Author: René van Weeren

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Recently, the N.W. Posthumus staff, supported by the General Board of the N.W. Posthumus Institute, has decided to stop using X, formerly known as Twitter, for new announcements. This decision has been made as a result of the current developments surrounding the X platform.

As mentioned in our statement on social safety, we want our students, staff, and any other person or party involved with the N.W. Posthumus Institute to feel at ease, mutually respected, and included. This not only applies to our own events, but also extends to our online presence and use of social media. Also, we favour an open society with mutual respect to one another.

Recent events have shown that the X platform repeatedly has fallen short in monitoring and responding adequately to messages of a discriminatory and/or offensive nature. The management of X has also shown not to be able to respond in a decent and respectable way in dealing with these events.

These developments, in addition to the already previously implemented limitations in accessibility of the X platform have led us to believe that the use of this platform is no longer compatible with the norms and values supported by the N.W. Posthumus Institute. We therefore will stop using the platform actively, effective 1 March 2024. Our account will remain visible for some time for redirection purposes, but will not be used for active communication from our side.

The N.W. Posthumus Institute will instead join the initiative supported by SURF and the Dutch universities to use the open-source social platform Mastodon as alternative to Twitter. This platform is server-based and moderated via the server owners, so not by a large commercial party. Joining the SURF-pilot allows us to start right away within a trusted and well-embedded logistic environment.

We hope you do understand and respect our decision. Keep a close eye on the website and newsletter about any new developments and join us on Mastodon.

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A few months ago, Heidi Deneweth announced her retirement, which also implied her farewell as Confidential Advisor (vertrouwenspersoon) for PhDs enrolled in the Posthumus PhD Training Programme. We thank Heidi very much for her conscious fulfillment of this position.

We are happy to inform you that Torsten Feys, affiliated researcher at Flanders Marine Institute and Antwerp University has agreed to take over the position of Confidential Advisor in Flanders as of 1 March 2024. We thank Torsten for accepting this position.

Torsten Feys works as of 2020 as research coordinator at the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ). His research focuses on tourism, migration and maritime history. He is also affiliated with the University of Antwerp as visiting professor. Torsten obtained his PhD from the European University Institute (Firenze) on a thesis on the Holland Amerika Lijn and the commercialisation of transatlantic migration (1830-1914). As a postdoc, he worked at Ghent University on the impact of transport companies on migration policies and at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel on the functioning of the Belgian foreigners’ police and its expulsion policies before 1914.

As Confidential Advisors, both Torsten Feys and Elise van Nederveen Meerkerk (in the Netherlands) may be contacted by any Posthumus PhD candidate or (R)MA student who may have concerns or complaints about inappropriate behaviour within the context of Posthumus teaching activities. The confidential advisors will explore possible solutions together with you, and will point out appropriate institutional support if necessary. The advisors will also register complaints and report to the Executive Committee and the Scientific Director, so appropriate action can be taken. It goes without saying that every step in this process will occur in consultation with you and is based on anonymity. You can find more info on the website via the button below.

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PROFILE PAGE TORSTEN FEYS AT VLIZ

From January 2024, the four technical universities (Eindhoven University of Technology, Wageningen University & Research (both institutions also participating in the N.W. Posthumus Institute), Delft University of Technology, and University of Twente) are pooling their knowledge and expertise in the field of the history of technology in 4TU History of Technology. The new centre aims to provide students, engineers and the wider audience with a historical awareness of the role that technology and engineers played in societal transitions in the past two centuries, as well as to develop working methods that makes such knowledge actionable today. 4TU.History of Technology will stimulate and facilitate research, education and public debate on the role of technology in societal transitions then and now.

4TU.History of Technology facilitates and stimulates collaborative research in the history of technology and socio-environmental change. It focuses on the so-called twin green and digital transition(s), which currently sparks heated political, public and academic debate, and is pooling research as well as educational activities and initiatives of the four technical universities.

To this purpose, the Centre is currently developing an umbrella research agenda and network able to inspire research applications and host a plethora of collaborative research projects and other initiatives. The Centre organizes regular workshops, conferences, exchange visits and summer schools, and more and collaborates with international associations in the field.

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After having served successfully for several years as Research Network Coordinators of the Research Network ‘Life-Courses, Family, and Labour’, Paul Puschmann and Corinne Boter have decided to hand over their position to two successors. We are happy to inform you that Sanne Muurling and Evelien Walhout have accepted to act as new Research Network Coordinators. The network ‘Life-courses, Family, and Labour’ aims to bring together the fields of demographic and labour history to better understand the long-term development of populations, households, and the gender division of labour from the early modern age until the present.

We welcome both Sanne and Evelien as new Research Network Coordinators, and want to express our sincere thanks to Paul Puschmann and Corinne Boter for their succesful activities and initiatives as Research Coordinators over the past years.

Sanne Muurling is Assistant Professor of Social History, with an expertise in the dynamics of gender and social inequalities in the lives of ordinary people between 1600 and 1900. Through topics such as crime and mortality she asks how categories such as gender, socioeconomic status, single motherhood, migration background, or the place where someone lived determined what opportunities someone had in life. She obtained her PhD (2019) from the VU Amsterdam on her research on gender dynamics in crime in early modern Bologna, later also resulting in a book publication Everyday crime, criminal justice and gender in early modern Bologna (Brill Publishers, 2021). Since then, Sanne has been affiliated with the project ‘Lifting the burden of disease. The modernization of health in the Netherlands: Amsterdam 1854-1940’ and is an editor at TSEG – The Low Countries Journal of Social and Economic History.

PROFILE PAGE

Evelien Walhout is Assistant Professor of Economic and Social History, with a special interest in historical demography and gender history. She obtained her PhD on morbidity and mortality patterns of infants and children in 19th and early 20th-century Netherlands in 2019 (Sociology, Tilburg University). She is also President of the International Committee for Historical Demography (ICHD), member of the board of the Yearbook of Women’s History, and affiliated member of the Radboud Group for Historical Demography and Family History in Nijmegen.

PROFILE PAGE

You may have noticed it already, but the appearance of our website has been slightly redesigned. Because of the number of news items and because some messages appeared in several categories at the same time, messages appeared to get ‘out of sight’ (i.e. moved down the list) soon after their initial publication.

We hope to have solved this problem and have made the homepage a bit more structured by adding new categories: new are the respective lists with Calls and Positions at the bottom of the page. In the near future, we will also add more events to the Seminars overview. We hope you like this new look, suggestions for improvement remain however always welcome!

We are happy to inform you that Nicolas Brenninkmeijer has agreed to join the group of PhD representatives of the N.W. Posthumus Institute. The PhD Representatives represent the PhD participants enrolled in the PhD Training Programme of the N.W. Posthumus Institute. New developments and proposed changes related to the PhD Training are proposed to and discussed with the PhD representatives before final proposals are made and/or implemented.

Nicolas is member of the 2023 PhD Cohort of the N.W. Posthumus Institute and affiliated as PhD in the joint research project ‘Ancestor’s Tale: 200 years of inequality in Belgium’ of Vrije Universiteit Brussel and University of Antwerp. We are glad and grateful Nicolas has joined the group of PhD representatives.

Nicolas Brenninkmeijer	Cécile Bruyet	Silke Geven	Dinos Sevdalakis

On 28 March 2024, Posthumus alumna Arlinde Vrooman successfully defended her thesis ‘Here to Heal? The Effect of Colonial Rule on Disease and Health Care in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire: ca. 1900-1955’ at the Faculty of Economics and Business of the University of Groningen. Promotors are Professors Jutta Bolt and Herman de Jong (both University of Groningen).

We congratulate Arlinde with her PhD!

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