Susan Legêne

(1955) is a historian and professor of political history at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. Legêne has published numerous lectures and articles, including on the interface between (colonial) history and museology. In 2010 her publication Spiegelreflex: culturele sporen van de koloniale ervaring (Mirror reflex: cultural traces of the colonial experience) appeared. From 1985, Legêne was attached to the Royal Tropical Institute, since 1997 as Head of Museum Affairs at the Tropenmuseum. In addition, Legêne is a member of the National UNESCO Commission and a member of the Ethical Code Committee for Museums. She is project leader of the Indonesian/Dutch research project Sites, Bodies & Stories (The Dynamics of Heritage Formation in Colonial & Postcolonial Indonesia & the Netherlands), on the relationship between heritage, image processes, citizenship and national identity. She also participates in the research project Agora/The semantics of History, on digital access to heritage collections and historical awareness.