. Marco de Waard is a Lecturer in English and Comparative Literature at Amsterdam University College (AUC) and a Research Affiliate in the English Literature Department at the University of Amsterdam (both since 2009). Holding M.A. degrees in Nineteenth-Century Studies (University of Sheffield, 2001) and English and Comparative Literature (University of Amsterdam, 2004), he obtained his Ph.D. in History from the European University Institute in Florence (2007), where he specialized in European intellectual history. While working towards his doctoral degree he spent a semester as visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley. Before coming to AUC, Marco de Waard taught Literary Studies at Utrecht University and English Literature at the University of Amsterdam. At AUC he is a core faculty member, a tutor, and a member of the Board of Examiners. In September 2010 he received the AUC Teacher of the Year Award.
Amsterdam University College
English Literature Department (UvA)
Interests
I'm a literary scholar and intellectual historian who works on questions of historical representation, historical remembrance, and the production of historical knowledge from the 19th century until today. I'm particularly interested in connecting instances of historical thinking and imagining from the past two centuries to the cultural formations of modern (neo)liberalism, asking how transformations in the "historical imaginary" intersect with the ongoing evolution of (neo)liberal conceptions of society and the self.
Currently, my main research project is a book titled John Morley and the Uses of History in Victorian Liberal Culture (under contract with Ashgate). In this book, I offer a critical reappraisal of the work of John Morley (1838-1923), a nineteenth-century statesman and "man of letters" whose ideas were important in shaping British liberalism between the 1860s and 1914. Using Morley's writings as a way into some pivotal debates of the late nineteenth century – about the nature of progress, the future of religion, and the responsibilities of empire – the book argues that the historical imagination played a unique and central role in shaping modern liberal thought and defining modern liberal culture.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
Edited Book
(2012) Imagining Global Amsterdam: History, Culture, and Geography in a World City. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press (forthcoming).
Journal Articles and Book Chapters
(2012) “Redemptive Realism? History and Intertextuality in On Chesil Beach,” in Rethinking Mimesis: Concepts and Practices of Literary Representation, ed. S. Isomaa, S. Kivistö, P. Lyytikäinen, S. Nyqvist, M. Polvinen, and R. Rossi. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing (forthcoming).
(2012) “Amsterdam and the Global Imaginary,” in Imagining Global Amsterdam: History, Culture, and Geography in a World City, ed. M. de Waard. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
(2012) “Dutch Decline Redux: Imagining (New) Amsterdam in the Global and Cosmopolitan Novel,” in Imagining Global Amsterdam: History, Culture, and Geography in a World City, ed. M. de Waard. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
(2012) “Rembrandt on Screen: Art Cinema, Cultural Heritage, and the Museumization of Urban Space,” in Imagining Global Amsterdam: History, Culture, and Geography in a World City, ed. M. de Waard. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
(2011) “History’s (Un)Reason: Victorian Intellectualism from J. S. Mill to Leslie Stephen,” Victorian Studies, vol. 53, issue 3, pp. 457-67.
(2009) “Agency and Metaphor in the Neo-Victorian Imagination: The Case of Ian McEwan,” REAL: Yearbook of Research in English and American Literature, vol. 25, pp. 145-61.
Dictionary and Encyclopedia Entries
(2009) “William Godwin,” in The International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest: 1500 to the Present, ed. Immanuel Ness, vol. 3. Oxford: Blackwell.
(2009) Various thematic and biographic entries in Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century Journalism, ed. Laurel Brake and Marysa Demoor. London: The British Library.
(2007) “John Morley,” in Dictionary of Liberal Thought, ed. Duncan Brack and Ed Randall. London: Methuen / Politico’s.