Current and recent scholarshipholders

Here are the current and recent scholarshipholders listed.

Scholarshipholders 2025-2026, Spring cohort

Here are the scholarshipholders of 2025-2026, spring cohort listed.

Beer Prakken - scholarshipholder for PhD research

At KNIR, I will build on the concept of “carnivalesque fascism” from my dissertation about humor in far-right politics. Carnivalesque fascism encompasses a carnivalesque humorous form of mob violence where it is both effectively ‘embodied’ and serves an ideological function. In my dissertation, I trace carnivalesque fascism as a historical and contemporary phenomenon in the United States through two case studies, a 1910 lynching in Tennessee; and the 2021 Capitol insurrection. In Rome, I will apply carnivalesque fascism to an Italian case study, one from the interbellum (e.g., the March to Rome), and one from a post-1945 (‘post-fascist’) period. By doing so, I will advance fascism scholarship by comparatively analyzing the US with Italy and examining the largely neglected role of carnivalesque humor within fascist movements.

Sointu Cantell - scholarshipholder for preparing a PhD research

Reputation, risk, and reciprocity: this project proposal examines how European institutions navigated contested mercantile patronage across Italy and the Low Countries between 1450 and 1600. This period witnessed the flourishing of private patronage operating in tension with institutional authority, as contemporaries increasingly recognized concepts of futurity and contingency. Where existing patronage research often focuses on donors and artists, this project centers institutional recipients as strategic actors. My central question asks: What strategies did early modern European receiving institutions develop for navigating contested mercantile patronage, and what factors determined which strategies were deployed? Through comparative archival research, material analysis and economic theory, my research defines and examines three recurring institutional approaches to contested patronage: ex ante refusal, conditional acceptance, and retrospective sanction. In doing so, this project aims to recover institutional decision-making processes around patronage and memory while providing historical precedents to buttress contemporary discussions of controversial cultural funding.

Ella Campbell - Winner Ted Meijer Prize 2025

The aristocratic taste for classical antiquity found a new outlet in the eighteenth century in the form of porcelain figurines, which were produced in manufactories across Europe to decorate the drawing rooms and dining tables of the elite. My research at the KNIR focuses on how the primary porcelain factories in Italy - specifically Tuscany, Venice and Naples - catered to this market, with a view to understanding how their respective artistic and archaeological histories shaped their treatment of classical themes. More broadly, I am interested in how the shift from large-scale statuary into this intimate, decorative medium altered or reflected the status of antiquity in Italy and abroad, and the status of those collecting it.

Babs van Eijk - scholarshipholder for (R)MA research

From gods connected to woods to Lares in the Roman home and deities in temples: ancient religions were often closely connected to elements in the environment, giving them a location-bound character. The Roman Empire, however, stimulated migration for shorter as well as longer periods of time. How did people practice their religion in daily life, when moving away from these places? My research focuses on religion on the move in the Roman imperial period. This thesis will shed new light on cultural interaction by using religious theories on place and space. Through the lens of small, portable religious objects, this topic will be explored in order to get a deeper understanding of religion in daily life.

Lisanne Ledegang - scholarshipholder for (R)MA research

Coping with loss is a universal struggle, and language can play a big part in the grieving process. Metaphors like ‘they are in a better place now’ are commonplace in modern English and can help make sense of the death of a loved one. My research focuses on the stylistic elements of Greek funerary poems in Rome for children and examines how these poetic features contribute to the grieving process of bereaved parents. For this research I will be studying ancient poems through the lens of modern theories on grief. The stylistic elements in these inscriptions can offer consolation to bereaved parents by framing death as something that does not have a definitive ending.

Veronica Vatne - scholarshipholder for (R)MA research

For my thesis, I'm looking at the ideological origins of the terror group Lehi. I'll be researching the reception of Italian fascism among the Jewish far-right in Mandatory Palestine between 1938, the year racial laws were introduced in Italy, to 1940, when the terror group Lehi was formed. Lehi split from the paramilitary group Etzel. One of the main reasons for the split was Lehi's insistence on a future collaboration with Italy to free Mandatory Palestine from British control. By reading personal documents and articles written by individuals who would later make up Lehi's central leadership, I aim to better understand which aspects of Italian Fascism the group sought to emulate and which aspects to discard or adapt.

Maxine van Veelen - scholarshipholder for (R)MA research

My research is focused on the religious comedies of Hrotsvitha, a tenth-century canoness in the convent of Gandersheim. In her plays – the first known classicizing comedies in hundreds of years, borrowing heavily from Roman playwright Terence – Hrotsvitha marries comedy with hagiography, paganism with christianity, and classical culture with medieval Germany. Anomalously, the plays exist outside of a larger theatrical tradition, and it is disputed to what extent they were actually performed.

I analyze how stylistic strategies such as irony and pastiche help create a dissimulative effect, potentially in addition to literal role-play. I hope to contribute to a broader understanding of the wide-ranging forms medieval performance takes and of its potential to shape individual and communal identity.

Renske de Vries - scholarshipholder for (R)MA research

My MA thesis examines how the Dutch painter Abraham Teerlink (1776–1857), born in Dordrecht, came to regard Rome as his true home after arriving there in 1808 as élève-pensionnaire of king Louis Napoleon. Focusing on the last decades of his life, spent entirely in Italy, I will combine biographical research with formal and iconographic analysis to reconstruct his later career and oeuvre. In doing so, my research investigates the factors that contributed to Teerlink’s permanent settlement in Rome, and considers how the Roman climate, landscapes and artistic traditions influenced his development as a painter. Special attention is given to changes in subject matter and to his collaboration with his wife, the Italian painter Anna Muschi, a yet underexplored aspect in the literature.

Scholarshipholders 2025-2026, Winter cohort

Here are the scholarshipholders of 2025-2026, winter cohort listed.

César Reigosa Soler - scholarshipholder for postdoctoral research

My project investigates Thomas Aquinas’s account of ‘sins of speech’ in the Summa Theologiae (II–II, qq.72–76) with an eye to contemporary speech act theory and recent work on hate speech. At the heart of the project lies the question of how can words effect change in the world. Such changes include producing harm, eliciting emotions and establishing rules that govern individuals. By looking into classical rhetorical theory, twentieth-century speech act theory (J. L. Austin and John Searle), and Rae Langton’s account of hate speech, the project aims to assess the historical and philosophical significance of Aquinas’s views on the performativity and morality of language.

Anna Meens - scholarshipholder for preparing a postdoctoral project

I am an archaeologist who is at KNIR to prepare a postdoctoral project that will use the architectural remains of farmsteads to gain insights in the identity and organization of farmers who lived and worked in Greek areas. I am developing a digital comparative approach highlighting the adaptability of farming communities in different countrysides and tracing chronological developments and regional trajectories in ancient farming practices. After focusing on farmstead sites in Greece for my PhD at the University of Amsterdam, it was time to familiarize myself with farmsteads documented in Magna Graecia. My stay at KNIR is the ideal starting point to get acquainted with this archaeological evidence in the many research libraries in Rome.

Ren Ewart - scholarshipholder for PhD research

My thesis project critically examines histories and practices of needlework repair to understand the ethical and political significance of mending across museum and cultural contexts. The project is divided into three distinct yet overlapping parts, addressing needlework repair as (1) a site of cultural heritage that crosses the tangible and the intangible; (2) an embodied conservation practice; and (3) a space of experimental and participatory pedagogy. Through archival and ethnographic research, the project aims to centre histories and processes of maintenance and care-work that remain hidden or neglected in production-oriented approaches to renewal. Drawing together artistic research, critical heritage and conservation ethnography, the project considers the different ways in which specific mending practices intersect with broader networks of repair to sustain objects, institutions, and social relations. Most prominently, it asks how can needlework mending re-frame understandings of repair, care, and maintenance within and beyond the museum?

Julia Kok - scholarshipholder for preparing a PhD research

My research is focused on women in confraternities for northerners in sixteenth-century Italy. While confraternities are generally known to have been societies for the male lay, scholars are starting to have more attention for the role of women. As the associations played a central role in late medieval and premodern society, this forms a relevant contribution to gender history. However, much is still to be explored. My research in Rome, then, is centred around the question: how did women and gender relations play a role in confraternities for northerners in sixteenth-century Rome? This research will be the foundation for a PhD proposal, in which I will present my research on both Florence and Rome, and propose a more in-depth study of the meaning of gender in confraternity life.

Iris Verbiesen - scholarshipholder for preparing a PhD research

As part of the Tappino Area Archaeological Project (TAAP), run by the KNIR and CeDISA Jelsi in Molise, my research aims to better understand the functions of Roman villas in the southern Apennines. Contrary to the coastal zones in Latium, Etruria, and Campania, this remote, mountainous zone has been largely overlooked: only a few villas have been excavated, and others are known only from low-resolution data produced by large-scale surveys. Moreover, the rugged terrain has caused limited access to sites, obstructing further investigation. Nonetheless, what little information we have on mountain villas suggests rather humble and small-scale enterprises compared to their counterparts in the well-researched areas of Roman Italy. By combining historical models with landscape archaeology, I will analyse how villa systems worked in mountain economies and communities. To this end, I will use detailed archaeological data from newly discovered sites, which will be retrieved by several new methods that are suitable for this fragmented landscape and do not require excavation. This entails field survey and remote sensing, the latter including drone photography and georesistivity, among others. During my stay at the KNIR, I will focus on my theoretical framework, and prepare exploratory fieldwork that will take place on selected sites during the KNIR remote sensing practicum in Molise later this Spring.

Anouk de Bruin - scholarshipholder for (R)MA research

The hearth served as a crucial element for human survival in the past: it provided a means of preparing food, maintaining warmth, and illuminating darkness. In Roman religion, the hearth is often represented by Vesta, whose temple on the Forum housed the sacred hearth of the empire. Interestingly, images and references to Vesta are lacking in the more practical context of hearths. During my time at KNIR, I am researching this particular aspect of the hearth cult of the Roman Empire: the religion of kitchens. Based on archaeological data, literary sources and cultural anthropological approaches, I will examine hearth-related rituals and the domestic deities of early Imperial Italy and will attempt to reconstruct the daily functions and the roles of the kitchen and those working in it.

Nina Manola Čoholić - scholarshipholder for (R)MA research

My research explores printers’ devices in late 16th-century Venice, one of the most important centres of book production in early modern Europe. Printers’ devices, small visual marks placed on title pages or in colophons, were traditionally understood as practical signs of identification and proof of quality within the book market. For this reason, scholarship has tended to treat them primarily as commercial and institutional markers, often giving limited attention to the interpretative possibilities they offer.
My project asks whether printers’ devices could function not only as marks of commerce but also as discreet visual statements through which printers articulated position, affiliation, or belief.