The ethnic literature and art of Dutch Calvinists in North America will be the focus of the 16th biennial conference of the Association for the Advancement of Dutch-American Studies (AADAS), being held on Thursday-Saturday, June 7-9, at Hope College.
The event will feature presentations on a variety of topics by some two dozen scholars, artists and authors, and will draw participants from around the country, as well as from Canada and the Netherlands.
The conference is open to the general public. Registration is $25 for the entire event or a reduced amount for those attending only one day, with meals available for an additional charge.
Topics will range from the writings of disillusioned immigrants, to the role played by Dutch-American newspapers, to the family name as a reflection of cultural heritage, to the life experiences of Dutch-American women as portrayed in fiction and non-fiction, to discussions of Dutch-American writers and regional artists. The conference will also include tours of the Christian Reformed Heritage Center of Graafschap Christian Reformed Church and of the new Dutch Galleries of the Holland Museum.
The event will take place primarily at the college's Maas Center, with additional presentations at the Haworth Inn and Conference Center and the Martha Miller Center for Global Communication in addition to the visits to off-campus sites.
The conference is being sponsored by the college's A.C. Van Raalte Institute. The chairperson of the conference arrangements committee is Dr. Robert Swierenga, who is the A.C. Van Raalte Research Professor and an adjunct professor of history at Hope.
More information, including a complete schedule, may be obtained online at https://hope.edu/vri/aadas. Additional information may also be obtained by calling the conference registrar, Karen Schakel, at the college's A.C. Van Raalte Institute at (616) 395-7678.