The Early Modern Duchy of Luxembourg: a strategic periphery of the Habsburg Low Countries. Discourses and practices of political governance in a composite monarchy. Relations with the neighbouring territories (Lorraine, Trier, etc.).
Religious history of the Duchy of Luxembourg and of the Southern Low Countries, including the political role of the abbeys, the implementation of the Tridentine reforms, religious practices linked to relics and pilgrimages, Protestantism in a confessionally disputed region.
The Low Countries and the Holy Roman Empire: a history of discourses, exchanges and mobilities (16th and 17th c.). Diplomacy (correspondences and embassies), confessional exiles, circulation of news, armies on the move, etc.
Polemic writings in the context of confessional strife (Philip of Marnix, Discours véritables, Cornelius Loos…)
The “Spanish Roads” and the Habsburg Netherlands: transnational approaches to the social history of armies and military mobilities in the 16th and 17th century.
Interpretations and uses of the Early Modern period in memory, historiography, literature, and the arts (19th-21st c.) (Mary, Queen of Scots; Egmont; Mansfeld; Dutch Revolt; Protestantism in Belgium and Luxembourg).
Teaching
Methodological seminar for first year students in the BCE History
Lecture course and seminar about Early Modern Europe in the BCE History
Interdisciplinary lecture course Early Modern Europes (with Prof. Lena Steveker) in the BCE
Transversal course Religions et Sociétés : approches historiques in the BCE
Participation in interdisciplinary seminars of the Doctoral School in Humanities (DSHSS)
Supervision
Lison Vercammen, Gouverner par les maux. Santé, pratique(s) et culture(s) médicales à la cour de Marie de Hongrie (1531-1558), co-supervision with Prof. Gilles Lecuppre, UCLouvain, from March 2022 (intern UL contract).
Jonathan Stuart Keogh, French Policy in the Provincial Council of Luxembourg (1684-1697), from January 2023 (self-funded).
Aurélien Destain, Polycentric Diplomacy in practice. Secretary-diplomats and other diplomatic actors of the Habsburg Spanish Netherlands during and after the Thirty Years’ War (ca. 1618-ca. 1659), from September 2024 (FNR-AFR contract, POLYDIPLO).
Association d’études sur la Renaissance, l’Humanisme et la Réforme
Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte
Centre européen d’études bourguignonnes
Modernum. Reséaux des modernistes belges de langue française
Groupe de contact FNRS sur l’histoire et l’anthropologie de l’État
Association des Historiens de l’Est
Institut archéologique du Luxembourg (Arlon) BABEL, Association belge pour l’étude des religions, Belgian Association for the Studyof Religion. Member of the Board from 2014 to 2017; President in 2016 and 2017.
Co-Initiator of the international research network Anthropologie politique et religieuse de la parole (16e et 17e siècles) – The Spoken and Written Word in Early Modern Politics and Religion (16th and 17th century): Anthropological Approaches (since 2021). https://parole.hypotheses.org
Work experience
Research Associate of the FRS-FNRS (Belgium) (-2021)
Associate Professor at the Free University of Brussels (ULB) (-2021)
Director of the Interdisciplinary Research Centre for the Study of Religions (CIERL) (2013-2016)