Mart Rutjes is assistant professor of Dutch history in the History program. His teaching and research focus on ideological and political-conceptual developments in the Netherlands from the late eighteenth century to the present, in a transnational perspective. His particular focus is on political revolutions and public debates on citizenship, democracy and colonialism.
From 2007 to 2011, he researched the political debates on democracy and citizenship during the Batavian Republic (1795-1806). In 2012, he published on this topic Door gelijkelijkheid gegrepen. Democratie, burgerschap en staat in Nederland 1795-1801 (with Vantilt Publishers ). In 2015, he edited, with Joris Oddens and Erik Jacobs, The Political Culture of the Sister Republics, 1794-1806. France, The Netherlands, Switzerland, and Italy (Amsterdam University Press), a comparative study of the political cultures of the European revolutionary republics. On republican thought, specifically the theme of decline, he edited with Joris Oddens and Arthur Weststeijn the volume Discourses of Decline. Essays in Honor of Wyger R.E. Velema (Brill Publishers, 2022).
From 2013 to 2018, he worked as a postdoc in the project Religion Renegotiated. Faith-Based Organizations and the State in the Netherlands since the 1960s on a history of the relationship between state and religion in the twentieth century. On this subject, among others, he published the book Gescheiden partners. Een geschiedenis van overheid en religieuze organisaties in Nederland (Prometheus Publishers). Between 2018 and 2022 he studied political repression in the Netherlands in the long nineteenth century, for which he received a grant from the Fonds Staatsman Thorbecke. He is currently working on a project on colonial thought during the Dutch Revolution (1780-1825), when the transformation took place from the colonialism of the trading companies VOC (Dutch East-India Company) and WIC (Dutch West-India Company) to the modern colonial nation-state.
Publications appeared in such journals as Contributions to the History of Concepts, Journal of Church and State and Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis (see Publications tab for an overview).