Category: News

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.

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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.

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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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On 31 May 2024, Posthumus alumna Sietske van der Veen successfully defended the thesis ‘Novel Opportunities, Perpetual Barriers: Patterns of Social Mobility and Integration among the Jewish Dutch Elite, 1870-1940’ at Utrecht University.

Promotores were Professor Lex Heerma van Voss (Utrecht University), Professor Leo Lucassen (Leiden University), and Professor Karin Hofmeester (IISH and University of Antwerp).

We congratulate Sietske with her PhD!

On 11 January 2024, Posthumus alumnus Patrick Naaktgeboren successfully defended his PhD thesis ‘Private partnerships in early modern Antwerp (1621–1791) at Maastricht University. Promotores were Professor Bram Van Hofstraeten (Maastricht University) and Professor Jeroen Puttevils (University of Antwerp).

Patricks dissertation investigates private partnerships in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Antwerp (1621–1791) from both a legal historical and a socioeconomic perspective. Whereas the legal-historical part deals with the interaction between Antwerp customary law and learned legal literature (the ‘law in books’) related to business practices in the form of notarised and privately drafted agreements (the ‘law in practice’), the socioeconomic historical part focuses on the functions a partnership could fulfil in an early modern society. The aim of this dissertation is to gain more insight into the extent to which customary law affected business practices and the extent to which entrepreneurs adhered to the rules. Additionally, his dissertation challenges the categorisation often used in the literature whereby partnerships are grouped into ideal-types, such as general partnerships and limited partnerships. Finally, this dissertation analyses the underlying arguments for entrepreneurs to opt for a partnership. For this purpose, the city of Antwerp serves as an excellent case study because entrepreneurs were forced to adapt themselves continuously to geopolitical and socioeconomic developments in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

The PhD defense will also be broadcasted as livestream. The N.W. Posthumus staff congratulates Patrick with obtaining his PhD.

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The Levend Archief organisation, the association of supporters of the City Archives of Bruges, has awarded Posthumus board member Dr Heidi Deneweth the Levend Archiefprijs (‘Living Archives Award’), a quintennial award, for her publication Goede muren maken goede buren. Verbouwingen en buurtleven in Brugge, 1500-1800 (‘Good walls make good neighbors. Remodelling and neighborhood life in Bruges, 1500-1800). The jury report states that Heidi’s publication provides the reader with an interesting glimpse on Bruges in the period of the sixteenth to eighteenth century, a period still somewhat overlooked in historical studies. Furthermore, the jury regards Heidi to be a truely worthy laureate, as being a true ambassador for the City Archives of Bruges, leaving no stone unturned to show its archival wealth and the point out the results of the Archives’ respective research groups on housing history and material culture. The N.W. Posthumus Institute congratulates Heidi with this well-deserved honor.

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