The Critical Visitor
(2020-2024)
This project, co-financed by NWO's Smart Culture programme, investigates how heritage institutions can achieve a form of inclusivity and accessibility in their organisation, collections and exhibition spaces that meets the diverse requirements of today's 'critical visitor'. Fifteen partners work together on intersectional tools that does not only uncovers, but also dismantles, mechanisms of exclusion and repression.
Project leader / Secretariat: Dr. Eliza Steinbock, Leiden University Partners: Het Nieuwe Instituut, Research Center for Material Culture, Atria, The Amsterdam Museum, Imagine IC, Van Abbemuseum, Studio I Platform for inclusive culture. Amateurkunst (LKCA), Waag Technology & Society, CED-groep.
PhD research project ‘Founding an Inclusive Space: Legacies of Alternative Archiving Practices in the Netherlands, Germany and the United Kingdom
The PhD research project ‘Founding an Inclusive Space: Legacies of Alternative Archiving Practices in the Netherlands, Germany and the United Kingdom’ focuses on the history of LGBT+ archives in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and West-Germany, from the 1970s onwards. This PhD-project is conducted by Noah Little and is part of the broader project ‘The Critical Visitor: Intersectional approaches for rethinking and retooling accessibility and inclusivity in heritage spaces’, which is led by dr. Eliza Steinbock. The supervisors of the project are Eliza Steinbock (Maastricht University), Monika Baár (Leiden University) and Hester Dibbits (Reinwardt Academie). The project started in February 2020 and ends in February 2025.
Noah Littel
Noah Littel (they/them) is a PhD candidate at Maastricht University, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. They completed the bachelor History and the Research Master History: Political Culture and National Identities at Leiden University, and specialize in LGBT+ history in the late twentieth century.
In 2021-2022, Noah conducted archival research as embedded researcher at IHLIA LGBTI Heritage and Atria. In addition, Noah conducted oral history interviews with former archival staff. Based on this research, Noah curated an exhibition and audio tour, ‘The Archive in Progress’, hosted by Atria and IHLIA from December 2021 to May 2022. Recently, an online version of this exhibition has been published by IHLIA: outsidethebox.ihlia.nl/archief-in-ontwikkeling/
In 2021-2022 Noah presented their research at several occasions, amongst which at the Flemish-Dutch LGBT Research Conference; at the symposium Archival Interactions: Performing Intersectional Counter-Archives; the History of Sexuality Seminar; and the Queer History Conference.
Noah is part of the Advisory Board of the Queering the Collections Network; the NOG PhD Council; and the disability advocacy group Accessible Academia. With the NOG PhD Council and Accessible Academia, they organized a lecture and workshop series, given by dr. Nicole Brown, on ableism in academia.
Publications 2021-2022
- Littel, N., ‘Playing the game of lesbian imagination: radical lesbian feminist organising in the Dutch Lesbian Nation’, Women's History Review (July 2021) DOI: 10.1080/09612025.2021.1954335
- Littel, N., ‘Lesbisch Prachtboek’, withpride.ihlia.nl/story/lesbisch-prachtboek/ (June 2021).
- Littel, N., ‘Lesbian Nation’, withpride.ihlia.nl/story/lesbian-nation/ (June 2021).
- E. Pollaert, met medewerking van N. Littel, H. Huisman, P. van Trigt, ‘Plaatsen van Trots en Treurnis: Verhalen van Gehandicapt Verzet’, rekto:verso 91 (August 2021).
- Littel, N., ‘Patriarchale concessies, olifantenpaadjes, en bewustwordingsmechanismen: De ideologische achtergrond van catalogisering in Nederlandse LHBT+ archieven’, Historica (June 2022).