A weekly lecture series at Hope College beginning on Thursday, Oct. 17, will review a variety of topics on Dutch history since 1800.
The seven-week series, sponsored by the college's A.C. Van Raalte Institute, is designed with a general audience in mind, according to Dr. James Kennedy, who will be presenting the talks.
The series will run Thursday evenings, beginning on Thursday, Oct. 17, and continuing through Thursday, Dec. 5. There will be no lectures on Thursday, Nov. 28, because of the Thanksgiving holiday.
Each evening will feature two 50-minute lectures, the first beginning at 7 p.m. and the second at 8 p.m. The lectures will be presented in room 111 of Lubbers Hall on the Hope campus.
Kennedy is a research fellow with the A.C. Van Raalte Institute and an assistant professor of history. A member of the Hope faculty since 1997, he is a specialist in Dutch history whose publications include books on the cultural history of the postwar period in the Netherlands and euthanasia in the Netherlands, and various articles on Dutch religious history.
The sitting fee is $10 per evening, or $50 for all of the lectures, and is payable to the Office of the Registrar at Hope. The office is located on the main floor of the DeWitt Center, and may be called at (616) 395-7760.
The lecture topics are:
October 17, "How the Dutch Got Their Surnames? Napoleon and Other Stories" and "The House of Orange: How Dutch Royalty Survived Democracy"
October 24, "Poor or Just Stingy? Dutch Society in the Nineteenth Century" and "The Dutch Record as Colonial Power: Policy and Practice in the Indies"
October 31, "Dutch Religious Tolerance: Did Van Raalte Have to Leave the Netherlands?" and "Why the Dutch Secular State Pays for Religious Education"
November 7, "In the Lion's Den: How the Dutch Stayed Neutral Before Hitler" and "Heroes or Opportunists? The Dutch under the Nazis"
November 14, "The Economic Wonder: How the Dutch Rebuilt after World War II" and "Why the Dutch Have a Love-Hate Relationship with America"
November 21, "How Amsterdam Became the Pleasure Dome of Europe" and "Why did the Dutch Banish God?"
December 5, "Are the Dutch tolerant? Homosexuality, Drugs and the New Immigrants" and "How Will the Dutch Survive the 21st Century?"