Doing the document: Gender studies at the corporatized university in Europe. Part 2: Answering the sixtyfour- thousand-dollar question

11 September 2012. It is beautiful outside. Lingering summer. We are gathered at Castrum
Peregrini at the Herengracht in Amsterdam, our inter(p)lace, to celebrate the hundredth
birthday of Castrum Peregrini’s grand old lady Gisèle van Waterschoot van der Gracht.
Michael, inter(p)lace Castrum Peregrini’s current director, is holding the microphone
and recollects some memories from Gisèle’s incredible life, which has been connected to
all the grand histories of last century’s Europe. Her paintings have been brought to the
reception space for the occasion, a moving self-portrait among others. Look, there is our
student Anaïs; she is currently fulfilling her internship at Castrum anticipating further
cooperation with this cultural heritage site. And there is our former Minister of
Emancipation. She must be in her seventies by now, and was one of our panelists at the
7th European Feminist Research Conference, hosted by Utrecht University. She is
waving to us while holding Gisèle’s hand and talking loudly into her ear. Gisèle is dressed
as if she just arrived from 1930s Paris’s left bank. Although we are in the process of
digesting two major rejections of our intended EU research project with Castrum
Peregrini: this is still our presence.