Online Seminar: Scholarship in Colonial Times: life and work of Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje

The end of the nineteenth century marked a golden age of Dutch science, which resulted in Nobel Prizes for Van ’t Hoff, Lorentz, Zeeman, Van der Waals and Kamerlingh Onnes. Equally famous at this time was the Dutch Orientalist Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje, the father of the modern study of islam. When the Nobel Prize winners of the early twentieth century are still kept in high esteem, Snouck Hurgronje has become a controversial figure as his research was linked with colonial warfare and the Dutch policy towards islam in the Dutch East Indies. At the DIFFER Seminar Wim van den Doel will present the life and times of Snouck Hurgronje and evaluate his role in history.