Els Stronks, Utrecht University
Young Agents. Digitally Charting the Role of the Young Author on the Dutch Republic’s Book Market
In my lecture, I will investigate the role of young authors on the upcoming and flourishing book market of the Dutch Republic (1550-1800), focusing in particular on their ‘agency’. By investigating the specific contribution of young authors to this market and by discriminating between roles of young adults and adults, combining quantitative digital experiments and qualitative textual analyses, I seek to tease out the role of young talents in the consumption and production of Dutch books in the Dutch Golden Age.
Bio
Els Stronks is Professor of Early Modern Dutch Literature and Culture at Utrecht University. She has recently published a number of articles and lectures on the youthful audiences of the Dutch song books that reflect the knowledge, skills and self-awareness of the young singers. Digital infrastructures and methods have had her interest for a number of years. She has led the Emblem Project Utrecht (EPU) and the Pia Desideria Project, which aimed to digitize and analyze Dutch love emblem books, religious as well as secular, published between 1601 and 1724. She was a member of the Dutch Songs On Line project and is currently board member of the research project Golden Agents that aims to unravel the dynamics of the creative outburst of the Dutch Golden Age by using computer agents and datasets of the book, painting, music, silverware, and ceramics production and consumption.