Experience and internships
2025 | Louise O. Fresco Fellow for Food History Allard Pierson Museum, Amsterdam
I studied the imagination of vegetable gardens in early modern Dutch handbooks. This research resulted in a long-term database of crops, a lunch lecture for curators and other employees, a lunch lecture for other fellows and beneficiaries, a blogpost and a conference presentation.
2021-2025 | PhD candidate Erasmus School of Philosophy, Erasmus University Rotterdam
I study the historical appropriation of Desiderius Erasmus in Rotterdam, incorporating theories such as affordances, imagology and reception history. I developed my research into an exhibition, public lectures, academic articles. I will finish my dissertation by December 2025.
2021 | Smell annotator Odeuropa, KNAW Humanities Cluster, Amsterdam
I identified smell references in early modern Dutch literature to teach an AI model to recognize smell references in textual sources, as part of the Odeuropa project.
2020-2021 | Research intern NL-Lab, KNAW Humanities Cluster, Amsterdam
I conducted independent research on the imagination of Muslims in early modern Low Countries. Moreover, I assisted in research about the visual representation of taste by compiling a corpus of artworks. Based on this, I was asked to contribute to a popular but critical book about cheese and Dutch identity.
2019-2021 | Research Master Art History of the Low Countries Utrecht University
During this two-year program I specialised in Dutch artworks on paper in the early modern global world. My thesis Illustrated Orienlightenment: early Dutch Orientalism and Enlightenment in Mahomets Alkoran (1696) concerned a series of engravings in a seventeenth-century Dutch Qur’an.
2019 | Research intern print room Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
I investigated the materiality and provenance of early modern Dutch drawings for the digitization of a collection catalogue.
2017 | Intern educational department Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem
I developed an educational program for NT2 students.
2016-2019 | Bachelor Art History (cum laude) University of Amsterdam
I developed a broad knowledge of art history with an emphasis on Dutch art on paper and took part in the Honours Program Research Track. My thesis was entitled “Translated and Transformed Illustrations to Jāmī’s Yūsuf va Zulaykhā”.
Teaching experience
2024/25 | Early Modern Political Philosophy (Erasmus University College) In this guest lecture, I introduced the works of Erasmus, focussing on his political thought and drawing connections to present-day politics.
2023/24 | Being an Erasmian: Erasmus, Erasmian Values and Our World Today (BA3 Filosofie; Bachelor of Philosophy of a Specific Discipline (BPSD))
I designed and coordinated this new course. This interactive course consisted of lectures about Erasmus and academic values and two excursions in which students were introduced with early modern printed works. I designed and assessed the assignments, which included an op-ed and an essay.
2023/24 | Pre-Enlightenment Modernity: Science, Religion and Politics (BA2 Filosofie; BPSD)
I designed and taught tutorials and I developed and assessed assignments for this new course about major philosophical players of pre-Enlightenment modernity, which succeeded Descartes and Spinoza.
2022/23 | Descartes and Spinoza (BA2 Filosofie; BPSD)
I designed and taught tutorials and assessed assignments. The course concerns the historical context of the philosophical work of René Descartes and Benedictus de Spinoza, as well as Hugo Grotius, Galileo Galilei, Thomas Hobbes, Isaac Newton and Blaise Pascal.
2022/23 | Denken in het donker: Filosofie en Film (BA1 Filosofie)
I gave a philosophical lecture about a film that reflected the Nature-Culture dichotomy. This course challenged students to write their very first essay, based on two films and academic articles. I gave feedback on the writing process and assessed the final assignments.
2022/23 | Critique: The Impact of Philosophy on Social Sciences and Humanities (BA2 Filosofie; BPSD)
I taught tutorials on critical theory, poststructuralism, feminist critique, postcolonial critique, tentacular thinking, and critical realism. I helped grading the final exam.
Additional activities
2024-present | Erasmus PhD Interfaculty Council (EPIC) Erasmus University Rotterdam
We represent PhDs of the faculties at university level through regular meetings with Academic Affairs and the rector.
2024 | Visitation Committee Leiden University Institute for History
I assessed the quality of research at the institute by judging the self-assessment report and by conducting interviews with management and staff.
2023-2025| Faculty Council Erasmus School of Philosophy
We advise and check the board of the faculty. My main focus is representing the interests of PhD candidates and ensuring transparency in decision making processes.
2019-2021 | Copy Editor Junctions Journal (link)
I codesigned calls for papers, reviewed and checked articles.
2019-2020 | Programme Team Humanities Graduate Research Symposium 2020 (link)
I codesigned the theme of the conference and invited speakers.
2017-2018 | Education Committee BA Art History University of Amsterdam
I advised on and checked the quality of education.
Academic publications
Steen, S. (forthcoming) “Erasmus and the University in Rotterdam. What’s in a name?” accepted in History of Universities.
Steen, S. and John Tholen (2024) “Preserving and Presenting the Rotterdam Erasmus Collection since 1868” in Erasmus Studies 44, no. 2, p. 185-210. https://doi.org/10.1163/18749275-04402004.
Steen, S. (2024) “Erasmus Batavus: The Auris Batava (1508) between ancient heritage and Italian disdain” in Dutch Crossing 48, no. 3, p. 181-198. https://doi.org/10.1080/03096564.2024.2374633.
Steen, S. (2024) “Orangist Appropriation of Erasmus: From Orangism to Erasmianism” in Early Modern Low Countries 8, no. 1, p. 108-128. https://doi.org/10.51750/emlc13530.
Menini, Stefano et al. (2022). “A Multilingual Benchmark to Capture Olfactory Situations over Time” in Proceedings of the 3rd Workshop on Computational Approaches to Historical Language Change, p. 1-10, Dublin, Ireland. Association for Computational Linguistics. https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/2022.lchange-1.1.
Academic presentations
Steen, S. (8 July 2025) “Gardening as Knowledge Practice. Historical handbooks for kitchen gardens.” Conference presentation at Plants and People, Cambridge, GB.
Steen, S. (12 September 2024) “Studying the reception of Erasmus through Sammelbände in the Erasmus Collection.” Conference presentation at Books in new contexts, Uppsala, SE.
Steen, S. (14 June 2024) “A work of art in a public space: mapping the iconographies of the Erasmus statue in Rotterdam.” Conference presentation at Art of History, Nottingham, GB.
Steen, S. (15 September 2023) “Identifying with “a brazen statue in the marketplace”: Rotterdammers interacting with the Erasmus Statue.” Conference presentation at Métamorphoses et usages d’un même passé & formation des identités en Europe du XIVe siècle jusqu’aux années 1980, Lille, FR.
Steen, S. (13 September 2022). “Joining forces in the canon debate: Interdisciplinary cooperation in an overarching objective.” Conference presentation at ESEMP Young: New Perspectives on Early Modern Philosophy, Copenhagen, DK.
Steen, S. (4 June 2022). “Early Dutch Orientalism and Radical Enlightenment in Mahomets Alkoran (1696).”Conference presentation at HNA conference, Amsterdam and The Hague, NL.
Steen, S. (29 March 2021). “The Ottoman in the Dutch Revolt: Interpreting the background and afterlife of the slogan Rather Turkish than Papist (1566-1610).” Conference presentation at Enemies in the Early Modern World 1453-1789: Conflict, Culture and Control, Edinburgh and online.
Popular output
Steen, S. (2025) “Een spirituele ervaring in de moestuin.” Blog post for Allard Pierson (link).
Jensen, S., H. van Ruler, R. van Raak, and S. Steen (2025), “Grote Geesten – Desiderius Erasmus” in podcast series Wat Blijft 3:39, NPO Radio 1, Omroep HUMAN (link).
Steen, S. (2024) “Feit en fictie in het leven van Erasmus.” Public lecture for the afternoon program of theatre show Erasmus hier en nu by Peter Lems.
Steen, S. “Moestuinieren zoals vroeger.” Guided tour through the historical kitchen garden of Jagtlust.
Steen, S., R. Koot, and J. Tholen, “Erasmus: The man, the myth, the legend, the university.” Exhibition in the Erasmus University Library, 24 October 2023 – 24 January 2024 (link).
Steen, S. “Kaas verbeeld” in Leonie Cornips, Marieke Hendriksen en Geertje Mak (red.), Kaas = NL? Melk, koe, ras, kolonie, taal, kunst, mest en meer. Gorredijk: Sterck & De Vreese, 2023, 53-64.
Steen, S. (2021). “Annotating the Smell of Lightning.” Blog post for the Odeuropa website (link).
Steen, S. (2021) “Information and sensation in an illustrated Qur’an from the Dutch Republic.” Blog post for the Medieval and Early Modern Orients (MEMOs) website (link).
Steen, S. (2019) “Het tekenen van tuinen: De mysteries rondom Jan Lievens’ tekeningen op Japans papier” (Drawing Gardens: the mysteries around Jan Lievens’ drawings on Japanese paper). Vlog for the website of the Amsterdam Museum (link).
Steen, S. (2018) Approachable informative texts regarding the figures of the artwork Justice and Injustice by Barbara Broekman (2017) in the Law faculty of the University of Amsterdam (link).