Hemel, dr. E. van den (Ernst)
Senior Researcher Ethnology
E-mail:
ernst.van.den.hemel2@meertens.knaw.nl
Telephone:
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
2020
van den Hemel, E. & ten Kate, L. (2020). Religion, Community, Borders: Tensions and Interactions between Religious, Cultural and National Imaginaries in Neoliberal Times. An Introduction. Interdisciplinary Journal for Religion and Transformation in Contemporary Society, 5(2), 259-281. https://doi.org/10.30965/23642807-00502001
van den Hemel, E. (2020). Who Leads Leitkultur? How Populist Claims about ‘Christian Identity’ Impact Christian-Democrats in Western Europe. Interdisciplinary Journal for Religion and Transformation in Contemporary Society, 5(2), 312-330. https://doi.org/10.30965/23642807-00502003
2019
Balkenhol, M. & van den Hemel, E. (2019). Odd Bedfellows, New Alliances: The Politics of Religion, Cultural Heritage and Identity in the Netherlands. Trajecta: Religie, Cultuur en Samenleving in de Nederlanden, 28(1), 117-141. https://doi.org/10.5117/TRA2019.1.006.BALK
Balkenhol, M. & van den Hemel, E. (2019). Zwarte Pieten, moskeebezoek en zoenende mannen: Katholiek activisme van Cultuur Onder Vuur en de culturalisering van religie. Religie & Samenleving, 14(1), 5.
2017
van den Hemel, E. (2017). Geestelijke verzorging als antropologisch laboratorium van postseculier Nederland. Religie & Samenleving, 12(2/3), 91-96.
van den Hemel, E. (2017). ‘Hoezo christelijke waarden?’: Postseculier nationalisme en uitdagingen voor beleid en overheid. Tijdschrift voor Religie, Recht en Beleid, (2), 5-23. Article 1.
van den Hemel, E. (2017). The Dutch War on Easter: Secular Passion for Religious Culture & National Rituals’. Yearbook for Liturgical and Ritual Studies.
2023
van den Hemel, E. (2023). Kaas is de baas. In L. Cornips, M. Hendriksen, & G. Mak (Eds.), Kaas=NL? : Melk, koe, ras, kolonie, taal, kunst, mest en meer (pp. 221-229). Uitgeverij Sterck & De Vreese.
van den Hemel, E. & Stengs, I. L. (2023). Postsecular Meaning-Making? Why Contestations about Heritagised Church Buildings Matter in the Study of Society. In T. Weir, & L. Wijnia (Eds.), Handbook of Religion and Heritage: : Scholarship and Practice in Contemporary Europe. Bloomsbury Academic. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350251410.ch-031
van den Hemel, E. & Stengs, I. L. (2023). Pre-enacting The Passion: Restaging Religious Heritage, Producing Unruly Audiences. In F. de Jong, & J. Mapril (Eds.), The Future of Religious Heritage: Entangled Temporalities of the Sacred and the Secular (pp. 186-205). Routledge.
2022
van den Hemel, E. Salemink, O. & Stengs, I. L. (2022). Introduction: Management of Religion, Sacralisation of Heritage. In E. van den Hemel, O. Salemink, & I. Stengs (Eds.), Managing Sacralities at Religious Heritage Sites in Contemporary Europe (pp. 1-21). Berghahn Books Inc.. https://doi.org/10.3167/9781800736177
van den Hemel, E. (2022). To Applaud or Not to Applaud? Bach’s Saint Matthew's Passion and Management of Sacrality in the Netherlands. In E. van den Hemel, O. Salemink, & I. Stengs (Eds.), Managing Sacralities at Religious Heritage Sites in Contemporary Europe (pp. 205-228). Berghahn Books Inc.. https://doi.org/10.3167/9781800736177
2021
van den Hemel, E. (2021). "Christian Atheism" on Twitter: Dutch Populism and/as Culturalized Religion. In L. Medovoi, & E. Bentley (Eds.), Religion, Secularism, and Political Belonging (pp. 125-138). Duke University Press.
Balkenhol, M. & van den Hemel, E. (2021). Keyword: Nationalism. In L. Medovoi, & E. Bentley (Eds.), Religion, Secularism, and Political Belonging (pp. 139-146). Duke University Press.
2020
Stengs, I. L. Balkenhol, M. & van den Hemel, E. (2020). Emotional Entanglements of Sacrality and Secularity: Engaging the Paradox. In I. Stengs, M. Balkenhol, & E. van den Hemel (Eds.), The Secular Sacred: Emotions of Belonging and the Perils of Nation and Religion (pp. 1-18). (Palgrave Politics of Identity and Citizenship Series). Palgrave Macmillan.
van den Hemel, E. (2020). The Boomerang-Effect of Culturalized Religion: The Impact of the Populist Radical Right on Confessional Politics in the Netherlands. In M. Balkenhol, E. van den Hemel, & I. Stengs (Eds.), The Secular Sacred : Emotions of Belonging and the Perils of Nation and Religion (pp. 21-41). (Palgrave Politics of Identity and Citizenship Series). Palgrave Macmillan.
2019
van den Hemel, E. (2019). Social Media and Affective Publics: Populist Passion for Religious Roots. In C. De Cesari, & A. Kaya (Eds.), European Memory in Populism: Representations of Self and Other Routledge.
2018
van den Hemel, E. (2018). Post-Secular Nationalism: The Dutch Turn to the Right & Cultural-Religious Reframing of Secularity. In H. Alma, & G. Vanheeswijck (Eds.), Social Imaginaries in a Globalizing World (pp. 249-263). de Gruyter.
2017
van den Hemel, E. (2017). Op welke manier vindt zingeving plaats in een maatschappij waarin religie wegvalt? In B. de Graaf, & A. Rinnooy Kan (Eds.), Hoe zwaar is licht: Meer dan 100 dringende vragen aan de wetenschap (pp. 267-269). Uitgeverij Balans.
2016
van den Hemel, E. & Szafraniec, A. (2016). Introduction: Any More Deathless Questions? In E. van den Hemel, & A. Szafraniec (Eds.), Words: Religious Language Matters (pp. 1). Article 1 Fordham University Press.
van den Hemel, E. (2016). Reading Calvin’s language: Nice Work if You Can Get It. In E. van den Hemel, & A. Szafraniec (Eds.), Words: Religious Language Matters (pp. 225-248). Article 11 Fordham University Press.
van den Hemel, E. (Ed.) (2016). Word: religious language matters. In E. van den Hemel, & A. Szafraniec (Eds.), Words: Religious Language Matters (pp. 225-248). Fordham University Press.
2022
Waterschoot, C. van den Bosch, A. & van den Hemel, E. (2022). Detecting Minority Arguments for Mutual Understanding: A Moderation Tool for the Online Climate Change Debate. In Proceedings of the 29th International Conference on Computational Linguistics (pp. 6715-6725). International Committee on Computational Linguistics. https://aclanthology.org/2022.coling-1.583.pdf
2021
Waterschoot, C. van den Bosch, A. & van den Hemel, E. (2021). Calculating Argument Diversity in Online Threads. In D. Gromann, G. Sérasset, T. Declerck, J. P. McCrae, J. Gracia, J. Bosque-Gil, F. Bobillo, & B. Heinisch (Eds.), 3rd Conference on Language, Data and Knowledge (LDK 2021) (Vol. 93, pp. 39:1-39:9). (Open Access Series in Informatics (OASIcs)). OASICS Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik, Dagstuhl Publishing, Germany. https://doi.org/10.4230/OASIcs.LDK.2021.39
2020
2022
van den Hemel, E. Salemink, O. & Stengs, I. L. (Eds.) (2022). Managing Sacralities: Competing and Converging Claims of Religious Heritage. Berghahn Books Inc. https://doi.org/10.3167/9781800736177
2020
Stengs, I. L. Balkenhol, M. & van den Hemel, E. (Eds.) (2020). The Secular Sacred: Emotions of Belonging and the Perils of Nation and Religion. (Palgrave Politics of Identity and Citizenship Series). Palgrave Macmillan.
2019
Stengs, I. L. & van den Hemel, E. (Eds.) (2019). HERILIGION: Heritagization of Religion and the Sacralization of Heritage in Contemporary Europe. Meertens Instituut. http://heriligion.eu/ebook/
2016
van den Hemel, E. & Szafraniec, A. (Eds.) (2016). Words: Religious Language Matters. Fordham University Press.
2023
E. van den Hemel (2023). Imagineering Religion in Theme Parks: A Presentation for the Institute for Ritual and Liturgical Studies. 14-11-2023.
2022
E. van den Hemel, Cedric Waterschoot (2022). ‘Constructive behavior? No idea, but we recognize it when we see it’. 28-11-2022. (Digital Society Conference)
2019
E. van den Hemel, I.L. Stengs (2019). ‘Sticky’ objects and unruly passions in Thailand and the Netherlands: How heritage-claims attempt to pre-enact emotions (and why this is a risky business. 04-09-2019. (ASA19 Anthropological Perspectives on Global Challenges)
I.L. Stengs, E. van den Hemel (2019). Contested Iconicity of the Cross. How The Passion creates multilayered affects and what these say about postsecular Dutch society. 20-06-2019. (Religious Heritage in a Diverse Europe: )
2017
E. van den Hemel, I.L. Stengs (2017). The Workings of the Cross. Passion for Passion Plays in Postsecular Societies. 29-11-2017. (Heritage, Religion, Authenticity and Difference )
E. van den Hemel (2017). Postsecular Nationalism? Appeals on the Judeo-Christian Roots of Secularity in the Dutch "Turn to the Right". 29-10-2017. (Narratives of Disenchantment and Secularization: Origins, Contexts, Transformations)
E. van den Hemel (2017). Dutch Passion for 'The Passion' How to Understand the Unexpected Popularity of Religious Spectacle in Postsecular Netherlands.. 19-10-2017. (NGG Lustrum Conference 2017)
E. van den Hemel (2017). Key Figures in the Study of Religion from Postcolonial Perspectives: Abraham Kuyper. 19-10-2017. (Dynamics of Religious Diversity: The Study of Different Religions and Religious Difference in Postcolonial Configurations)
E. van den Hemel (2017). Secular passions for religious heritage: notes towards preparing ethnographic fieldwork on passion plays in postsecular Dutch society. 28-03-2017. (SIEF2017)
2016
E. van den Hemel (2016). Lezing over belang van kennis over religie voor het NWO programma Religie in de Moderne Samenleving. 23-11-2016. (Beleidsdag NWO 23 november 2016)
2022
E. van den Hemel (2022). “Plat én verheven? Religie en ‘populaire cultuur’ in de vroegmoderne tijd”.. 03-08-2022.
2017
E. van den Hemel (2017). Luther & Calvijn: Verwantschap in een polemische tijd. 09-10-2017. (Lutherlezing)
E. van den Hemel (2017). Religie in de verkiezingen van 2017. 07-05-2017.
E. van den Hemel (2017). Op welke manier vindt zingeving plaats in een maatschappij waarin religie wegvalt?. 04-03-2017. (Hoe zwaar is licht: de avond van de wetenschap)
2016
E. van den Hemel (2016). Wat geloven we?. 02-11-2016. (Studium Generale, Utrecht)
2023
Hendriksen, M. Cornips, L. Mak, G. Leemans, I. van Kalmthout, A. B. G. M. Huysman, I. Helmers, H. Lamal, N. & van den Hemel, E. (2023). Nederland is.... Digital or Visual Products https://open.spotify.com/show/4QWyI8cV206YDPbI4BTJGg
2019
van den Hemel, E. & Stengs, I. L. (2019). HERILIGION: Heritagization of Religion and the Sacralization of Heritage in Contemporary Europe. Website, Meertens Instituut. http://heriligion.eu/
2018
van den Hemel, E. (2018). Undocumented Citizenship. In R. Braidotti, & M. Hlavajova (Eds.), Posthuman Glossary Bloomsbury Publishing.