dr. K.E. (Karen) Hollewand

Karen Hollewand is an Assistant Professor in Cultural Heritage, Identity and Early Modern History at the University of Groningen. She concentrates on the history of sexuality, science, gender and the body in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

After obtaining a BA and RMA in History from the University of Utrecht, she studied the banishment of the radical humanist Hadriaan Beverland (1650-1716) during a DPhil at the University of Oxford (2012-2016). Her thesis (The Banishment of Beverland. Sex, Sin, and Scholarship in the Seventeenth-Century Dutch Republic ) en translation of Beverland's most infamous work (De Peccato Originali), in collaboration with Floris Verhaart, were published in 2019 and 2023. She worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher and Lecturer at the universities of Leiden, Utrecht and Groningen.

Her current research focuses on the (early modern) history of sexuality and the body, mostly in relation to science and knowledge but also connected to, for example, the medical collections of the University of Groningen (which contain obstetric instruments and human remains).

Click on one of the links below to learn more about her work:

• Gesprek op NPO Radio 1 over seksueel plezier, Het orgasme ontleed - Focus

• The woman's body in a man's world, with Rina Knoeff, article Faculty of Arts, University of Groningen

• Translation of Beverland's De Peccato Originali, with Floris Verhaart, Brill

• Two podcasts on Women and Health (law, history, medicine), Aletta Talks, Aletta Jacobs School of Public Health

• Een kleine cultuurgeschiedenis van menstruatie, NPO Radio 1 OVT 

• Seksualiteit en seksuele voorlichting in Nederland NPO Radio 1 VROEG!

• Article on sex and science in the Dutch Republic

• Artikel over de geschiedenis van de clitoris

• Artikel over de verbanning van Hadriaan Beverland