Author: Ruby Jewel

Lecture synopsis:
The prominent Dutch poet and secretary to stadholder Frederick Henry, Constantijn Huygens (1596–1687), was a true polymath. He was a diplomat, an art connoisseur, a bibliophile, collector, musician, scholar and a perfumer. Mainly by means of his correspondence, he maintained a vast network of contacts reaching ‘everybody who mattered’ in the Dutch Golden Age. It is estimated that Huygens wrote and received more than 100,000 letters.

Ineke Huysman: works as a researcher at the Huygens Institute for the History of the Netherlands in Amsterdam. At present, she is project manager of the Correspondence of Constantijn Huygens, the Correspondence of Johan de Witt, the Correspondences of Dutch Stadtholders-wives and the Diaries of Willem de Clercq and the digitization of the autograph collection of the Royal Archives.She graduated at the University of Amsterdam with a thesis on the life of Béatrix de Cusance, a 17^th-century Duchess of Lorraine. 

Oct 5 2020

Turning Towards 

Lecture Synopsis: The etymology of the term queer (which has its roots in the Indo-European word twist) invokes its shifting meaning as a descriptor for non-normative sexualities, and as a spatial and temporal orientation. I want to consider twisting or turning towards someone or something that is needed, wanted, or felt as missing as an act of desire. In offering up the twist or turn and their possibilities I look to examples taken from visual culture—a dance, a gaze, a sensation. How might these moves also call up forms of collectivity and care?

Rosie Haward is a writer and researcher based in Amsterdam. Her work engages with queer and feminist studies and visual culture, and the queer potential of experimental fiction. She also is involved with various models of collaborative practice, and currently co-runs the reading group Straight to Hell. She has an MA in Critical Studies from the Sandberg Instituut and a BA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths, University of London.