Category: Agenda

On 12 March 2025, Posthumus fellow Jan Dumoulyn, Professor of History at Ghent University, will deliver the inaugural lecture for the Chaire Francqui 2024-2025 at the University of Namur. The lecture will be titled ‘Een canon, een verhaal en de kritiek – La vulgarisation de l’histoire “nationale” en Belgique et en Flandre’ [‘A canon, a story, and the critique – The vulgarisation of national history in Belgium and in Flanders’].

The Francqui Chair, existing since 1933, is one of the cornerstone initiatives of the Foundation Francqui. This Chair encourages the collaboration and exchanges between (mostly Belgian) Universities. This, in turn, enriches academic environments, advances academic excellence and interdisciplinary research, and also contributes to strengthen the different universities’ reputations. The inaugural lesson of such a cycle is usually the opportunity to bring together all the personalities of the discipline concerned.

The inaugural lecture forms the start of a series of lectures by Professor Dumoulyn at the University of Namur on the theme ‘Histoire urbaine et tensions sociales – Les Pays-Bas méridionaux avant 1302’ [‘Urban history and social tensions – The Southern Netherlands before 1302’]:

• Thursday 27 March 2025, 08:30-10:30 – Croissance économique et urbanisation dans les Pays-Bas méridionaux au haut Moyen Âge : une reconsidération [‘Economic growth and urbanisation in the Southern Netherlands in the high Middle Ages – a reconsideration’]
• Thursday 3 April 2025, 08:30-10:30 – Le mouvement communal oublié de la Flandre [‘The mandatory communal movement of Flanders’]
• Thursday 10 April 2025, 08:30-10:30 – Le XIIIe siècle, période clé de l’histoire urbaine des Pays-Bas méridionaux [‘The 13th century, key period to the urban history of the Southern Netherlands’] (link not available yet)
• Thursday 17 April 2025, 08:30-10:30 – La vague révolutionnaire de 1280-1302 [‘The revolutionary wave of 1280-1302’]

To attend the inaugural lecture and the reception afterwards it will be required to register before 1 March 2025 via Florence Pierre of the University of Namur.

For info on attending the lectures, please visit the webpage of the lecture involved.

MORE INFO

On Monday 17 February 2025 the Department of International Economics at Radboud University will host Dr Maanik Nath (Utrecht University) for a lecture entitled ‘Drivers of Agricultural Growth in British India’ in the departmental seminar lecture series.
All those interested are welcome to join the seminar. For more info you may contact Dr Vincent Delabastita.

On 19 March 2025, Posthumus alumna Ramona Negrón will defend the PhD thesis ‘Dutch Entrepreneurship in the Spanish Americas, 1580-1700’ at Leiden University. Supervisors are Professor Cátia Antunes (Leiden University) and Dr Susana Münch Miranda (Universidade Nova de Lisboa).

Ramona’s dissertation shows that Dutch entrepreneurs, notably Amsterdam’s influential Coymans family, played a crucial role in the Spanish Americas from 1580 to 1700. In an era of dramatic geopolitical shifts — like the Eighty Years’ War (1568-1648) and the Fall of Antwerp (1585) — Dutch merchants turned Amsterdam into a center of world trade. They broke through barriers designed to keep them out of Spanish colonial markets by using clever tactics like innovative financing, strategic partnerships, and flexible shipping methods. Drawing on a rich collection of notarial records, personal documents, and court files from the Netherlands, Spain, the Caribbean, and Latin America, the study reveals how trust and reputation were built across vast distances and diverse legal systems. Ultimately, this research challenges traditional, empire-centered interpretations of trade by revealing that early modern trade thrived on dynamic, interconnected networks that transcended rigid imperial boundaries.

The defence ceremony will also be streamed via the live-stream of Leiden University.

The N.W. Posthumus Institute staff wishes Ramona a successful defence!

The Fryske Akademy, the Mercator European Research Centre on Multilingualism and Language Learning, the Professorship Multilingualism and Literacy of NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences, the department of Frisian Studies of the University of Groningen, and the department Language, Technology and Culture of UG/Campus Fryslân have announced the Third Conference on Frisian Humanities. This year’s theme will be ‘Bridges and Boundaries: Fryslân in a Global Context’. Plenary speakers will be (all confirmed) Professor Alderik Blom (Philipps-Universität Marburg), Professor Marguérite Corporaal (Radboud University), Professor Peter Gilles (Université du Luxembourg), and Dr Caterina Sugranyes, Universitat Ramón Llull, Barcelona (Spain).

Proposals submission deadline passed 16 March 2025.

FULL INFO

On 14 February 2025, Posthumus alumnus Jasper Segerink (cohort 2020) successfully defended his thesis ‘The Lodging House and the City. Accommodating Migrants in Urban Space, Antwerp, 1850-1914’ to obtain his PhD from the University of Antwerp at the Felixarchief in Antwerp.

Jaspers dissertation studies the lodging house sector and its relation to changes in migration and urbanisation in Antwerp during the late nineteenth century (ca. 1850-1914). Although omnipresent in the historical cityscape, the lodging house features only scarcely in the works of historians. This dissertation aims to fill in this gap by treating the lodging house is treated both as an expression of these transition – and thus a peculiar historical phenomenon meriting an understanding of its own internal mechanisms – and a lens on them, a key site to investigate how such transformations reverberated in the lives of ordinary people. With this goal in mind, this thesis adopts an approach that is fundamentally spatial and relational across scales. This method is applied through novel digital tools like GIS-mapping and building biographies, to a broad variety of sources ranging from police documents, legislative texts, population and lodging registers, newspapers, and historical novels and imagery.

The N.W. Posthumus Institute staff congratulates Jasper with obtaining his PhD!

De bijeenkomst van 4 februari 2025 vervangt de origineel voor 14 november 2024 geplande workshop die in verband met de landelijke actiedag tegen de bezuinigingen op hoger onderwijs was uitgesteld.

~ because of scope in Dutch only ~

In het licht van de groeiende maatschappelijke belangstelling voor inkomensongelijkheid en de verdeling van winsten, organiseert het NEHA een workshop die deze urgente thema’s onder de loep neemt. Deze workshop is bedoeld om verschillende perspectieven te verkennen en inzichten te delen over inkomensongelijkheid en winstverdeling, zowel op nationaal als internationaal niveau. Ook de rol van banken in deze kwesties komt uitgebreid aan bod.

De workshop is er op gericht traditionele academische grenzen te overstijgen door een breed scala aan maatschappelijke partijen te betrekken bij het debat over economische ongelijkheid middels het delen van expertise en het bevorderen van de dialoog tussen diverse belanghebbenden. Drie van de vijf sprekers komen vanuit de academische wereld (onder wie Posthumus-alumnus Amaury de Vicq), de andere twee vanuit het maatschappelijke veld. De verschillende sprekers zullen elk verschillende aspecten van economische ongelijkheid belichten.

De workshop is vrij toegankelijk.

MEER INFO

Let op: in een eerdere versie van dit bericht was een foutieve datum vermeld; de correcte datum is 4 februari 2025.

~ because of scope, in Dutch only ~

Op 21 maart 2025 vindt in Amsterdam het jaarcongres 2025 van Werkgroep de Moderne Tijd plaats. In dit jaarcongres van Werkgroep de Moderne Tijd van 2025 staat de vraag centraal welke rol ‘de Toekomst’ speelde in de geschiedenis van Nederland en België, inclusief de koloniën in de periode 1780-1940. Hoe kreeg de toekomst vorm in politiek, cultuur, kunst, literatuur en wetenschap? Hierbij wordt niet alleen gekeken naar de rol van avant-gardisten en andere artistieke, politieke en intellectuele voorlopers, maar wordt ook expliciet de aandacht verlegd naar de betekenis van de toekomst bij het grotere publiek, als lezer, filmkijker, consument, maar ook als dagboekschrijver en ondernemer. Dagvoorzitter is Lotte Jensen, hoogleraar Nederlandse literatuur- en cultuurgeschiedenis aan de Radboud Universiteit te Nijmegen.

Deelnemers kunnen zich aanmelden via e-mail uiterlijk 14 maart 2025; er is een financiële bijdrage van toepassing, voor studenten en PhD-kandidaten geldt een gereduceerd tarief. Voor details, download de info als pdf via de knop hieronder.

MEER INFO (download Pdf)

The rector magnificus of the Erasmus University Rotterdam announces that Dr A. (Arthur) van Riel, appointed as endowed Professor of Historical Political Economy at Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication, on behalf of Stichting Erasmus Trustfonds, will publicly accept his appointment on Friday, 24 January with an inaugural lecture entitled ‘The welfare state as expectation. On sustainability and historical political economy’.

The lecture will be followed by a public reception at the same location.

The lecture will also be streamed via an online link (see link in header).

FULL INVITATION (PDF)

On 7 February 2025, Professor Hein Klemann, Professor of Economic History and International Relations at the Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication, and former board member of the N.W. Posthumus Institute will deliver his public valedictory lecture, entitled ‘Dutch Shipbuilding and Colonies’.

The lecture will be followed by a public reception at the same location.

Those unable to attend in person can follow the lecture online (see link in header section).

The N.W. Posthumus Institute expresses its gratitude to Professor Klemann for his effort and activities for our organisation.

Full invitation (pdf)