Academic biography
Latest book:
The Everyday Nationalism of Workers: A Social History of Modern Belgium (Stanford University Press, 2019).
Reviewed in: American Historical Review, English Historical Review, Historische Zeitschrift, Journal of Social History, Journal of Modern History, Histoire sociale/Social history, European Review of History: Revue européenne d'histoire, Trashumante. Revista Americana de Historia Social, Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism, Labor. Studies in working-class history, Moving the Social: Journal of Social History and the History of Social Movements, H-nationalism, Political Science Quarterly, Survival: Global Politics and Strategy, Tijdschrift voor sociale en economische geschiedenis, Journal of Belgian History, Contemporanea, Wetenschappelijke Tijdingen.
Praise for the book:
- a "superb book" (John Breuilly, LSE)
- a "brilliant study" (Stefan Berger in Moving the Social: Journal of Social History and the History of Social Movements)
- "well-written, innovative, and engaging" (Matthew G. Stanard in Journal of Social History)
- "crackle[s] with insight and revealing detail" (Jakub Benes on H-nationalism)
- "a major contribution to the study of nationalism" (Carl Strikwerda in American Historical Review)
- "his important new study" (Martyn Conway in English Historical Review)
- "brilliant social history" (Erik Jones in Survival: Global Politics and Strategy)
- het "nieuwe meesterlijke boek van Maarten Van Ginderachter" (Lode Wils in Wetenschappelijke Tijdingen)
- "une synthèse claire et très argumentée reposant sur une impressionnante recherche", "un regard neuf et fort original sur une question trop peu abordée par les historiens" (Serge Jaumain in: Histoire sociale/Social history)
I hold a double Ma. in Germanic languages and history and a PhD in history from Ghent University. At the moment I am professor ('hoogleraar') at the Department of History at Antwerp University, where I teach world history and contemporary history. The former chair of Power in History - the Centre for political history, I have served for ten years as Program (vice-)Director of graduate and undergraduate studies of the History Department between 2013 and 2022.
My research is mainly focused on the history of nations and nationalism in Belgium and Europe. I have written and co-edited several books and themed journal issues on the subject. I have also contributed to leading international journals such as Nations and nationalism, Social history, the International review of social history, the History workshop journal and National Identities.
I have held visiting positions at Harvard University (as a Fulbright scholar), at the University of California at Berkeley (Peter Paul Rubens Chair for the History and Culture of the Low Countries) and at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I was the lead investigator in the FWO funded project Nations and nationalism from the margins.
Practical information
prof. dr. Maarten Van Ginderachter
Centre for political history
Department of History
Antwerp University
Sint-Jacobsmarkt 13 (room S.SJ.208)
2000 Antwerpen
Belgium
T: + 32 (0) 3 265 43 08
- professor ('hoogleraar') at the Department of History at Antwerp University
- programme director of Undergraduate and Graduate Studies at the Department of History / voorzitter van de Onderwijscommissie Geschiedenis
- master in Germanic languages and history (Ghent University)
- PhD in history with the doctoral dissertation Vaderland in de Belgische Werkliedenpartij (1885-1914). Sociaal-democratie en nationale identiteit from below. Een casusstudie van Gent, Brussel en de Borinage [Fatherland in the Belgian Workers' Party. Social-democracy and national identity from below. A case study of Ghent, Brussels and the Borinage] (Ghent University), 2005)
- member of the editorial board of Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Nieuwste Geschiedenis/Revue belge d'Histoire Contemporaine
- member of the editorial board of Brood en Rozen
- Fulbright scholar
- Visiting fellow at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University, Spring 2008
- Peter Paul Rubens Chair for the History and Culture of the Low Countries at UC Berkeley, Spring 2012
- Visiting scholar at the Department of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Fall 2017
Select publications
Books / edited volumes / special issues
- The Everyday Nationalism of Workers: A Social History of Modern Belgium (Stanford University Press, July 2019)
- Emotions and everyday nationalism in modern European history (with Xosé M. Núñez Seixas and Andreas Stynen, Routledge, 2020).
- Everyday nationalism’s evidence problem (themed section of Nations and Nationalism, vol. 24, issue 3, 2018, co-edited with Jon Fox),
- National indifference and the history of nationalism in modern Europe(Routledge, 2019, co-edited with Jon Fox),
- Questioning the Wilsonian Moment. The Role of Ethnicity and Nationalism in the Dissolution of European Empires from the Belle Époque through the First World War, special dossier in: European Review of History / Revue européenne d’histoire (co-edited with Eric Storm, 2019),
- Nationhood from below. Europe in the long nineteenth century (co-edited with Marnix Beyen, Palgrave-Macmillan, 2012),
- Het land dat nooit was. Een tegenfeitelijke geschiedenis van België, Antwerpen, De Bezige Bij, 2014, samengesteld met Koen Aerts en Antoon Vrints.
- Het rode vaderland. De vergeten geschiedenis van de communautaire spanningen in het Belgische socialisme voor WOI (Lannoo, 2005).
- Le chant du coq. Nation et nationalisme en Wallonie depuis 1880 (Jan Dhondt Cahiers nr. 3), Gent, Academia Press, 2005.
Articles (full text available through link)
- Wereldgeschiedenis van Nederland en Vlaanderen. Over de (on)mogelijkheid van een open, globale en niet-nationalistische geschiedenis voor een breed publiek, in: Tijdschrift voor geschiedenis, vol. 133, nr. 1, 2020, pp. 89-103.
- How to gauge banal nationalism and national indifference in the past: proletarian tweets in Belgium’s belle époque, in: Nations and Nationalism, vol 24, Issue 3, 2018.
- Edward Joris. Caught between continents and ideologies?, in: Alloul, H; Eldem, E.; De Smaele, H., To Kill a Sultan: A Transnational History of the Attempt on Abdülhamid II (1905), London / New York, Palgrave-Macmillan, 2017, pp. 67-98.
- Nationale onverschilligheid, de Habsburgmonarchie en België. Een review van recente literatuur, in: Wetenschappelijke Tijdingen, vol. 74, nr. 4, 2015, pp. 197-216.
- With Minte Kamphuis, The transnational dimensions of the early socialist pillars in Belgium and the Netherlands, c. 1885-1914. An exploratory essay, in: Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Filologie en Geschiedenis/Revue Belge de Philologie et Histoire, 90, 4, 2012, pp. 113-129.
- Nationalist vs. regionalist? The Flemish and Walloon movements in belle époque Belgium, in: AUGUSTEIJN, Joost and STORM, Eric (eds.), Region and State in Nineteenth-Century Europe: Nation-Building, Regional Identities and Separatism, Basingstoke, Palgrave-Macmillan, 2012, pp. 209-226.
- With Joep Leerssen, Denied ethnicism: On the Walloon Movement in Belgium, in: Nations and nationalism. Journal of the Association for the study of Ethnicity and Nationalism, vol. 18, Issue 2, 2012, pp. 230-246.
- Nationhood from below. A historiographic essay on Great Britain, France and Germany in the long nineteenth century, in: VAN GINDERACHTER, Maarten and BEYEN, Marnix (eds.), Nationhood from below. Europe in the long nineteenth century, Basingstoke, Palgrave-Macmillan, 2012, pp. 120-136.
- An urban civilization. The case of municipal autonomy in Belgian history 1830-1914, in: WHYTE, William and ZIMMER, Oliver, Nationalism and the reshaping of urban communities in Europe, 1848 – 1914', Basingstoke, Palgrave -Macmillan, 2011, pp. 110-130.
- With Bart De Sutter, Working class voices from the late nineteenth century. 'Propaganda pence' in a socialist paper in Ghent, in: History Workshop Journal, vol. 69, nr. 1, 2010, pp. 133-145.
- Het vaderland vanuit kikkerperspectief. Recent Belgisch en Nederlands onderzoek naar natievorming tijdens de lange negentiende eeuw, in: Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis, vol. 122, nr. 4, 2009, pp. 522-537.
- Contesting national symbols. Belgian belle époque socialism between rejection and appropriation, in: Social history, vol. 34, no. 1, 2009, pp. 55-73.
- On the appropriation of national identity. Studying lieux de mémoire from below, in: MARGUE, Michel KMEC, Sonja, MAJERUS, Benoît et PÉPORTÉ, Pit, Dépasser le cadre national des Lieux de mémoire. Innovations méthodologiques, approches comparatives, lectures transnationales, Bern, Peter Lang, 2009, pp. 49-60.
- Trou de mémoire. De droom van Groot-Nederland, in: TE VELDE, Henk en TOLLEBEEK, Jo (eds.), Het geheugen van de Lage Landen, Rekkem, Stichting Ons Erfdeel, 2009, pp. 60-67.
- Arm Vlaanderen. Het verwaarloosde platteland, het lamlendige volk, in: TOLLEBEEK Jo, BUELENS, Geert, DENECKERE, Gita, DE SCHAEPDRIJVER, Sophie en KESTELOOT, Chantal, België, een parcours van herinnering. Dl. 2 Plaatsen van tweedracht, crisis en nostalgie, Amsterdam, Bert Bakker, 2008, pp. 182-193.
- Social-democracy and national identity. The ethnic rift in the Belgian Workers’ Party (1885-1914), in: International Review of social history, vol. 52, issue 2, 2007, pp. 215-240.
- Public transcripts of royalism. Pauper letters to the Belgian royal family (1880-1940), in: DENECKERE, Gita and DEPLOIGE, Jeroen (eds.), Mystifying the monarch. Studies on discourse, power and history, Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press, 2006, pp. 223-234.
- Gender, the extreme right and Flemish nationalist women’s organisations in interwar Belgium, in: Nations and nationalism. Journal of the Association for the study of Ethnicity and Nationalism, vol. 11, Issue 2, 2005, pp. 265-284.
- L’introuvable opposition entre le régionalisme citoyen wallon et le nationalisme ethnique flamand. À propos de l’Encyclopédie du mouvement wallon, in: Bijdragen tot de eigentijdse geschiedenis/Cahiers d’histoire du temps présent, nr. 13/14, 2004, pp. 67-96.