dr. MJ (Maryse) Kruithof

Biography

Maryse Kruithof graduated on her doctoral thesis “Shouting in a desert”, Dutch missionary encounters with Javanese Islam, 1850-1910 in the History department at the Erasmus University Rotterdam in December 2014. She produced a history of the Dutch missionary encounter with local communities in Java in order to contribute to our knowledge of Christian-Muslim relations in the colonial context. The writings of six Dutch missionaries, both Protestants and Catholics, formed the base of this study. She conducted her research at a micro level to analyse their strategies, results, and reflections upon their encounter with Javanese Muslims.

Since 2014, Kruithof has held several teaching positions, including the position of lecturer in the Department of Philosophy and Religious studies at Utrecht University. She became affiliated with Erasmus University College in 2015 as a lecturer in the Humanities department. She has taught and coordinated several courses in the fields of history, religious studies and academic skills.

Besides teaching at the EUC she is part of the research project Individualization, Rationalization, and Disciplinization: On The Secularizing Effects of Christian Mission as a post-doctoral researcher at the Free University of Amsterdam. The aim of this study is to discover whether there is a causal relationship between the Christian missionary endeavour of the 19th and early 20th century and emergent secularization in Asia, Africa and Latin America.