The NGG is one of the oldest national organizations for the study of religion worldwide. It was founded in 1947 on the initiative of Gerardus van der Leeuw (1890-1950), professor of Phenomenology of Religions at the University of Groningen (a public university, or Rijksuniversiteit) as of 1918. In 1945, van der Leeuw became Minister of Education, Arts and Sciences (“Onderwijs, Kunsten en Wetenschappen”) under the first Dutch government after World War II, and he was instrumental in the reorganization of higher education in the postwar era. Documents that are preserved in the archives of van der Leeuw at the University Library in Groningen make it clear that he saw the foundation of the NGG as a necessary step to provide a solid institutional basis for scholars of religion to engage in interdisciplinary conversation. In the beginning, the acronym NGG stood for Nederlands Genootschap van Godsdiensthistorici (“Dutch Association for Historians of Religion”), but later the name was changed to its current form to express the interdisciplinary character of the study of religion.
Executive Committee of the NGG:
Dr. Ernst van den Hemel (Meertens Instituut), president
Dr. Justine M. Bakker (RU), general secretary
Dr. William Arfman, (Tilburg University), committee member
Dr Suzanne Klein Schaarsberg (Tilburg University), committee member
Dr. Elza Kuyk (VU), treasurer
Dr. Johanneke Kroesbergen (UvA), committee member
Arjan Sterken (RU), junior committee member
Dr. Dave Vliegenthart (UM), committee member
