20 Jul Veni grant for Tom Hoogervorst and David Kloos

KITLV congratulates Tom Hoogervorst and David Kloos who received a Veni grant (max. 250.000 Euro) from the Dutch Organization of Scientific Research (NWO). Veni is part of the NWO’s so-called ‘Incentives Scheme’. It allows researchers who have recently obtained their PhD to conduct independent research and develop their ideas for a period of three years. This year 161 researchers received a grant.

The title of Tom Hoogervorst’s project is ‘The language of modernity: Vernacular Malay in pre-independence Indonesia’. This project investigates the language of urban middle classes in the Netherlands Indies, the so-called ‘low Malay’. This language was used by non-Europeans to describe their own life and the urban environment they lived in. I will analyze a recently digitized corpus of novels and newspapers and demonstrate how the study of a language offers insights in the everyday life in a multicultural society.

David Kloos’ research is titled ‘Seeing is believing: Female Islamic leadership and visual rhetoric in Southeast Asia’. Female Islamic leaders are gaining in prominence. So far, research has been restricted to the role of women in Islamic textual traditions. This project investigates how female Islamic authorities in Malaysia and Indonesia make use of visual images to communicate with their audience and in doing so challenge dominant gender relationships within Islam.