Is fiction a mirror of society? Or do stories produce new realities? This project examines how Dutch novels from the late 19th century to the present imagined and perhaps even fostered the emancipation of women in society. It combines two aspects that are often studied in isolation: (1) literary descriptions of gender across time and (2) the changing position of women in modern Dutch society. Using computer-driven text-analyses of large-scale corpora, this project aims to reveal the extent to which fiction precedes or follows shifts in society.

This project explores how Irish settler women in North America in the nineteenth and early-twentieth century represent Indigenous peoples, the natural environment and the landscape of the frontier in their writings, and compares these to contemporary discourse patterns in the broader North American and British newspapers. Considering the underexplored and complex position of Irish settler women will result in a better understanding of the structure of settler colonialism in general, as well as insight into how the underexplored factors of gender, diaspora and religion interact with settler colonialism and its ongoing impact on Indigenous peoples and the natural environment.

Ever since Plato, thinkers have asked what fiction does in society. Does reading fiction make people more empathic, or help them work through trauma? Does fiction contribute to citizenship and community-building? Although philosophers and literary theorists have long debated these questions, there are few historical sources to test their hypotheses. New methods are therefore needed to make the sources we do have, such as library lending records or catalogues of private libraries, speak to us. In this project, a team of cultural historians will develop innovative computational methods to understand relations between fiction and citizenship in eighteenth-century, revolutionary Europe.

Europe’s recent crises have sparked Euro-scepticism and anti-immigration sentiments. Heritages of Hunger aimed to overcome divisions by reassessing education about famines (1845-1947) and developing resources to strengthen trans-European heritage consciousness. The project, led by Radboud University, Wageningen University & Research and NIOD, investigated famine legacies in textbooks, museums, and commemorations, highlighting resilience and transnational solidarity. It created educational modules, a digital exhibition, and a database of famine legacies. Surveys and interviews with educators informed the development of resources to foster historical empathy and transnational identities. The project culminated in policy recommendations and tested educational materials.