Brasenose College, Oxford - Dr Vincent Viaene
Dr Vincent Viaene
Dr Vincent Viaene
BNC Status
Visiting Fellow
Qualifications
BA (KULeuven), MPhil (Yale), Ph.D. (KULeuven)
Academic Positions
Marie Curie Fellow, History Faculty and Brasenose College, Oxford University
Academic Background and Previous Positions
After studying history in his native Belgium at KULeuven (BA 1989), Vincent Viaene specialised in religious anthropology at the Sorbonne (DEA 1990) and in international relations at Yale University (MA 1992). After having taken the MPhil in history at Yale (1996), he completed his Ph.D. at KULeuven in 1999, with a study on Belgium and the Holy See from Gregory XVI to Pius IX. Catholic revival, society and politics in 19th-century Europe (published by Leuven UP in 2001). Since then, he has taught religious history, international history and the history of European expansion at KULeuven.
Research Interests
As a Marie Curie Fellow at Oxford, Vincent is working on a project entitled "Internationalism and the Congo Question". Between 1875 and 1914, the "Congo question" provoked a rare confluence of liberal, Protestant, Catholic, Islamic and socialist mobilisations around humanitarian issues. The objective of the project is to elucidate how the interaction of these five "Internationals" in the colonial field shaped a global civil society, and what role Africans played in this process through their growing involvement with the religious "Internationals" in particular. By combining the reassessment of the role of transnational movements in international history with new insights into the cross-currents of influence connecting colonies and metropoles, and with the reconsideration of the vitality of religion in the modern age, the project aims to make an important contribution to global history.
Publications
He has published several edited volumes and 35 articles or book chapters on Catholic internationalism, religious culture, Belgium's foreign relations and Belgian imperialism. The most recent volume he co-edited, Congo in België (Leuven UP, 2009) is an interdisciplinary collection of essays about the colony's influence on Belgian society and culture.
Admissions Links