Dr R. Ensel (Remco)

Remco Ensel is an Associate Professor of Cultural History, specialising in the history of culture, science and collective ideas about people and society. His specific areas of interest include cultural memory, the role of culture in processes of inclusion and exclusion, and the culture of modernity.

His work covers the history of history writing, anthropology, economics, folklore, nationalism, racism, and antisemitism.

Much of his research focuses on war and mass violence, particularly the Holocaust.

Over the years, he published extensively on nationalist and National Socialist “Heimat” photography during the interwar period and the Second World War.

In 2022, he published Anne Frank on the Postwar Dutch Stage, a book about the play that brought the Holocaust back into the spotlight in the 1950s, sparking an international culture of remembrance surrounding Anne Frank.

The book Kennis die Knecht (Knowledge that Subdues) is set to be published in 2025, exploring the concept of 'indolence' within the knowledge economy of colonial Indonesia. This project addresses several long-standing themes: the history of knowledge production, modern concepts of labour and hierarchy, and the relationship between humans and nature.

His research draws on a combination of fieldwork, oral history, archival research, and the study of visual sources, art, and literature.

Remco Ensel is also a senior researcher in antisemitism studies at the NIOD Institute for War-, Holocaust- and Genocidestudies.