Dr R.H. van den Beuken (Ruud)

Assistant professor - Department of Modern Languages and Cultures
Assistant professor - Radboud Institute for Culture and History

Contact

ruud.vandenbeuken@ru.nl

Visiting address

Erasmusplein 1
6525 HT NIJMEGEN

Postal address

Postbus 9103
6500 HD NIJMEGEN

Working days

Dr Ruud van den Beuken is an Assistant Professor of English Literature (Department of Modern Languages & Cultures). He was awarded the 2015 Irish Society for Theatre Research (ISTR) New Scholars' Prize for his research on postcolonial mythological plays, and in April 2017, he received his PhD (cum laude) for his thesis on cultural memory and national identity formation in Irish drama. He received the 2017 Education Award for Best Junior Lecturer in the Faculty of Arts and was the Assistant Director of the NWO-funded Gate Theatre Research Network (2018-2021).

In 2018, he held a Visiting Research Fellowship at the Moore Institute (National University of Ireland, Galway). His monograph 'Avant-Garde Nationalism at the Dublin Gate Theatre, 1928–1940' was published by Syracuse University Press in 2021. In 2023, he received the RICH Outstanding Research Award.

Research/teaching interests:
• Contemporary British drama (particularly Brexit theatre and productions engaging with collective identities)
• Modern Irish drama (particularly the Dublin Gate Theatre and productions engaging with national identities)
• Twentieth-century English literature (particularly modernist poetry and prose)
• Contemporary Dutch drama (particularly productions engaging with queerness and/or ethnicity)

PhD supervision:
• Dirk Visser, 'Plague Reenacted: Memorializing the AIDS Crisis in British and North-American Drama' (completed 2025)

Administration:
• Programme director, Radboud Honours Academy: Faculty of Arts Programmes
• Coordinator, Intercultural Dynamics RICH research group
• Member of the Programme Committee, BA in English Language & Culture

Tags: theatre, drama, English literature, Irish theatre, avant-garde, Brexit

Research group

Intercultural Dynamics

Publications

Key publications

Cusack, C.T. & Beuken, R.H. van den (2025). Reading the Sonnet Sequence. In J. Bundschuh & I. Huber (Eds.), Handbook of Poetic Forms (pp. 577-592). Berlin: De Gruyter doi: 10.1515/9783111296371-034
Beuken, R.H. van den (2023). Brexit and Theatre. In R Remshardt & A Mancewicz (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to Contemporary European Theatre and Performance (pp. 329-335). Abingdon: Routledge doi: 10.4324/9781003082538-53 Full text
Beuken, R.H. van den (2022). The Old Lady Says 'No!' (1929) by Denis Johnston. In S. Richards (Ed.), Fifty Key Irish Plays (Routledge Key Guides) (pp. 49-52). London: Routledge doi: 10.4324/9781003203216-13 Full text
Beuken, R.H. van den (2022). Youth's the Season–? (1931) by Mary Manning. In S. Richards (Ed.), Fifty Key Irish Plays (Routledge Key Guides) (pp. 53-56). London: Routledge doi: 10.4324/9781003203216-14 Full text
Beuken, R.H. van den (2021). Avant-Garde Nationalism at the Dublin Gate Theatre, 1928-1940 (Irish Studies). Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press doi: 10.2307/j.ctv16x2bcf
Beuken, R.H. van den (2021). Something left over from the Eighteenth Century, undergoing a slow process of decay. The Impotence of the Ascendancy in Mary Manning’s 'Youth’s the Season–?' (1931). In D. Clare, F. McDonagh & J Nakase (Eds.), The Golden Thread. Irish Women Playwrights. Vol. 1 (1716-1992) (pp. 185-196). Liverpool: Liverpool University Press doi: 10.2307/j.ctv1s5nwsb.16 Full text
Beuken, R.H. van den (2021, May 10). Staging the Free State. New Irish drama at the Dublin Gate Theatre. Belfast (online), Irish Studies Research Seminar series. Full text
Corporaal, M.C.M. & Beuken, R.H. van den (Ed.). (2021). A Stage of Emancipation. Change and Progress at the Dublin Gate Theatre. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press doi: 10.2307/j.ctv1kwxfgd Full text
Beuken, R.H. van den (2020, January 1). A Night at the Gate Theatre. Dublin, Gate Theatre history. Full text
Pilny, O., Beuken, R.H. van den & Walsh, I.R. (Ed.). (2020). Cultural Convergence. The Dublin Gate Theatre, 1928-1960. London: Palgrave Macmillan doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-57562-5 Full text
Beuken, R.H. van den (2019). Three cheers for the Descendancy! Middle-class Dreams and (Dis)illusions in Mary Manning’s 'Happy Family' (1934). In B. Houlihan (Ed.), Navigating Ireland’s Theatre Archive. Theory, Practice, Performance (Reimaging Ireland, 87) (pp. 141-157). Oxford: Peter Lang
Beuken, R.H. van den (2018). ‘A lament for the Fianna in a time when Ireland shall be changed’: Prospective/Prescriptive Memory and (Post-)Revolutionary Discourse in Mythological Gate Plays. Études Irlandaises, 43 (2), 197-208. doi: 10.4000/etudesirlandaises.5953 Full text
Beuken, R.H. van den (2018). ‘Ancient Ireland comes to Rathmines': Memory, Identity, and Diversity in Micheál macLíammóir’s 'Where Stars Walk' (1940). In P. Lonergan, D. Clare & D Lally (Eds.), The Gate Theatre, Dublin: Inspiration and Craft (pp. 47-61). Dublin / Oxford: Carysfort Press / Peter Lang Full text
Beuken, R.H. van den (2017, April 3). Moulding the Irish Dramatist of the Future. Memory, Modernity, and (Inter)nationalist Identities at the Dublin Gate Theatre, 1928-1940. Radboud University (323 pag.) (s.l.: s.n.) Supervisor(s): prof. dr. O. Dekkers & prof. dr. M.C.M. Corporaal.
Beuken, R.H. van den (2016). Remembering the Drapier and King Dan: The Sectarian Legacies of Swift and O’Connell in Edward Longford’s 'Yahoo' (1933) and' Ascendancy' (1935). In Marguérite Corporaal, Marguérite Corporaal, Christopher Cusack, Christopher Cusack, Ruud van den Beuken & Ruud van den Beuken (Eds.), Irish Studies and the Dynamics of Memory: Transitions and Transformations (Reimagining Ireland, 79) (pp. 19-39). Oxford: Peter Lang
Corporaal, M.C.M., Cusack, C.T. & Beuken, R.H. van den (Ed.). (2016). Irish Studies and the Dynamics of Memory. Transitions and Transformations (Reimagining Ireland, 79). Oxford: Peter Lang doi: 10.3726/b10768
Beuken, R.H. van den (2015). MacLiammóir’s Minstrel and Johnston’s Morality: Cultural Memories of the Easter Rising at the Dublin Gate Theatre. Irish Studies Review, 23 (1), 1-14. doi: 10.1080/09670882.2014.986843 Full text
Corporaal, M.C.M., Cusack, C.T., Janssen, L. & Beuken, R.H. van den (Ed.). (2014). Global Legacies of the Great Irish Famine. Transnational and Interdisciplinary Perspectives (Reimagining Ireland, 60). Oxford: Peter Lang

Dr R.H. van den Beuken (Ruud)

Publications

Research grants and prizes

Teaching

Media mentions

Ancillary activities