Wagenaar, W. (Welmoed)

Welmoed Wagenaar (1991) is postdoctoral researcher at the Meertens Institute. She studied Language and Culture Studies (BA, cum laude) at Utrecht University and Religious Studies (ReMA, cum laude) at the University of Groningen. She did her PhD at the Universities of Groningen and Antwerp. Her PhD project, which was funded by the Dutch Research Council, examined how digital media embed play and imagination in the everyday life of media fans.

Previously, Welmoed worked at the Meertens Institute as a junior researcher, doing research on the Utrecht St Martin Celebrations in project HERILIGION. Currently, she is part of the ERC project MAKEBELIEF, focusing on religion, heritage and immersive media in the Netherlands. She is interested in mediated processes of imagination, play and ritual in popular culture and people’s agency in this. In addition to her work at the Meertens Institute, she is an editorial board member of the journal Religie & Samenleving and gives public talks about fanfiction and fan culture.

Key publications

• Wagenaar, Welmoed Fenna. 2024. “Discord as a Fandom Platform: Locating a New Playground.” In “Fandom and Platforms,” edited by Maria K. Alberto, Effie Sapuridis, and Lesley Willard, special issue, Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 42. https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2024.2473.
  
• Wagenaar, Welmoed Fenna. 2023. “Inclusivity and Religious Heritage in a Dutch St. Martin Celebration: A Helmet without a Cross.” In The Bloomsbury Handbook of Religion and Heritage in Contemporary Europe, edited by T. Weir and L. Wijnia, 186-196. Bloomsbury Academic. http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781350251410.ch-020.

• Wagenaar, Welmoed Fenna. 2022. “Moral Management and Secularized Religious Heritage in the Netherlands: The Case of the Utrecht St Martin Celebrations.” In Managing Sacralities: Competing and Converging Claims of Religious Heritage, edited by E. van den Hemel, O. Salemink, and I Stengs, 228-248. Berghahn. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781800738225-013.