Master lecturer Erik-Jan Broers concludes with vampires, rats and executioners

One more lecture by Erik-Jan Broers, for that former students gladly return to a lecture room in Tilburg. After 35 years, it is time for this legal history lecturer to retire. That can not pass unnoticed, which is why his current students organise a special farewell lecture on Wednesday 7 May.

It was only at the last minute and with some ingenuity, that law student Antje Beers manages to get enrolled in the very last master’s course in Legal History of Criminal Law by Erik-Jan Broers. She doesn’t want to miss the last chance to have lessons from him.

‘Legendary’, she calls him and not without reason. Since 1990, Broers has been voted best lecturer several times, despite his dusty-sounding subject of Legal History. ‘I was voted the best lecturer at the Faculty of Law so many times that after the tenth time I let it be known that I was no longer participating,’ Broers says in an interview.

His last lecture should therefore be something special, his students think. And with superfan Beers as organizer, a special farewell lecture is organized. After a message on LinkedIn, registrations and reactions from former students pour in. Eventually, dozens of them manage to find their way back to lecture hall CZ 114. Some of them are students from the early 90s.

‘Antje is the president of my promotion and propaganda machine,’ Broers states. Before he starts, he admits that this is not really his very last lecture, let alone course. The master’s course in criminal history does end for him. But next academic year he will come back for one last trick: lectures on European Legal History for bachelor’s students.

Dracula

For this performance, Broers has planned something original, a lecture on Dracula. Especially about the many films that have been made of Bram Stoker’s famous book. Brothers jumps from the movies to the belief in vampires, their relationship with rats and the plague epidemics, life and work of Vlad III (the original Dracula) and back again to the most recent Dracula movies.

He connects vampirism and suicide, ‘it will be a really gloomy lecture.’ In the meantime, we also visit the trial of Johan van Oldenbarneveldt, the book chests of Hugo Grotius and executioner’s work in Brabant. Current students present can benefit from that: ‘Those who are studying legal history with me now get a kind of rehearsal for the exam.’

Hybrid

The lecture is preceded by a video message from Rector Magnificus Wim van de Donk, who does not want to let the opportunity pass quietly either. Because: ‘The kind of lectures he gave has a unique quality that has inspired generations of students.’ They have known each other for years, Broers recalls, even when Van de Donk was still teaching at the law faculty. ‘We were once on the automation committee together. He threw me out because I never came.’

Broers is not only a gifted storyteller, as is also evident from the columns he wrote for Univers for years, he also has his own form of hybrid education. With ‘competitions, film tips, quartet marathons and competitions’, as he writes when announcing his course.

‘He does so much special for students,’ says Antje Beers, ‘for example, he had an emergency line for questions the night before the exam. He sacrifices his own free time for his students. He also sees you as a person and not as a student number, while with others you often feel so anonymous.’

Nameplate

When the applause after the lecture is over, the presents and gifts arrive. For example, a fan book, with messages from former students and colleagues who could not attend.

He also gets his own street sign: Erik-Jan Broersgang. That will be hung on ‘his’ fourth floor of the Montesquieu building.

‘He deserves a monument like that,’ says Beers. ‘At the bottom is his quote Giving lecture is theatre. End with a bow, hopefully that will inspire other teachers as well.’