Johan P. Snapper
Em. Queen Beatrix Professor in Dutch Studies (snapper@berkeley.edu)
Professor Snapper did his Graduate work in Germanic languages and literatures at the University of Chicago (M.A.) and the University of California at Los Angeles (Ph.D.). He specializes in eighteenth-century German literature and modern Netherlandic literature. In addition to his doctoral dissertation (on Friedrich Maximilian Klinger) his publications include six books and more than fifty scholarly articles. One of his monographs deals with the work of the controversial Dutch writer Gerard Reve, while his most recent study (The Ways of Marga Minco) is a book on the Dutch writer Marga Minco, best known for her novels and short stories on the Jewish persecution in the Netherlands. Professor Snapper is on the Editorial Board of a number of publications, including the Publications of the American Association for Netherlandic Studies (PAANS), the Canadian Journal of Netherlandic Studies (CJNS) and De Nederlandse Taal. Among national and international offices he has held are the presidency of the American Association for Netherlandic Studies, membership on the executive board of the International Association for Netherlandics (IVN), and the chair of the Netherlands International Commission on Higher Education for Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Rumania. He is also the organizer of eight international conferences on Dutch linguistics and literature and the founder of the Netherlands-America University League. For his scholarly and community service, Professor Snapper received a Congressional Citation of Merit (USA), and he has been knighted as Officer in the Order of Orange-Nassau (the Netherlands) and Officer in the Order of the Crown (Belgium). He also serves as the honorary consul of the Netherlands for northern California. Professor Snapper was presented with a Festschrift, Vantage Points, on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Queen Beatrix Chair.