Dr D.E. de Vlugt (Debby Esmeé)

I am a lecturer in Political History specialized in the history of transimperial activism and anticolonial thought in the twentieth-century, with a particular focus on the Dutch Atlantic, the Caribbean, and the United States.

Before joining Radboud University, I was a lecturer in the History of International Relations at Utrecht University (2023-2026) and a PhD candidate at Leiden University and the Roosevelt Institute for American Studies (2019-2022), which resulted in my PhD dissertation "A New Feeling of Unity: Decolonial Black Power in the Dutch Atlantic (1968-1973)". I have also held a Visiting Fellowship at the Eccles Centre for American Studies at the British Library in London (2023) and an Affiliated Fellowship at the KITLV in Leiden (2024).

My research has appeared in various academic journals, edited volumes, and reference works, of which a complete overview can be found below. My first book Surinamese Anticolonial Thought in the Twentieth Century (co-edited with Peter Meel) will come out with Bloomsbury Academic in November 2026.