Hemel, dr. E. van den (Ernst)
![](https://meertens.knaw.nl/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Ernst-vd-Hemel-fotoMoniqueKooijmans-387x400.jpg)
Research group
NL-LabBiography
Ernst van den Hemel is an Ethnology Researcher at the Meertens Institute and NL-Lab. He studied in Amsterdam and Paris and received his PhD from the University of Amsterdam in 2011. His research deals with the themes of religion, heritage and popular culture. He focuses in particular on the role of emotions and the use of media. In the project HERILIGION, for example, he analysed the striking popularity of different types of passion plays, and as part of the project Populism, Social Media and Religion he explored how the religious past is made meaningful in new ways by ‘populist’ movements. In 2023 he received an ERC Consolidator Grant, which he will use to carry out research on religion and heritage in theme parks. He is also involved in INREACH, a project exploring how new methods, such as visual anthropology, can be used to document religion and heritage (in collaboration with Markus Balkenhol and Manpreet Brar). Before taking up his position at the Meertens Institute, he worked as a researcher and lecturer at Utrecht University, and as secretary/researcher for the Theology and Religious Studies exploratory committee of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). He has been a research fellow at Université Paris 8, The Chinese University of Hong Kong and UC Berkeley. Alongside his work for the Meertens Institute, he is president of the Dutch Association for the Study of Religion (NGG).
Key publications
- Managing Sacralities: Competing and Converging Claims of Religious Heritage (co-edited with Irene Stengs and Oscar Salemink), Berghahn 2022. Open access.
- Passie voor de Passie. De Matthäus, The Passion en andere passiespelen in ontkerkelijkt Nederland. Uitgeverij ten Have 2020.
Publications
- contribution to journal (article)
- contribution to edited volume
- contribution to conference
- working paper
- book (author)
- book (editor)
- conference participation
- public engagement
- non textual
- other contribution