Daan Kok

Daan was previously curator of the Japanese, Korean, and Chinese collections of the Royal Museum of Art and History in Brussels. His scholarly interest involves themes of image-text relationship, class and social networks, and cultural nostalgia. He explores this interest in research projects on Japanese art and material culture of the Edo period, specifically woodblock printed prints (ukiyo-e) and books, and the history of (kyōka) poetry.  Daan studied Japanese language and culture in Maastricht and Leiden. In 2003 he graduated with honors from Leiden University, on the topic of surimono (Japanese woodblock prints from around 1800 incorporating both poetry and illustrations). For his PhD research, he continued his investigation of surimono, including poetry books commissioned by the same groups of poets. This research was conducted in collections in Europe, the United States, and Japan. Currently, Daan coordinates a large-scale digitization project of the Japanese prints and books in the collections of the Wereldmuseum Leiden. 

His most recent publications include 「フィッセル蒐集の狂歌本」 (“Kyōka books collected by Fisscher”), in National Institute of Japanese Literature (Ed.)『シーボルト日本書籍コレクション　現存書目録と研究  Japanese books in the Von Siebold collection: a catalog and further research, 2015, and Hokusai: Coup d’oeil sur les deux rives du fleuve Sumida, suivi de Le fleuve Yodo par Akatsuki no Kanenari (Paris: Éditions Hazan, 2012).