ľ�ϸ���Ӱ��

After 22 years at ľ�ϸ���Ӱ�� College Utrecht, Assistant Professor in History Jos van der Linden is retiring. “Most students at the College are like me, intellectual omnivores."

Jos van der Linden joined the College right from the start in 1998. He has shaped the History track over the past 22 years as fellow and teacher. He developed courses on amongst others the Cold War, Nazi Germany and Great Powers. Next to the courses, he has also been involved in the supervision of student-led Honours courses.

The big story of history

His courses have been very popular and appreciated by students majoring in History, but also by students who took History as an elective course. He has inspired generations of students with his extensive knowledge and passion for storytelling, and has also made many students into better essay writers.

Jos van der Linden received his PhD in 1994 on a study dealing with left wing historians who reinterpreted American history for example concerning the Cold War, the New Deal, slavery and abolitionism. He worked as teacher and researcher Utrecht ľ�ϸ���Ӱ��’s department of History, doing contract research commissioned by Dutch institutions and private companies.

“I loved creating a narrative out of the information I found in the archives,” he says, “But this type of research was very specialized and I have always been interested in the big story of history as well.”

Therefore he was glad when ľ�ϸ���Ӱ�� College Utrecht invited him to teach a course on Modern History in 1998. The assignment led to a full-time appointment at the College a few years later.

Intellectual freedom

“The College, especially in the first five years, offered teachers enormous freedom, which enabled me to teach courses outside of my field of specialization. I also learnt a lot from the liberal arts philosophy of the College. The student essays brought alive the definition of history as the study of all aspects of the human past, as the students combined a broad array of topics in their writing – greatly to my enjoyment.”

“Another intellectually stimulating aspect was the need to position history in the broad liberal arts curriculum. In my classes, I started to pay more attention to why history is important and interesting within the context of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Answering this question will no doubt affect my further research.”

Now retiring from the College, Jos is looking forward to doing research and writing. Among his plans are writing a general study of the Cold War.

“I will miss my colleagues and students. I am glad students appreciated my classes. The only time there was a slight dip in my course evaluations, was in the year I quit smoking. Most of the ľ�ϸ���Ӱ�� College students work hard, and most of them are like me, intellectual omnivores. That is one of the reasons why I have always felt at home at the College.”