Project title

Defamiliarizing geslacht

Research question

How did families in the past make identities in times of crisis?

Project description

Helmer Helmers is part of the NIAS Theme Group that investigates cases of troubled transfer from geslacht-to-geslacht: cases in which the self-evidence or ‘naturalness’ of continuity between identity, genealogy and progeny are under pressure. His project investigates the early modern genre of the family book, in which middle class men sought to shape and fixate their children’s history, identity and morals in times of crisis.

Selected publications

  • Helmer J. Helmers, ‘Republican Kinship in the Society of Princes: The Dutch States General as Corporate Godparent, 1578–1732’. The Historical Journal 68:5 (2025), 1016-1040. 10.1017/S0018246X25000019
  • Helmer J. Helmers, De Comentarius van Emanuel van Meteren. Een geannoteerde editie van een verloren gewaand zestiende-eeuws familieboek (Hilversum: Verloren, 2023).
  • Helmer J. Helmers, The Royalist Republic: Literature, Politics, and Religion in the Anglo-Dutch Public Sphere, 1639-1660 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015).