Dr. H.J. (Herman) Paul

Position:
  • Lecturer
Expertise:
  • Philosophy of history
  • Historiography
  • Religious history


Telephone number: +31 (0)71 527 2757
E-Mail: h.j.paul@hum.leidenuniv.nl
Faculty / Department: Faculteit der Geesteswetenschappen, Institute for History, Algemene Geschiedenis
Office Address: Johan Huizingagebouw
Doelensteeg 16
2311 VL Leiden
Room number 2.02b

Hours

On appointment.

Fields of interest

  • Historical theory
  • Historiography
  • Intellectual history
  • Religious history

Curriculum vitae

Herman Paul (1978) is Assistant Professor of Historical Theory at Leiden University. After receiving his Ph.D. in history (with the highest possible distinction) from the University of Groningen in 2006, he spent a year in Princeton as a member-in-residence at the Center of Theological Inquiry. In addition to visiting fellowships at the Institute of European History Mainz and the Catholic University of Leuven, he held a five-year research position at the University of Groningen. Since 2007, he has been affiliated with the Leiden History Department, where he teaches courses in historiography and historical theory. He also serves as editor of Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis and Leidschrift .

Research projects

His current research interest revolves around “scholarly selfhood,” that is, the character features, personality traits, and moral or intellectual virtues that were (and are) supposed to contribute to good scholarly performance. He examines how such ideals of scholarly selfhood varied across time and cultures and how they informed educational practices in various disciplinary settings. Focusing on the humanities in the decades around 1900, he tries to show how ideals of intellectual virtue were shared and traded across disciplinary boundaries, accepted or disputed on political and religious grounds, and negotiated in an ongoing interplay between the institutions that shaped the scholar’s intellectual environment (universities, journals, learned societies, voluntary associations, etc.).

In a more systematic mode, he is interested in how the notion of intellectually virtuous behavior may help historians avoid undue reliance on “methods” and challenge the pervasive dichotomy between “objectivism” and “relativism” in historical theory (see his programmatic essay, “Performing History: How Historical Scholarship is Shaped by Epistemic Virtues,” History and Theory 50 (2011), 1-19).

Past projects include a deep dive into late twentieth-century philosophy of history, which resulted in a book entitled Hayden White: The Historical Imagination (Polity Press, 2011), and several inquiries into the less-known territory of early twentieth-century historical theory. These resulted in a (still forthcoming) study on historicism – a key term in many reflections on the use and abuse of history – and several co-edited volumes on religious memory. What united these projects was the rather existential question posed by the professionalization of twentieth-century historical scholarship: whether or how can historical studies contribute to meaning orientation in the present?

Major publications

  • Hayden White: The Historical Imagination ( Cambridge: Polity Press, 2011).


  • Het vaderlandse verleden: Robert Fruin en de Nederlandse geschiedenis, ed. Herman Paul and Henk te Velde (Amsterdam: Bert Bakker, 2010).


  • Sober, Strict, and Scriptural: Collective Memories of John Calvin, 1800-2000, ed. Johan de Niet, Herman Paul, and Bart Wallet (Leiden: Brill, 2009).


  • Het gereformeerde geheugen: protestantse herinneringsculturen in Nederland, 1850-2000, ed. George Harinck, Herman Paul, and Bart Wallet (Amsterdam: Bert Bakker, 2009).


  • De Reformatie-herdenking van 1917: historische beeldvorming en religieuze identiteitspolitiek in Nederland, ed. Herman Paul, Bart Wallet, and George Harinck (Zoetermeer: Meinema, 2004).


Institute for History
Last Modified: 14-06-2011