Bernard McGinn (Naomi Shenstone Donnelley Professor emeritus, University of Chicago Divinity School): "To everyone interested in the history of spirituality and mysticism, especially in the Low Countries, the Ruusbroec Institute affiliated with the University of Antwerp is an indispensable treasure. The rich library of the Institute offers an unrivaled resource of manuscripts, incunabula, books and journals for the study of spirituality and the Institute’s own journal, Ons Geestelijk Erf, is necessary reading for all scholars in the field of spirituality. A warm salute to the Institute as it celebrates its ninetieth birthday!"
Frits van Oostrom (Professor, Universiteit Utrecht): “Het Ruusbroecgenootschap - 90 jaar met hoofd en hart.” ('The Ruusbroec Institute - 90 years with head and heart')
Walter Melion (Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Art History, Emory University, Atlanta): “The Ruusbroec Institute, along with its splendid library, has long been a guiding light for scholars of religious culture in the early modern Low Countries; indeed, for all of us it functions as a veritable lodestar.”
Alexandra Walsham (Professor of Modern History, Trinity College, Cambridge): “The Ruusbroec Institute has been a unique focal point for scholarship on the distinctive spirituality of the late medieval and early modern Low Countries for nearly a century. The rich and impressive collections of its library make it a vitally important resource for religious historians, while its journal is a key forum for disseminating research on these compelling themes. The 90th anniversary of its foundation in 1925 provides an incentive to celebrate its achievements and to predict its continued vitality for many more decades.”
Craig Harline (Professor of History, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah): “The two months that I spent at the Ruusbroecgenootschap in the spring of 2006 are still among my fondest memories as a scholar. The members of the Genootschap, the librarians, and nearby historians at the University of Antwerp were exceptionally welcoming to yet another foreigner in their midst, and the surroundings and collection were ideal for research and thinking, including about my topic, which was the relationship between old seventeenth-century spirituality and spirituality today.”
Barbara Zimbalist (Assistant Professor, Department of English, University of Texas): “The year I spent as a guest researcher at the University of Antwerp’s Ruusbroec Institute deeply influenced my academic and intellectual life. The opportunity to work alongside prolific scholars with wide ranging research interests in religious history, literature, and culture inspired my work in new directions. While the Institute’s collections may be focused on the past, the work that it makes possible contributes in profound ways to our current understanding of religious heritage, and demonstrates the great benefits of interdisciplinary work that reveals a more comprehensive view of the past and its impact on the present.”