Niels De Nutte

Niels De Nutte graduated from the History Department at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in 2014. In 2019, he completed a postgraduate program Laïcité et Société at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. His research interests relate to the history of organized humanism, both in Belgium and abroad, and to that of bio-ethical issues. From 2017 until 2019, he worked as a historical researcher at CAVA. As of 2020, he prepares a PhD on the history of the issue of euthanasia in Belgium since the early 20th century, which the Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek awarded with a special PhD scholarship in 2023. In June 2023 he spent time as a visiting researcher at the Special Collections Archives of the University of Washington in Seattle.

He is an associate director at ISHASH and associate editor of Secular Studies. He was appointed program coordinator and guest lecturer for several subjects in the postgraduate program Praktisch Humanisme from 2021 to 2023.

He is currently affiliated to Odisee University College as a program coordinator and researcher and to the Union of Secular Associations (deMens.nu) as a researcher.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

• Niels De Nutte and Bert Gasenbeek, eds., Looking Back to Look Forward: Organised Humanism in the World. Belgium, Great Britain, the Netherlands and the United States of America (Brussels: VUBPress, 2019), 172p.
• Niels De Nutte and Anton Van Dyck, “Using data to combat religious persecution. The Freedom of Thought Report,” in International Journal for Religious Freedom 12, 1-2 (2019); 45-54.
• “So to live, one that one has also at the right time one’s will to death! Humanist euthanasia advocacy in Flanders between the 1970s and 1990s. A story of personal choice and therapeutic tenacity,” Essays in the Philosophy of Humanism 28 (2020), 29p.
• "In the face of death. Societal attitudes and popular opinion on medical aid and dying in Belgium 1936-1950," Secular Studies 4, no. 1 (Brill: 2022), 71-92.
• Jeffrey Tyssens, Niels De Nutte and Stefan Schröder, eds., The Non-religious and the State: Seculars crafting their lives in different frameworks from the Age of Revolution to the Current Day (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2024), 397p. (gold open access)