Simon Halink
Simon Halink is a cultural historian specialized in the comparative study of national movements and the historical development of national identities in the course of the ´long 19th century´ (c. 1789-1914), particularly in small national communities such as Friesland, Iceland, and the Faroe Islands. His main interest lies in studying the various ways in which mythology, ideas about the past - primarily medieval history - and linguistic purism have been mobilized in processes of cultural nation-building. He earned his PhD degree from the University of Groningen (Netherlands) in 2017 with a study on Old Norse mythology and national culture in Iceland. Since then, he has worked as a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer at the University of Iceland and as an Assistant Professor in Modern History at Leiden University. Furthermore, he is actively involved in the Study Platform on Interlocking Nationalisms (headed by Joep Leerssen, University of Amsterdam) and the ensuing Encyclopedia of Romantic Nationalism in Europe.
Since 2021, Dr. Halink holds a research position at the Fryske Akademy in Leeuwarden (Netherlands), affiliated with the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). Here, he studies the development of Frisian (national) identity in the 19th and 20th centuries from a comparative perspective, and in the broader context of European cultural history. He is the author of the monograph De Viking vanbinnen: Over IJslanders en hun verhalenwereld ("The Viking within: On Icelanders and their story world", Noordboek 2023) and editor of the volume Northern Myths, Modern Identities: The Nationalisation of Northern Mythologies since 1800 (Brill 2019, vol. 19 in the series National Cultivation of Culture). Simon Halink is a member of the editorial boards of De Vrije Fries and the online journal Studies on National Movements, as well as a board member of the Historical Society of Iceland (Sögufélagið).
During his stay in Strasbourg, he will be hosted by Professor Thomas Mohnike (2013 Fellow), will participate in the international conference Medievalisms of the Margins. Staging Medieval Memories in Outside Western Europe (27-29/03/2025), and give a lecture entitled The trauma of conversion: A story of chieftains, bishops, and national identity in the North (01/04/2025).
