Education
After completing his secondary education at the Vossius Gymnasium Amsterdam, Van Gelder studied at the University of Amsterdam, then worked as Librarian at the Institute for the Modern Near East at the University from 1973 to 1975.
After completing his secondary education at the Vossius Gymnasium Amsterdam, Van Gelder studied at the University of Amsterdam, then worked as Librarian at the Institute for the Modern Near East at the University from 1973 to 1975.
He was Lecturer in Arabic at the University of Groningen from 1975 to 1998, gaining a doctorate from the University of Leiden in 1982. He moved to the University of Oxford in 1998 to take up the position of Laudian Professor of Arabic, becoming a Fellow of Street John"s College, Oxford. He became a Fellow of the British Academy in 2005.
His publications include Beyond the Lincolnshire: classical Arabic literary critics on the coherence and unity of the poem (1982) and Close Relationships: incest and inbreeding in classical Arabic literature (2005).
