Joost Keizer new vice-dean Faculty of Arts

The Executive Board has appointed Dr Joost Keizer as of 1 September 2022 as vice-dean of the Faculty of Arts. Dean Thony Visser and Wouter Heinen are very pleased with the appointment. They look forward to working with Keizer on the Faculty Board. Keizer succeeds Prof. Roel Jonkers, who, after a four year term as vice-dean, will continue his commitment to the Faculty as Professor of Neurolinguistics.

^{Text: Marjolein te Winkel}

Joost Keizer (1978) has been with our faculty since 2015, first as Assistant Professor and now as Associate Professor of Art History. Before that, he worked in the United States: from 2010 to 2015 he was Assistant Professor at Yale University, and from 2008 to 2010 postdoc at Columbia University. Keizer studied Art History at the University of Groningen, graduating cum laude in 2003. He received his PhD from Leiden University in 2008 with a thesis on politics and art in sixteenth-century Italy.

Keizer specialises in the art and culture of early modern Europe. He has written books on Piero della Francesca's relationship between art and the environment and on Leonardo da Vinci's understanding of nature. Currently, he is finishing a book about nature and social engineering at the time of the Dutch Republic. In 2021, he created the exhibition Artemisia: Woman and Power in Rijksmuseum Twenthe.

Keizer: "I am very happy with this appointment and with the confidence that the Executive Board and the Faculty Board have in me. In the coming years I am going to focus on the implementation of active learning and on the scientific basis of our education. Of course, reducing the workload to achieve good science plays an important role in the latter."

Keizer knows the faculty well, not only in his role as lecturer but also as a student. "I can therefore empathise well with what is important to both groups. Between my time as a student and as a lecturer, I also worked outside the Netherlands for a number of years. This experience abroad has given me insights that I can use in discussions about important themes such as internationalisation and diversity."