Research group Knowledge and Art Practices
Specialisation Scientific culture of the early-modern era
Contact eric.jorink@huygens.knaw.nl
+31 (0)20-2246867

Biography

Eric Jorink is senior-researcher at the Huygens Instituut and holds the Teylers-chair ‘Enlightenment and Religion’ at Leiden University. Jorink studied History and Philosophy at the University of Groningen and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. He was lauréat of the Fondation Prix de Paris in 1993. In 2004 he was awarded his doctorate cum laude for a thesis on the relation between science and religion in the Dutch Golden Age. The dissertation was awarded with a prize of the prestigious Praemium Erasmianum Foundation. Since 2001 Jorink has been working as a researcher at the Huygens Institute; since 2013 as professor in Leiden. In 2012-2013 he was Andrew W. Mellon visiting professor at the Courtauld Institute of Art (London); in 2022-2023 visiting professor at the Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institut für Kunstgeschichte (Rome).

Jorink has widely published on the scientific culture in early modern Europe, including the culture of collecting, the relation between art and science, and the emergence of radical biblical criticism. Jorink is currently finishing a biography of Johannes Swammerdam (1637-1680) and a study on the fame of Antoni van Leeuwenhoek. Since 2021 he is leading the international researchproject Visualizing the Unknown. Besides, in cooperation with Teylers Foundation Teylers Stichting and the other Teylers-professor prof.dr. Frans van Lunteren Frans van Lunteren – Leiden University (universiteitleiden.nl), he has initiated research on the intellectual culture of the Mennonite community in Haarlem, ca 1500-1800.