Living in posterity

Living in Posterity, presented to Bart Westerweel on his retirement as Professor of Early Modern English literature at the University of Leiden, brings together thirty-nine essays on a wide variety of subjects and themes. The contributors, scholars from the Netherlands end abroad, have drawn inspiration from the many dualities that are characteristic of Westerweel's work, such as word/image, Anglo/Dutch, familiar/other, traditional/modern, and form/function. The result is a colourful mosaic of essays on history, culture, art and literature from the first century to the modern era. The binding theme of this richly diverse book lies in the idea of the continuity between the past and the present, the cohesion between what was and what is. As such, Living in Posterity is part of the larger project of the humanities to engage sympathetically with the past - to speak with the dead and keep history alive.