Researcher in Sub-Project 4
Contact
University of Innsbruck
Department for Classical Philology and Neo-Latin Studies
room 06L040 (6th floor)
Innrain 52a (Ágnes-Heller-Haus)
A-6020 Innsbruck, Austria
phone: +43 512 507-40701
email: hanne.berendse@uibk.ac.at
Relics Research Profile
Biography
CV
- 07/2018: A-Levels (VWO) in Economics and Society, Gemeentelijk Gymnasium Hilversum (cum laude).
- 07/2021: BA Hons in Culture, History & Society at Leiden University College (cum laude); thesis on the self-fashioning of women artists in the Dutch Republic nominated for the Thesis of Merit Award.
- 09/2023: MA in Cultural, Intellectual, and Visual History (1350–1650) at the Warburg Institute (high distinction); thesis on Artemisia Gentileschi’s Self-Portrait as Saint Catherine (1615-17) awarded highest mark of the cohort (82).
- 11/2023: Start of PhD, fully funded by the Austrian Science Fund and jointly supervised by the University of Innsbruck and the Warburg Institute
- 06/2024-12/2024: Predoctoral Fellowship at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Neo-Latin Studies on the intersection of Neo-Latin and gender studies
- 04/2026-09/2026: Visiting Studentship at the University of Cambridge
Partnerships and Associations
- Board member of the international research network ‘RELICS’ for the interdisciplinary and decolonial study of Latin
- Representative of the University of Innsbruck within the international Scientific Research Network ‘Literature Without Borders: A Historical-Comparative Study of Premodern Literary Transnationality’
Public Engagement Activities and Event Organisation
- Creative Latin Translation Workshop (23/02/2026)
Workshop for high school students from the Euregio Tirol on theories of translation, including the usage of translation for popular media. - GERECHT?: Geschichten über soziale Ungleichheiten (06/2025–03/2026)
Creative writing project in collaboration with the curators of the Tiroler Volkskunstmuseum to provide reflective vignettes for the objects in the exhibition ‘GERECHT?: Geschichten über soziale Ungleichheiten’. Contributed two texts on the position of women in the mid-twentieth century. - Nox Latina: die Lange Nacht der Antike (25/04/2025)
Nationwide outreach event for the stimulation of interest in the classical world. Developed an open-air cinema with screenings of famous film scenes dubbed in Latin. Responsible for PR, including the development of promotional materials and giving a radio interview about the event. Attracted c.100 visitors. - ‘Early Modern Latin in London’ Walking Tours (2023–2024)
Collaboration with the Society for Neo-Latin Studies and Queen Mary’s Centre for Public Engagement. Co-developed a walking tour along historic sites in the City of London to make Neo-Latin accessible to a wider audience. This tour also became part of the Being Human festival. - GROTIUS: A Life Between Freedom and Oppression (2021)
Co-curated an online exhibition for the Leiden University Special Collections, using objects from the Collections to introduce the general public to the life and work of Hugo Grotius to mark the fourth centennial of Grotius’ escape from Loevenstein Castle. - GEMENGD ÉN GESCHUD: 50 jaar damesroeien op de K.S.R.V. ‘Njord’ (2020-2021)
Co-curated a major digital exhibition on the history of women’s rowing at the oldest student boat club in the Netherlands. Responsible for securing funding for the online platform, conducting interviews and archival research, collecting objects for display, as well as collaborating with the photographer on the 360° photographs. Attracted 2000+ individual visitors in the first three weeks. An interview on the project (in Dutch) can be found here.
Conference and Guest Lecture Organisation
- “Old and New Authorities in the Self-Representation of Neo-Latin Authors.” 26th NeoLatina conference, Innsbruck, 24–25 September 2026. Keynote speaker: Sabrina Ebbersmeyer (University of Copenhagen).
Co-organised with Dr Johanna Luggin (Innsbruck), Prof Dr Simone De Angelis (Graz) and Prof Dr Wolfgang Kofler (Innsbruck). - Guest Lecture by Samuel Tchorek-Bentall (University of Cambridge) on the reception of Aristotle in early modern political thought. 13/01/2027 [upcoming]. Organised at the University of Innsbruck.
- Guest Lecture by Dr Odile Liliana Panetta (University of Oxford) on academic theses and Reformed political theology in the seventeenth century. 15/01/2025. Organised at the University of Innsbruck.
- Guest Lecture by Dr Martine van Ittersum (University of Dundee) on Hugo Grotius’ involvement in Dutch overseas expansion and colonisation. 21/05/2021. Organised at the University of Leiden.
Research Interests
- Early modern history
- Gender studies
- History of science and ideas
- Visual culture
- Self-fashioning
- Constructions of authority
Publications
- Berendse, Hanne: “‘Bodily strength is a disgrace, not an honour’: Johanna Otho (1549–c.1621) on Men’s Moral Education” Renaissance Studies, Special Issue: The Epistolary Renaissance: Women Latinists and the Republic of Letters (1300-1700) [under review].
- Berendse, Hanne: “To have learned the Latin language will do me absolutely no harm”: Johanna Otho (1549–c. 1621), De Studio Virginitatis.In: An Anthology of Neo-Latin Literature Written by Women, ed. by Stephen Harrison and Gesine Manuwald (London, 2026), 115–126.
- Berendse, Hanne: Virgo faciebat: Artistic Self-Fashioning in Latin Inscriptions by Female Artists in Early Modern Italy. In: Journal of Latin Cosmopolitanism and European Literatures 13 (August 2026), 49–85. Special Issue: Women Latin Writers.
Editorial Work
- Co-editor of the double-blind peer review Journal of Latin Cosmopolitanism and European Literatures (Diamond Open Access)
Talks
- Artistic Self-Fashioning in Latin Inscriptions by Women Artists in Early Modern Italy. 24/09/2026, NeoLatina 2026, University of Innsbruck.
- Women’s Creativity in Early Modern Europe. 30/07/2026, Aurora Summer School, NeoLEMoS – Neo-Latin for Early Modern Studies, University of Innsbruck.
- Display as Discipline: The Representation of the Female Body in the Early Modern Anatomical Fugitive Sheets. 06/07/2026, The Body in History Interdisciplinary Conference, University of Oxford.
- “Ethnica si liceat volvere scripta manu…”: The Deployment of Classical Authorities in the Political Writings of Johanna Otho (c.1549 – c.1621). 28/05/2026, Classical Reception Seminar, University of Cambridge.
- A Woman’s Voice on War and Good Rulership: The Political Writings of Johanna Otho (c. 1549 – c. 1621). 27/05/2026, Political Thought and Intellectual History Workshop, University of Cambridge.
- Love Among the Ruins: The Symbolism of Classical Ruins in François Boucher’s Peaceful Pastorals. 11/02/2026, Love in Text and Image, The Warburg Institute. Invited.
- Dissecting ‘the Other’: Anatomical Fugitive Sheets and the Representation of the Female Body in the Early Modern Period. 10/12/2025, LECTIO XIV International Conference, KU Leuven.
- Ironic Praise in the Visual Arts: Female Artists and the Mock-Heroic Self-Portrait in Early Modern Italy (1550–1650). 05/09/2025, Ironic Encomia and Paradoxical Humour in the Early Modern Period, Goethe Universität Frankfurt.
- Quae […] ob oculos exhibita fuerunt”: Francesco Ferdinando Giuliani’s De fossilibus universalis Diluvii (1741). 16/07/2025, Nineteenth International Congress of the International Association for Neo-Latin Studies, Aix-en-Provence.
- ‘And even savage beasts, you see, are also tamed by the art of those who teach’: Education, Discipline & the Taming of Nature in Johanna Otho’s De Bona Institutione (1616). 13/06/2025, Annual Meeting of the International Society for Intellectual History, University of Aarhus.
- ‘Honey-Sweet Poems’: Vergilian Stylistics in the Poetry of Anna Pallantia (1550-1599). 27/05/2025, Colloquia Neo-Latina Tridentina, University of Trento. Invited.
- The Richness of Receipts, Registers, and Recipe Books: An Introduction to Working with Early Modern Manuscript Sources. 18/11/2024, Guest lecture for the BA-course: “Introduction to Textual Criticism”, University of Innsbruck. Invited.
- The Humanist Network of Anna von Palant, or Pallantia (1550-1599). 20/09/2024, The Epistolary Renaissance: Women Latinists and the Republic of Letters, Medici Archive Project, Florence.
- Fossils of the Flood: Francesco Ferdinando Giuliani’s De fossilibus universalis Diluvii, cum speciminibus Tirolensibus (1741). 12/06/2024, Annual Scientiae Meeting, Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts, Brussels.
- A Sense of Self: Artemisia Gentileschi’s Self-Portrait as Saint Catherine of Alexandria (1615-1617). 16/04/2024, Annual Graduate Conference in European History, European University Institute, Florence.
- Unearthing the Past: Empirical Historiography and Object-Based Research in Francesco Ferdinando Giuliani’s De fossilibus universalis diluvii, cum speciminibus Tirolensibus (1741). 27/01/2024, AKMe, University of Innsbruck.
- Perpetuae virgines &gentiluomini: Gender Performance in Self-Portraiture in Early Modern Northern Italy. 17/06/2023, Mediaeval & Early Modern Studies Festival, University of Kent, Canterbury.
Hanne Berendse’s Contributions and Activities
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In a new peer-reviewed article, ‘Virgo faciebat’: Artistic Self-Fashioning in Latin Inscriptions by Women Artists in Early Modern Italy, Hanne Berendse examines the Latin signatures of Sofonisba Anguissola, Lavinia Fontana, and Artemisia Gentileschi, three leading women painters of early modern Italy, and argues that they should be read as acts of literary self-fashioning. Combining philological…
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At the end of September, our PhD student Hanne Berendse returned to Innsbruck after a six-month visiting studentship at the University of Cambridge. At Cambridge, she worked on the final stages of her dissertation with Professor Dániel Margóscy, a social and cultural historian of early modern science. During her time at Cambridge, she also presented work…
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On September 24 and 25, the NeoLatina conference was held in Innsbruck. This conference series, held annually in turn by Universities of Würzburg, Freiburg i.Br. and Innsbruck is dedicated to Neo-Latin authors and topics. This year, the conference was held in cooperation with the SRA “Neo-Latin in the Modern World” and the Centre for the…
