Category: Agenda

On 14 and 15 November 2024 the conference ‘Back to the Future: Thinking about Futures in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe and Beyond’ will be held in Antwerp and online.

This conference is directly related to the ERC-funded project ‘Back to the Future: Future expectations and actions in late medieval and early modern Europe, c.1400-c.1830’. The Back2theFuture project tries to answer the question of what people did in the past think about the future and how this affected their actions. It draws on a highly innovative combination of close and distant reading methods for more than 15,000 letters written in Dutch, English, French, German and Italian – by and to European merchants – in the period 1400-1830. These practical documents enable the identification the merchants’ thinking and shed light on their future expectations. By reviewing letters from various European regions and over a span of several hundred years, the project will be able to identify transformations.

Registration is required and can be done via the webpage (see button below), preferably before 15 October 2024.

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Organisers Yuliya Hilevych, Karen Hollewand and Hanneke de Boer (all University of Groningen) will organise a mini-conference on the topic ’40 years of abortion legislation in the Netherlands’

Legal abortion access and provision cannot be taken for granted. While some states have made abortion illegal again today, there are also states that – on the contrary – ensure this right by putting it into their constitution. Histories of legal abortion and journeys towards it matter and they need to be remembered and acknowledged. 1 November 2024 marks 40 years since abortion was legislated in the Netherlands. However, it is still debatable if it can be seen as fully legislated. This mini-conference aims to bring into a conversation the historical and contemporary perspectives on abortion legalisation, abortion travel, abortion care and activism in the Netherlands and internationally.

Those interested to attend, are asked to register ultimately 30 October 2024.

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The researchers involved in the recently completed project ‘(Re)counting the Uncounted’ welcome you at the project presentation on 16 October 2024 at the International Institute of Social History. In this project, funded by the Dutch Research Council NWO, the researchers have taken on the challenge of replicating and testing the findings of four so-called cornerstone publications that provided medieval and/or early modern population estimates for the Netherlands and Belgium. The presentations will mark the formal end of the project, and the release of the first set of data and results to the public.

Thus far, more than 2,000 censuses (of hearths, communicants, houses, individuals, etc.), dating from the mid-fourteenth to mid-nineteenth centuries, from all parts of the Low Countries, including areas now in France and Germany, have been traced and catalogued. About 750 of these have been used in one or more of the four studies in question. Well over 600 censuses are now fully processed, with 75,000 observations linked to the correct historical administrative areas using a specially designed historical GIS dataset: ‘Historical Atlas of the Low Countries’. The latest public versions of the datasets can be found at the website datasets.iisg.amsterdam.

GIS Tutorial

Preceding the presentation, between 10:00 and 14:00, there will be a hands-on tutorial for a maximum of eight people interested in working with the data in combination with the GIS maps. Lunch will be provided. Expert knowledge of GIS is not required, but we do ask that participants have QGIS installed on their laptops and are familiar with the software. If more than eight people register, the organisers may make a selection based on how immediately useful the training will be to their research. If you wish to bring your own data, this is possible, but consultation in advance would be appreciated. For more information, contact Rombert Stapel.

How to register

Please let your attendance known by sending an email to the IISH. Please make it clear whether you will be attending the presentations only or (also) the data tutorial in the morning.

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Op donderdag 19 september wordt wederom de Scriptieprijs Brabantse Geschiedenis uitgereikt aan degene die de beste masterscriptie over de Brabantse geschiedenis schreef. Ook promovendus Matthias Van Laer (Uantwerpen en Posthumus alumnus) is één van de genomineerden met een scriptie getiteld: “Vermogensongelijkheid en leeftijd in België. Casus Borgerhout, 1856-1920”. Succes Matthias en de andere genomineerden!

Meer informatie:
https://stichtingzhc.nl/2024/09/01/uitreiking-scriptieprijs-brabantse-geschiedenis-19-september-2024/

On 17 October 2024, Posthumus alumnus Ewout Hasken will defend his PhD thesis ‘From Rags to Riches: Changing Perceptions of Family Business in the Netherlands, 1945-2019’ at Utrecht University. Promotores are Professor Bas van Bavel and Professor Naomi Ellemers (both Utrecht University), co-promotor is Dr Gerarda Westerhuis, previously Assistant Professor at Utrecht University and currently Sectoral Economist Retail and Leisure at ABN AMRO Bank.

Right before the start of the formal defence ceremony, between 10:15 and 10:30, Ewout will deliver a ‘layman’s speech’ to introduce his research topic to the audience present.

We wish Ewout a successful defence!

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The organisers of the Economic and Social History seminar series at Utrecht University cordially invite you to the lecture ‘Climate, economy and society in the Netherlands, 1579-1800’ by Jan de Vries, Ehrman Professor Emeritus at UC Berkeley. The lecture will be held on 15 October 2024, 4-6 pm, at Janskerkhof 2-3, room 0.21.

Jan de Vries has constructed a series of annual data on winter temperatures in Holland, starting in 1579. He will explain the creation of this data-set but, more importantly, what the data can tell us about the changes in the local climate during the Little Ice Age, and its impact on the Dutch economy and society at a time when the Dutch dominated world trade and managed to become arguably the richest people in the world.

Jan de Vries is professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is one of the most-cited economic historians of his generation and famous for his work on both Dutch and European economic history. His books include (with Ad van der Woude) The First Modern Economy: Success, Failure, and Perseverance of the Dutch Economy, 1500-1815 (1997), The Industrious Revolution: Consumer Behavior and the Household Economy, 1650 to the Present (2008), and The Price of Bread: Regulating the Market in the Dutch Republic (2019).

Attending is free of charge and no reservation is required. However: full is full, members of the ESH group at Utrecht University will have priority.

Keynote speaker is professor Richard Hoffmann, esteemed author of ‘The Catch: An Environmental History of Medieval European Fisheries’ and ‘An Environmental History of Medieval Europe’. If you would like to attend, flease fill out the form: Sign up!

The Organising Committee on behalf of the Assistant Professors involved in the Sector plan theme ‘Cultural Heritage and Identity’ is cordially inviting participants to the very first National Sector Plan Conference ‘Cultural Heritage and Identity’ organised by the Dutch faculties in Arts and Humanities and hosted by Erasmus University Rotterdam. The conference is intended for all staff involved in the sector plan theme.

The conference (which will be held in English) will facilitate roundtable discussions on national cooperation in education, research, and dissemination. Additionally, there will be time for networking and exchange.

To keep track of the number of potential participants, pre-registration (without final commitment) is possible via the button below.

TO PRE-REGISTRATION FORM