In the early modern period, elite collectors began amassing magnificent collections of both locally produced and imported objects. Few were as innovative as Amalia van Solms-Braunfels (1602-1675), Princess of Orange. Under Amalia and her husband, Stadtholder Frederik Hendrik (1584-1647), Prince of Orange, the United Provinces flourished as a cultural and global power. The strength and wealth of the country, and by association the House of Orange-Nassau, is embedded in Amalia's cabinets or closets, private spaces where she carefully curated assemblages of locally produced and imported decorative and fine artworks. Under the weight of a historiographic tradition that privileges male rulers, much of the scholarship produced on the princely couple's cultural activities marks Frederik Hendrik or Constantijn Huygens as the deciding factor without discussion or justification. While scholarly interest in Amalia's role as an independent patron and collector has grown over the last two decades, the focus to date on individual, extant objects, while informative, does not provide a comprehensive understanding of Amalia's interests and motivations as a patron and collector-- how she acquired and employed objects, both individually and in decorative ensembles, to construct her various identities. My dissertation focuses on Amalia's cabinets found in the Stadtholder's Quarters (Stadhouderlijk Kwartier) and the Oude Hof (‘Old Court') at Noordeinde, and the objects displayed within. Uniting textual and visual evidence in the form of inventories, correspondence, and objects with novel digital tools, it first applies social network analysis to visualize Amalia's social, global network that provided her with access to other impressive collections and artists, as well as assisted her with acquiring objects originating from outside of Europe. It interrogates how, once acquired, objects were employed by Amalia in ensembles within the most intimate spaces of her residences to construct her (open full item for complete abstract)

Using Simon Sinek's `Golden Circles' framework, this study begins by identifying what a hub for creative engagement is—a space that provides opportunities for visitors to foster creativity through participatory engagement. This study then explores how large regional art museums implement hubs for creative engagement. Using the Wonderkamers in the Gemeentemuseum in the Netherlands and the Center for Creativity in the Columbus Museum of Art in the United States as case studies, this study relies on a mixed-methods approach of synthesizing publicly available sources, curator interviews, and participant observations to understand how these spaces impact visitor creativity and visitor engagement. Participant observations reveal that visitors of all ages are attracted to hubs for creative engagement, that visitors are more likely to choose participatory over passive engagement when given the option, and—per Stuart Brown's (2010) typology of play—that social, creative, and object play occur most frequently when they participate. By comparing these findings to the curators' intentions for these spaces, this study also reveals how effectively these hubs for creative engagement meet their intended goals. Finally, this study finds that creativity and innovation are understood in largely the same way in both the United States and the Netherlands, making hubs for creative engagement an asset for art museums in more than one region of the world. Consequently, this study provides a framework for how to implement a hub for creative engagement that can be utilized by any applicable art museum.

Immigration is widely acknowledged to be a major social issue in Western European countries. In this context, the Netherlands was one of the few countries to commit itself to the ideal of a ‘multicultural state'. While this policy ideal was intended to maintain the coherence of the increasingly multi-ethnic state, alleviate growing fear and suspicion of immigrants among sections of Dutch society, and overcome growing ethnic segregation in major cities, its implementation has produced a number of contradictions, however. There has been both a massive political shift in favor of anti-immigrant parties, and increases in segregation in the big cities. In this context the Nethelands has recently reconsidered its multicultural programs. While assimilation is gaining ground as the dominant discourse of immigrant integration in a number of liberal states, the Netherlands has experienced the most profound change away from multiculturalism. Dutch cities therefore could be considered laboratories for the analysis of changes in the way state actors and residents across the world are negotiating immigrant incorporation. This dissertation explores how policies aimed at immigrant integration developed, were implemented and how they were negotiated when implemented in specific multi-ethnic neighborhoods and its effects for neighborhoods, cities and the nation. Using a mixed-methods approach – with a qualitative focus – this research contributes to our understanding of the multicultural city. Central to the research is the governmentality approach, providing a framework through which to analyze the uneven geographies of policy implementation. Several findings from my research stand out. First, an analysis of state policy documents shows that integration is demanded only of ‘ethnic minorities' who are perceived to be a threat for social stability of the nation-state. Secondly, local political and economic context shapes the way negotiation strategies are being developed. In Rotterd (open full item for complete abstract)

This dissertation explores the origins and creation of the allied army that fought in the Spanish Netherlands during the Nine Years' War. In 1689, the Dutch Republic, England, Habsburg Austria, Spain, Brandenburg-Prussia, and later Savoy, along with a number of lesser German states united to combat the ambitions of French king Louis XIV. These states formed coalition armies to fight in the various theaters of war surrounding the kingdom. Arguably the most important of these was the army in the Spanish Netherlands, often referred to by contemporaries as the "Confederate Army." Due to the Spanish Netherlands' strategic importance to both the Dutch Republic and France, the so-called "Cockpit of Europe" attracted immense armies on both sides. France assembled the largest army until the Napoleonic Wars during the Nine Years' War; and the largest of its field armies was deployed in the Low Countries Theater. For the allies, the burden of the war effort in the Spanish Netherlands fell to England and the Dutch Republic, the wealthiest and militarily strongest of the coalition's members. The combination of geography, politics, and strategy merged resulting in the greatest of the allies' armies, the army the army of Stadhouder-Koning William III. This dissertation explores how diplomatic, political, and military factors intersected to create the first modern coalition army. Commanded by William III, the Confederate Army was the largest, best equipped and arguably best led and organized of the coalition forces arrayed against France. The composition of this army was the result of a combination of factors. The geographic location of the coalition partners, and the theater of war; the economic power of the army's principal contributors; and the unity of command William III brought to the Confederate Army; all of these factors contributed to that organization's character. Together, they forged a unique army in the history of European warfare in the early modern period, and a fore (open full item for complete abstract)

Between 1863 and 1940, Dutch colonial administrators oversaw the transformation of Sumatra's east coast from subsistence cultivation to large-scale rubber production, supplying half the world's rubber by 1940. Through the course of this transformation, European planters experimented with a variety of cultivars in an attempt to extract greater profits and neutralize native resistance. Using the analytical tools of political and cultural ecology, this paper looks at the history of agrarian change in East Sumatra during the Dutch colonial period. Traditional agricultural histories and more modern research tend to describe, explain, and critique agrarian change from within established socio-economic narratives. Such research sees issues of land tenure, access, racism, resource exploitation, and neoliberalism as catalysts (or culprits) in agrarian change. This paper seeks to emphasize the significant role cultivar ecology plays in the transformation of socio-agricultural space. In so doing, it explores how interested parties have used cultivar selection as a form of social control, and demonstrates the need to view agrarian change as a long-term succession of commodities, rather than a single transformative moment.