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On 23 June 2025, Posthumus alumna Robin Rose Southard successfully defended the PhD thesis ‘Biting the hand that feeds: contesting the food guilds in 18th-century Brussels’ at Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Supervisor was Professor Wouter Ryckbosch (Vrije Universiteit Brussel).
The N.W. Posthumus staff congratulates Robin Rose with obtaining the PhD!

On 2 June 2025, Posthumus alumna Heleen Blommers successfully defended the PhD thesis ‘Deconstructing the War on Poverty: why a failure narrative became entrenched in American political discourse, 1964–1974’ at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Supervisors were Professor Karel Davids (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam), Dr Dienke Hondius (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam), and Professor Damian Pargas (Leiden University).

Heleen’s dissertation focuses on the War on Poverty, a large-scale domestic anti-poverty program in the United States in the 1960s. Soon after the program was launched in 1964, it was criticized from both left and right and by the mid-1980s, the general narrative had become that the War on Poverty failed. Today, historians and economists argue that the anti-poverty program was actually quite effective in various ways. Yet, the idea that the War on Poverty failed is still entrenched.

The dissertation answers the question why and how the failure narrative of the War on Poverty came into being in the United States. It looks at the implementation of the program on the ground in Georgia, eastern Kentucky and Baltimore and analyzes how local controversies developed into a general belief of failure.

It shows that that not only conservative resentments about the program, but also the discontent of the poor themselves and of a diverse group of people helping to fight the War on Poverty existed. Their frustrations were rooted in conflicting interests and existing ideas about the deservingness of the poor and culminated into a failure narrative.

The N.W. Posthumus Institute congratulates Heleen with obtaining the PhD.

On 27 and 28 May 2025, the Posthumus Conference 2025 was held in Nijmegen at Radboud University, hosted by Dr Dries Lyna and Dr Joris van den Tol and visited by c. 140 participants.

This year’s conference was on the central theme ‘The People vs Structures’ with a reflection on how legal systems, institutions, and practices have influenced social and economic conditions, as well as how people have influenced these legal regimes.

The conference consisted of various thematic sessions, composed by the various Research Networks of the N.W. Posthumus Institute, where both PhDs and Posthumus fellows presented their research and received valuable feedback.

A new element in this year’s edition was the Poster Presentation by PhDs from the 2024 cohort; the posters can still be viewed online.

The keynote lecture at the Posthumus Conference 2025 was by Professor Tamar Herzog, Monroe Gutman Professor of Latin American Affairs at Harvard University and Affiliate Professor of the Harvard Law School.

The N.W. Posthumus Institute thanks hosts Dries Lyna and Joris van den Tol, as well as the student assistants from Radboud University (Camiel Beekers, Jonathan Cramer, Bart van Duijvenbode, and Emma Zijp) for their support!

CONFERENCE WEBSITE

The Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) has awarded a FWO Senior Postdoctoral Fellowship to Dr Kristof Loockx, fellow of the N.W. Posthumus Institute and postdoctoral researcher a the University of Antwerp. This fellowship is awarded to selected researchers who have completed their PhD a few years ago to further specialise in their research discipline. With the help of this fellowship, a postdoctoral researcher can develop their own research line while simultaneously acquiring additional academic skills through training and mobility, among other means. In this way, the FWO aims to provide young researchers with optimal opportunities to build an independent international research career, either within an academic context or beyond.

Kristof’s research project examines how merchant seafaring households during the steam era adapted to the pressures and transformations driven by industrialisation. While most research has focused on land-based families, this study turns to the often-overlooked maritime world. Through a comparison of officer and non-officer households, the project investigates how household dynamics and coping mechanisms were shaped by differences in household characteristics, occupational identities and access to social support networks. It uses Antwerp and Boston, MA, two major Atlantic port cities with distinct historical trajectories in terms of industry, trade and urban development, as case studies to examine how local labour markets, community ties and economic conditions influenced household strategies.

The N.W. Posthumus Institute congratulates Kristof with this grant.

PROFILE PAGE

The Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) has awarded a FWO Junior Postdoctoral Fellowship to Dr Charris De Smet, fellow of the N.W. Posthumus Institute and postdoctoral researcher at the Department of History as well as affiliated to the Centre for Political History (PoHis) of the University of Antwerp. This fellowship is awarded to selected researchers who have recently obtained their doctorate and aim to pursue an independent research career.

Charris’ research project revisits female political agency in the mainstream, non-militant Parisian women’s press, and questions how fashion journals functioned as a forum for women editors and writers as well as a disenfranchised female readership to engage with politics between 1815 and 1851. Through an in-depth and comparative discourse analysis of a representative corpus of Parisian women’s magazines, Charris will examine how they engaged in ‘political communication’ under the innocent cover offered by the French fashion magazine during the Restoration, the July Monarchy and the Second Republic, on topics as diverse as citizenship, the nature of political authority and women’s access to the public sphere.

The N.W. Posthumus Institute congratulates Charris with this grant.

PROFILE PAGE

~ because of scope in Dutch only ~

Bij Uitgeverij Ertsberg is onlangs het boek Koks & Kelners 1750-1950 van emeritus professor Patricia Van den Eeckhout, fellow van het N.W. Posthumus Instituut, verschenen.

Dit boek vertelt de geschiedenis van het alomtegenwoordige, maar ‘onzichtbare’ horecapersoneel. Koks waren letterlijk, maar ook het zaalpersoneel in zekere zin onzichtbaar. In de klassensamenleving van voor de Tweede Wereldoorlog werd van hen een dienstvaardige ondergeschiktheid gevraagd. Van 1750 tot aan de Tweede Wereldoorlog en met focus op Brussel, Amsterdam, Parijs, Londen, Berlijn en Wenen, vertelt Patricia Van den Eeckhout hoe het horecapersoneel leefde, werkte, at, sliep, ruziede en zijn brood verdiende.

INFO UITGEVER