Research Pofile

Marleen Rensen studied Arts and Sciences at the University of Maastricht and took her PHD at the University of Amsterdam. Currently, she is a Senior Lecturer of Modern European Literature, teaching in the department of European Studies. She specializes in twentieth century literature and life writing, with a specific focus on France and Germany in 1900-1945.

Other fields of interest are: transnational life writing; the artist's biography; ideas of Europe and European identities; cultural relations between France and Germany; literary engagement; literature and eurofascism.

In her current research on French and German intellectuals (1870-1945) she studies the way in which artists' lives have been written to articulate European identities.

Research Projects

My main research projects are:

• Transnational Life Writing (edited volume + Member of Expert group ' Unhinging the National Framework' )
• Transnational Perspectives on Artists' Lives (edited volume)
• Life Writing and European Identities (special issue Journal)
• The Franco-German Axis, 1870-present
• European Encounters: intellectual cultural exchanges in the 20th and 21st centuries (research group ARTES)

Teaching

Currently, she is teaching BA and MA courses in European Studies (in Dutch and English) on subjects such as Franco-German relations, life writing and European identities, and development of teaching methods and materials about Europe for secondary schools. 

She is also the Programme Coordinator of the MA 'Identity and Integration' (European studies).

Articles (a selection)

• 'Time, Rhythm and Ritual: Imagined Communities in L'espoir (1937) and Les sept couleurs (1939), in: Imagining Communities (Amsterdam University Press, 2018) 
• 'Fascist Poetry for Europe. The Case of Robert Brasillach' in: Fascism beyond Borders (Berghanh 2017) https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/BauerkaemperFascism
• 'Restoring the Republic of Letters: Romain Rolland, Stefan Zweig and Transnational Community-Building in Europe 1914–34', in: (Re)Constructing Communities in Europe, 1918–68 (Routledge 2016) https://www.routledge.com/ReConstructing-Communities-in-Europe-1918-1968-Senses-of-Belonging/Couperus-Kaal/p/book/9781138692282
• 'Writing European Lives. Stefan Zweig as Biographer of Verhaeren, Rolland and Erasmus' (2015) European Journal of Life Writing

Edited volume:

European Encounters. Intellectual Exchange and the Rethinking of Europe 1914-1945; European Studies 32 - Edited Volume (2014) European Encounters

This volume comprises the proceedings of a Conference with same name held at the University of Amsterdam.                                                           

Together with Carlos Reijnen she has edited this volume, provided it with an introduction and contributed a chapter on the friendship of Romain Rolland and Stefan Zweig.

Academic Monograph

Lijden aan de tijd. Franse intellectuelen in het interbellum (Aspekt, 2009)