Ad de Jong. Foto: Jeroen Oerlemans Ad de Jong
Ad de Jong is Professor by Special Appointment of Dutch Cultural History at the University of Amsterdam. He has been a scientific researcher at The Dutch Open Air Museum in Arnhem since 1991. Dr. De Jong studied History and Museum Studies at Leiden University and has worked at The Netherlands Open Air Museum since 1981, first as Head of Research and Acquisitions and also as a Board Scientific Policy Officer since 1991.
In 2001 he received his doctorate with honours from the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, for his dissertation De dirigenten van de herinnering. Musealisering en nationalisering van de volkscultuur in Nederland 1815-1940 (The Conductors of Memory: Museumization and Nationalisation of Folk Culture in the Netherlands 1815-1940).
Prior to receiving his doctorate, De Jong also worked as Head of the Museums Policy Development Department in the then Ministry of Culture, Recreation Social Work. Dr. de Jong holds various advisory and board positions, including as an expert member in the field of Dutch Ethnology of the (Commissie Wet Behoud Cultuurbezit/Council for Culture’s Preservation of Cultural Heritage Act Committee), and as a member of the Board of Directors of the Germanisches Nationalmuseum (German National Museum in Nürnberg).
De Jong was a guest speaker for the panel The Guided View on museum presentations, and the construction of a national identity in Dutch historical canon, organised by Framer Framed in collaboration with the debate centre Tumult in Utrecht, on 24 March 2010.
