Research School for Economic and Social History

Category: News

  • PhD Defence Posthumus alumna Ramona Negrón

    PhD Defence Posthumus alumna Ramona Negrón

    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!

  • 3rd Conference on Frisian Humanities

    3rd Conference on Frisian Humanities

    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

  • PhD Defence Posthumus alumnus Jasper Segerink

    PhD Defence Posthumus alumnus Jasper Segerink

    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!

  • KHMW Brouwer Vertrouwensprijs awarded to Team Collectieve Kracht

    KHMW Brouwer Vertrouwensprijs awarded to Team Collectieve Kracht

    The jury of the KHMW Brouwer Vertrouwensprijs [KHMW Brouwer Trust Award] has awarded the Brouwer Vertrouwensprijs 2025 to the knowledge platform CollectieveKracht, initiated by Posthumus fellow Tine De Moor, Professor Social Enterprises and Institutions for Collective Action at the research group Business-Society Management at the Rotterdam School of Management.

    CollectieveKracht is the knowledge exchange platform for citizens’ collectives. CollectieveKracht aims to put citizens’ collectives of all kinds – from energy to housing and from care to food – on the map and support those initiatives by mutually connecting citizens’ collectives and experts, online (via webinars and lectures) as well as on-site (with events throughout the country). CollectieveKracht makes scientific knowledge available to citizens’ collectives and submits societal issues to experts affiliated with the platform: academics, policy makers, and funding agencies; the experts’ findings subsequently are shared via the platform. All activities by CollectieveKracht are independent, free, and accessible. At this moment, 232 citizens’ collectives and 167 experts are connected to the platform.

    The jury of the Brouwer Vertrouwensprijs was impressed by the many activities of the platform, the professionalism of the organisation, and the academic embeddedness of their activities. The N.W. Posthumus Institute congratulates Tine and her team with this award!

    NEWS ITEM KHMW (IN DUTCH)
     
    NEWS ITEM COLLECTIEVEKRACHT (IN DUTCH)

  • GECORRIGEERDE DATUM – Workshop Nederlandsch Economisch-Historisch Archief (NEHA) over economische ongelijkheid

    GECORRIGEERDE DATUM – Workshop Nederlandsch Economisch-Historisch Archief (NEHA) over economische ongelijkheid

    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.

  • NWO XS Grant awarded to Posthumus fellow Corinne Boter

    NWO XS Grant awarded to Posthumus fellow Corinne Boter

    In the 3rd round of the NWO Open Competition SSH XS, NWO has granted an XS Grant to Posthumus fellow and former Posthumus research network coordinator Dr Corinne Boter for her research proposal, entitled ‘Technological change and gender inequality: A comparison between a Dutch and an Italian textile company, 1870-1920’.

    The technological advancements of the Industrial Revolution profoundly changed work organization, with the textile industry leading the way. New technology also affected the extent of gendered occupational segregation and the gender wage gap. However, as the mechanisms behind this are not yet fully understood (as historians commonly look at macro-level developments), this project studies company-level developments. It employs comparative methods to investigate to what extent similar technological advancements in textile companies in different cultural contexts (the Netherlands and Italy), had similar or different effects on gender relations. This will elucidate the circumstances under which technology could improve or exacerbate gender inequality.

    The Posthumus staff congratulates Corinne with this award.

  • Module 2 Online Lecture Series ‘An Introduction to Inequalities in Health using Historical Causes of Death’ open for registration

    Module 2 Online Lecture Series ‘An Introduction to Inequalities in Health using Historical Causes of Death’ open for registration

    In March 2025 Module 2 of the Online Lecture Series ‘An Introduction to Inequalities in Health using Historical Causes of Death’ will start. This online lecture series is scheduled as part of the COST Project CA22116 – The Great Leapand is organised in co-operation with the N.W. Posthumus Institute. It is targeted at students and scholars at all levels interested in exploring major issues related to health inequalities from a historical point of view. There are four modules, each module comprises several lectures. Module 2 will address sources and databases. Module 3 will address methods and analyses (expected September 2025 – June 2026). Depending on the feedback from participants, modules are repeated or new modules are added to the online lecture series. For each module it will be possible to earn 1 EC.

    Module 2: Database Management

    Description

    This module is targeted at students and scholars at all levels interested in exploring (historical) database management related to health inequalities. Participants will gain detailed knowledge from six expertly-led lectures on various key topics.

    General Learning objectives

    Upon completion of the online modules, students are able to:

    • understand how different disciplines approach the study of health inequalities;
    • outline some of the major debates in the study of health inequalities;
    • explain and reflect upon important determinants of inequality in health and how they relate to broader processes of change in the period 1800-2024;
    • reflect on one specific article dealing with inequality in health and present it to an interdisciplinary group of scholars/peers.

    Program

    7 March 2025 – Tiziana Margaria (University of Limerick)
    Best practices for data management

    21 March 2025 – TBA
    Using automatic transcription for processing sources

    4 April 2025 – Angelique Janssens (Radboud University) and Isabelle Devos (Ghent University)
    The creation of cause of death databases

    25 April 2025 – TBA
    Coding historical causes of death data with Large Language Models

    16 May 2025 – Alice Reid  (University of Cambridge) / Mayra Murkens (University of Groningen)
    Historical International Classification for Diseases

    23 May 2025 – Michail Raftakis (University of Bologna), Elena Crinela Holom (Babeș-Bolyai University), Grażyna Liczbińska (Adam Mickiewicz University Poznań)
    Cause of death sources around the world

    30 May 2025 – Hannaliis Jaadla (University of Cambridge)
    Measures of inequality and SES differences in mortality

    ECs and Registration

    The lecture series is open to everyone, but PhD students who attend all six sessions and present a reflection on a specific article from the lecture series during a final meeting will be entitled to earn 1 EC (European Credits) and receive an official certificate. As co-organiser, the N.W. Posthumus Institute, Research School for Economic and Social History, currently hosted by Utrecht University will issue these official certificates to participants who have successfully participated. Please register via the button below if you would like to follow the lecture series and receive the certificate with 1 ECTS.

    Registration deadline was until 28 February 2025.

    FULL INFO

    Please note that recordings of module 1 are still available via this page (external link).

  • Change of Coordinator Research Network ‘Inclusion, Exclusion, and Mobility’

    Change of Coordinator Research Network ‘Inclusion, Exclusion, and Mobility’

    Recently, Liesbeth Rosen Jacobson concluded her valuable work as a coordinator of our Research Network ‘Inclusion, Exclusion, and Mobility’. We thank Liesbeth very much for her contribution over the past years!

    We are happy to announce we have found a suitable successor in the person of Dr Swantje Falcke. Swantje Falcke is an Assistant Professor in Economic and Social History at Utrecht University specialised in the field of migrant integration and naturalization. Currently, Swantje is involved in a project looking at the effectiveness of integration policies for refugees’ labor market integration in the Netherlands from a long-term perspective. Next to these projects, Swantje as migration scholar with an interdisciplinary profile is currently developing a new research line analyzing the impact of environmental change on migration in a long-term perspective.

    We welcome Swantje who will coordinate the Research Network ‘Inclusion, Exclusion, and Mobility’ in cooperation with Dr Bart Lambert (Vrije Universiteit Brussel).

  • Jaarcongres De Moderne Tijd 2025 – registreer uiterlijk 14 maart 2025

    Jaarcongres De Moderne Tijd 2025 – registreer uiterlijk 14 maart 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)

  • Inaugural lecture Professor Arthur van Riel

    Inaugural lecture Professor Arthur van Riel

    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)