Welcome
These pages make available some of my professional activities and accomplishments. My research specialization is in the visual culture produced in the sixteenth and seventeenth century low countries. My dissertation examines the ethnographic images in Dutch travel accounts. In it I explore the reception of these early images in the nascent Dutch Republic at the turn of the seventeenth century. My project focuses my interests on the nature and implications of Dutch exploration and trade, particularly to West Africa and the Atlantic, theories of intercultural encounters and exchange, natural and moral philosophy, and the emergence of empirical science as related to visual culture in prints and book illustrations.
While my specialization is based in the European cultural context, I am expanding my research to study the effects of early Dutch presence in West Africa. My dissertation presents a theory for the reception of non-Europeans in the Dutch Republic; future projects will investigate changing African perceptions of identity using evidence in West African visual culture.