Research

Research group Tourism, Travel and Text

This English-taught Master’s specialisation in Tourism and Culture builds on the expertise of an active group of about 15 scholars who work together in the Radboud research group Tourism, Travel and Text, the largest research group on tourism in Dutch arts faculties. Within this group, senior and junior scholars from different disciplines – literature, art history, history and anthropology – discuss their current research projects, invite (inter)national guest, organise conferences and prepare collective publications.

The fascinating interaction between literary and (audio)visual representations of what tourists want to see, what the tourism industry wants tourists to see, what tourist actually experience and how their behaviour is perceived by host societies is one of the recurrent themes in discussions within this research group.

Research profiles of the Teaching Staff

Anneleen Arnout is an assistant professor at the department of History, Art History and Classical Studies. She is a cultural historian of the 19th and 20th century. She has previously published about heritage and the history of museums and specialises in the history of emotions, urban history and the history of consumerism. Her current research project combines the history of emotions with an interest in urban space in Amsterdam, London and Paris between 1850 and 1930. 

Jan Hein Furnée is Professor of European Cultural History. He studies the history of urban leisure culture, consumer culture, tourism, and cultural participation and policy in The Netherlands and Western Europe since 1750. In the field of tourism he has published on the major Dutch seaside resort Scheveningen, on Dutch tourism in the nineteenth century and on tourism promotion for Amsterdam in the 1930s. Together with international specialists he presented his vision on integrating research and teaching in the dossier 'Teaching tourism history', Journal of Tourism History 8 (2016) 57-84. 

László Munteán is an assistant professor with a double appointment in Cultural Studies and American Studies. His scholarly work revolves around the juncture of literature, architecture, visual culture, and cultural memory in American and Eastern European contexts. He is leader of the RICH research group “Memory, Materiality and Affect (MMA).” 

Tom Sintobin is associate professor at the department of Cultural Studies. He is a literary scholar, specialized in Dutch and Flemish literature since 1890. In the field of tourism he has worked on Belgian and Dutch seaside resorts, on Flemish authors visiting Italy in the interwar period and on tourists’ filmic representations of visits to the Mursi on YouTube. He is one of the leaders of the RICH-research group Tourism, Travel and Text and organized an expert meeting on this topic. He has taught the course Tourism in the master Creative Industries. Sintobin teaches the course Tourism and Culture: Theories and Trends.

Anna P.H. Geurts is a spatial historian located in the Department of Literary & Cultural Studies at the Radboud University. Geurts's research focuses on the everyday experiences of eighteenth-, nineteenth- and twentieth-century travelers: experiences of movement and distance; sensory standards with respect to for instance soundscapes and smellscapes; and the freedom of movement enjoyed by people in different social positions. Outside of the academy, Geurts translates historical fiction and non-fiction and writes on the continuing historical forces that shape space and time in our own lives. Geurts is also affiliated with the University of Sheffield for which she set up its current partnership with the British National Railway Museum. Geurts is a member of the RICH group Tourism, Travel, Text, and teaches the course Remaking Tourism.

Mariëtte Verhoeven is a lecturer and researcher at the Radboud Institute for Culture and History and honorary fellow at the Netherlands Institute in Turkey. She specializes in the field of early Christian and Byzantine architectural history. Currently her research focuses on the cultural history and transformation of water heritage in Istanbul, and the use of digital techniques to unlock and to activate the memorial potential of cultural heritage. She has also worked in the tourism industry for many years. Mariëtte teaches the elective Tourism on Demand.