{"id":862,"date":"2022-10-18T13:31:00","date_gmt":"2022-10-18T11:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/erasmusxxi.eu\/?p=862"},"modified":"2026-03-19T15:54:42","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T14:54:42","slug":"erasmus-in-leuven-why-do-you-ask","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/erasmusxxi.eu\/index.php\/en\/2022\/10\/18\/erasmus-in-leuven-why-do-you-ask\/","title":{"rendered":"Erasmus in Leuven: “Why are you asking?”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

“Because I hope for such answers as yours,” I reply when in the Erasmus House at KU Leuven, a psychology professor interrupts his praise of Erasmus by asking why I am actually asking him and his colleague about Erasmus. “Erasmus deserves great admiration, he was critical but open and constructive, humane and peaceful, solution-oriented and mediating, in short a true paragon for what we wish for in contemporary Europe.” What can I add to that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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For some history students, Erasmus is too new: “He’s from after 1500, right? We haven’t had that yet,” but fortunately one student upholds the honor of the course and links past and present. And furthermore, I learn that Erasmus was controversial and that Erasmus House has, above all, a pleasant library in which to study, attracting students from all kinds of studies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Code switching<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through Erasmus experts Marijke Crab and especially Raf Van Rooy, I was invited to join the Erasmian city walk in the afternoon to conclude the cross-disciplinary workshop on Latin-Greek code-switching in early modernity. Code-switching: that’s not about changing codes of conduct (like Erasmus’ introduction of table manners, which impressed many of my respondents), but – as I understood it – for example, that Erasmus also gave a Greek title to his Laus Stultitiae (Praise of Folly): Moriae Encomium, which in turn is nice because he dedicates the book to Thomas More, who, however, is not a fool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Raf has already announced me as an “Erasmus hunter”. Not 21st-century, but impressive to keep in the library an authentic letter by the hand of Erasmus – manu propria – and first editions of several works. Typical for the contemporary Leuven is that a statue of him is surrounded by bicycles; apparently I am not the only one who finds Erasmus and bicycles a logical combination. While walking I learn more about Erasmus, Latin and Belgian bicycle highways. The walk ends at the trilingual college – collegium trilingue – that Erasmus founded, but where he did not stay long because he was indeed controversial: he was considered to be too liberal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Because I hope for such answers as yours,” I reply when in the Erasmus House at KU Leuven, a psychology professor interrupts his praise of Erasmus by asking why I am actually asking him and his colleague about Erasmus. “Erasmus deserves great admiration, he was critical but open and constructive, humane and peaceful, solution-oriented and… <\/p>\n

Lees <\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-zonder-categorie-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/erasmusxxi.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/erasmusxxi.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/erasmusxxi.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erasmusxxi.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erasmusxxi.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=862"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/erasmusxxi.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1618,"href":"https:\/\/erasmusxxi.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862\/revisions\/1618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/erasmusxxi.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erasmusxxi.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erasmusxxi.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}