Skip to main content
Image of Dr Martine Julia van Ittersum

Dr Martine Julia van Ittersum

Contact Details

m.j.vanittersum@dundee.ac.uk

Tel: +44 (0) 1382 384522

Profile and Research Interests

I am teaching and researching at Harvard University in the academic year 2011/2012.  I organised a field trip to 'Plimoth Plantation and Mayflower II' for Harvard undergraduates on Saturday, 8 October 2011.  The trip was a big success. Pictures and little write-up of our adventures can be found here:

http://history.fas.harvard.edu/news/index.php

As Erasmus Lecturer on the History and Civilization of The Netherlands and Flanders, I will give a public lecture on Thursday, 10 November, examining the life and work of the Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius (1583-1645).  The announcement of the public lecture can be found here:

Public Lecture on Hugo Grotius  

Born and raised in The Netherlands, I read my first degree in history at the University of Amsterdam. I went to the US in 1992 to study for my doctorate at Harvard University with Professor Simon Schama.

libertyfund My doctoral dissertation examined the natural rights and natural law theories of the Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius (1583-1645), and teased out its profound implications for the development of Western imperialism and colonialism, particularly the trading empire of the Dutch East India Company. My monograph, based on this dissertation, was recently issued by Brill Publishers in Leiden in 2006.That same year, the Liberty Fund reissued the English translation of De Jure Praedae (The Commentary on the Law of Prize and Booty) --Grotius' first major work on rights and contract theories. I wrote an introduction to put De Jure Praedae in its historical context and added two appendices containing original documents in English translation, several of which had only recently been discovered in the Grotius Papers at the Dutch National Archives.

Grotius' working method and the dispersal of his papers over time are my current research interests. Which books and papers were at Grotius' disposal and when? How did he use them? Who had access to his papers after his death? To what purpose were they rearranged by subsequent owners? All too often intellectual historians focus exclusively on an important published text, without considering any kind of archival materials. Yet much can be learned from examining the working papers of early modern scholars. The (re)arrangements(s) of their papers, by the author himself and by subsequent owners, are a good indicator of how intellectual priorities changed over time. Historians of political thought need to analyze the paper trail and 'peel off' the layers of meaning contained within it in order to a) critically interrogate received tradition (i.e. the secondary literature), and b) arrive at a truly new understanding of an author's life and work. This is what I attempt to do in my new research project. I have an advance contract with Brill Publishers in Leiden for a monograph of 80,000 to 100,000 words.

Teaching Interests

My teaching focuses on European history prior to 1800, particularly Great Britain and the Low Countries.

Undergraduate Modules:
Holland in the Age of Rembrandt
Early Modern Europe 1400-1700
Empire in the East
Holland on the Hudson? The Dutch in the Atlantic World, 1600-1800
History of the Book, 1500-1800

Research

Publications

grotius Books

  • Hugo Grotius, Commentary on the Law of Prize and Booty, trans. Gwladys L. Williams, ed. Martine Julia van Ittersum, Natural Law and Enlightenment Classics (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2006) go to the Liberty Fund to buy
  • Profit and Principle: Hugo Grotius, Natural Rights Theories and the Rise of Dutch Power in the East Indies, 1595-1615, Brill Intellectual History Series (Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 2006) Go to Brill to buy

Articles

  • The Long Goodbye: Hugo Grotius and the Justification of Dutch Expansion Overseas (1604-1645), History of European Ideas (2010), 386-411
  • 'The Wise Man is never merely a Private Citizen: The Roman Stoa in Hugo Grotius' De Jure Praedae (1604-1608)', History of European Ideas 36 (2010) pp. 1-18 Go to Elzevier to buy
  • 'Dating the Manuscript of De Jure Praedae (1604-1608): What Watermarks, Foliation and Quire Divisions Can Tell Us About Hugo Grotius' Development as a Natural Rights and Natural Law Theorist', History of European Ideas 35 (2009) pp. 125-193, Go to Elzevier to buy
  • 'Mare Liberum in the West Indies? Hugo Grotius and the Case of the Swimming Lion, a Dutch Pirate in the Caribbean at the Turn of the Seventeenth Century', Itinerario 31/3 (2007) pp. 59-94.
  • 'Mare Liberum versus The Propriety of the Seas? The Debate between Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) and William Welwood (1552-1624) and Its Impact on Anglo-Scotto-Dutch Fishery Disputes in the Second Decade of the Seventeenth Century', Edinburgh Law Review 10 (2) (May 2006).
  • "Preparing Mare Liberum for the Press: Hugo Grotius' Rewriting of Chapter 12 of De Jure Praedae in November-December 1608," Grotiana 26-28 (2005-2007) Go to Brill to buy
  • 'Hugo Grotius in Context: Van Heemskerck's Capture of the Santa Catarina and Its Justification in De Jure Praedae (1604-1606)', Asian Journal of Social Science, 31 (2003).
  • ''Three Moneths Observations of the Low Countreys, especially Holland'': Owen Felltham and Anglo-Dutch Relations in the Seventeenth Century', LIAS: Sources and Documents Relating to the Early Modern History of Ideas, 27 (2000).
  • ----, Texts, edited with the collaboration of C. D. van Strien, LIAS, 27 (2000).

Back to Top

Research Funding

  • Harvard University, Erasmus Lectureship, Autumn 2011
  • Carnegie Trust, Scotland, Research Grant, November 2010
  • Leverhulme Research Fellowship (nine months, starting 1 September 2009)
  • Research Grants in support of my Visiting Scholarship at Harvard University, Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland and Netherlands America Foundation, New York City (December 2008)
  • British Academy Small Research Grant - December 2007
  • British Academy Overseas Conference Grant - August 2007
  • Summer Research Grant, Scaliger Institute, University of Leiden - June- July 2007
  • Summer Research Grant, Carnegie Trust, Scotland - June 2006
  • British Academy Overseas Conference Grant - December 2005
  • Summer Research Grant, Carnegie Trust, Scotland - June 2005
  • Resident Fellow at the Netherlands Institute of Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences, The Netherlands - Feb.-Jun. 2005
  • Copy-editing grant, Nederlands Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek - Dec. 2004
  • Summer Research Grant, Carnegie Trust, Scotland - June 2004

 

These research grants have generated over £40,000 in total for the University of Dundee.

Back to Top

External Recognition

  • Harvard History Department, Visiting Scholar, Spring 2012 Erasmus University of Rotterdam, Honorary Research Fellow, Sept. 2011 until present
  • Visiting Fellow, Huygens Institute in The Hague, a subsidiary of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences, Sept. 2009-June 2010.
  • Visiting Scholar, Harvard University, History Department, Feb.-May 2009
  • Resident Fellow at the Netherlands Institute of Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences, The Netherlands - Feb.-Jun. 2005

Suggested areas for postgraduate supervision

I am interested in the interaction of politics, political theory, culture, and society in the early modern period. The focus of my work until now has been the justification of economic interests in terms of natural law and natural rights theory. However, I encourage students to think about this material much more broadly.

Back to Top

Skip to top ↑
Edit