{"id":123334,"date":"2021-02-24T11:15:15","date_gmt":"2021-02-24T10:15:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=123334"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:25:25","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:25:25","slug":"roel-van-steensel-likes-to-get-lost-in-a-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2021\/02\/24\/roel-van-steensel-likes-to-get-lost-in-a-book\/","title":{"rendered":"Roel van Steensel likes to get lost in a book"},"content":{"rendered":"

How can we counter an increasingly widespread aversion to reading? This is one question that Roel van Steensel (43) focuses on in his research. He himself has always been an avid reader. He has bought more than one copy of Pascal Mercier\u2019s novel Perlmann’s Silence<\/em> as a present. \u201cIt puts the world of academia into perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Roel van Steensel<\/span><\/p>

\n\t\n\n<\/svg>\n<\/span>\n\tImage by:<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRonald van den Heerik<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>

From a very early age, educationist Roel van Steensel has enjoyed \u2018sitting tucked away somewhere with a book\u2019. His grandmother played an important part in developing his love of reading: \u201cWhen she was reading to me, she used to purposely make mistakes. She\u2019d expect me to correct her so the story would make sense again.\u201d Van Steensel grew up in a working-class neighbourhood in Tilburg. His mother wasn\u2019t much of a reader. His father\u2019s bookcase was full of detective novels. When Van Steensel switched from children\u2019s to adult literature in his final year of primary school, he started off with his father\u2019s collection. Which is why he still has a soft spot for Agatha Christie\u2019s whodunits.<\/p>\n\t

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Roel van Steensel is assistant professor at EUR. His research focuses on the development and socialisation of reading as an activity among children, adolescents and young adults. In addition, he is heading a study into aversion to reading among children. Van Steensel is also endowed professor of Reading Behaviour at VU University Amsterdam.<\/p>\n\n\t<\/div>\n

Reading had a certain prestige within Van Steensel\u2019s circle of friends in secondary school. \u201cBooks definitely weren\u2019t considered for nerds. Or perhaps my group of friends were nerds,\u201d he says with a smile. \u201cI remember Umberto Eco\u2019s The Name of the Rose <\/em>and The Secret History<\/em> by Donna Tartt being passed around. We were really into those two.\u201d The Secret History<\/em> is about a group of students who are in thrall of a Classics professor. Van Steensel and his friends also admired a teacher at their school. After obtaining his pre-university education diploma, he even considered studying classical languages. But he was less enthusiastic about having to move from Tilburg to Amsterdam, and ultimately decided to enrol in Linguistics and Culture Studies at Tilburg University.<\/p>\n

Reading is done alone<\/h2>

Van Steensel sees reading as an individual experience. \u201cIt gives me the opportunity to take a break from my current surroundings and immerse myself in a new world for a while.\u201d He can get so lost in his book that he doesn\u2019t even hear it when his two children ask him something. As a reader, he tends to identify with the protagonist \u2013 he is curious to find out how he or she develops. \u201cNot always, though. Some time ago, I was reading Gewassen vlees<\/em><\/a> by Thomas Rosenboom. The protagonist was a nasty fellow. I disliked him so much that I put the book aside, never to reopen it. I simply wasn\u2019t interested in what happened to him next.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perlmann\u2019s silence<\/h2>

One book that will always stay with Van Steensel is Perlmann\u2019s Silence<\/a><\/em> by Pascal Mercier. He has even presented this novel, which deftly puts the world of academia into perspective, as a gift during a fellow professor\u2019s inauguration. Mercier writes of a Professor of Linguistics in the autumn of his career who starts to doubt his added value. He does not have any big ideas that could cement his position in the academic community. He\u2019s afraid of being found out as a fraud, and considers a career as a translator of other people\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

Van Steensel can identify with the protagonist\u2019s feelings of uncertainty. After obtaining his doctorate he set to work as a postdoc, meaning he had to support and supervise doctoral candidates. \u201cThere were moments when I remember thinking: \u2018I have to do something else\u2019. Similar to the hero in the book, I considered translating other people\u2019s work rather than shaping my own ideas.\u201d He has since learned that science isn\u2019t solely dependent on big ideas. He\u2019s become more receptive to the simple pleasures of straightforward research. And his position as endowed professor of Reading Behaviour at VU University Amsterdam has contributed to this awareness. \u201cThat appointment was a boost to my confidence. When you\u2019re a professor, people see you as a professor. Other people showed confidence in me, and as a result I gained more confidence in myself too.\u201d<\/p>\n\t

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Reading behaviour<\/strong><\/p>\n

Key motive for reading: To relax<\/p>\n

Books read per year: 15-20<\/p>\n

Favourite genre: Novels, including historical novels<\/p>\n

Last-read book: Never Let Me Go<\/a><\/em> by Kazuo Ishiguro<\/p>\n\n\t<\/div>\n

Writing a mystery novel<\/h2>

Pascal Mercier was a Professor of Philosophy himself, and wrote Perlmann\u2019s Silence<\/em> during a sabbatical. As an author, he did not so much find his voice in science as in writing fiction. This isn\u2019t something Van Steensel aspires to. Not yet, at any rate. \u201cRight now, I don\u2019t feel the urgent need to write a novel. But I do like puzzles. And performing research can be like laying a puzzle. I occasionally say to my wife that after retirement I\u2019d like to start on a new type of puzzle: writing a mystery novel.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\t

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The previous page-turner<\/h2>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t