On 12 February 2025, Posthumus alumnus Stan Pannier successfull defended his PhD thesis ‘Enterprising Merchants in the Global Atlantic – Frederic Romberg and the Austrian Netherlands Trade with West and Central Africa, 1775-1795’ at KU Leuven. Promotors were Professor Maïka De Keyzer (KU Leuven) and Dr Torsten Feys (Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ)).
By examining the ties of the Southern Netherlands with the Atlantic complex, using the case-study of Frederic Romberg, an eighteenth-century merchant settled in Brussels who moved into the slave trade during the American War of Independence (1775-83), Stan demonstrates how Romberg partnered with foreign slave traders, acquired slaving licences from the Spanish court, and forcibly transported thousands of captive Africans toward the Americas. By conducting a micro-study of the organization, strategies, and consequences of Romberg’s operations, Stan dispels the idea that the Southern Netherlands were disconnected from the European colonial project.
The staff of the N.W. Posthumus Institute congratulates Stan with this achievement!
Confirmed keynote speakers are Jennifer L. Gaynor (University at Buffalo SUNY) and Sue Peabody (Washington State University), with Michael Laffan (Princeton University) as one of the discussants. The conference will advocate the urgency of uncovering the genealogy of racialised social categories, what purposes they served at given times, and how displaced descent permeated the making and shaping of racialised groups.
Abstracts should be sent by e-mail to the organisers before 31 March 2025.
The University of Groningen will be hosting a special event on 17 April 2025 to celebrate the career of Professor Herman de Jong ahead of his planned retirement at the end of the current academic year. The event will involve two parts:
The first will be a workshop between 11:00 and 15:00 hours with short academic presentations related to Herman’s work.
The second will be a valedictory lecture by Herman himself between 15:30 and 17:00 hours. The title of his lecture (to be delivered in Dutch) is ‘Hoe is het leven? Een brede blik op welvaart’.
If you are interested in attending this special event, please RSVP before April 1, by registering via de button below.
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 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)
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.
In April, the course ‘Quantative Methods for Historians and Social Scientists’ of the N.W. Posthumus Institute will start at Utrecht University. Although the final deadline for registration was set on 15 March 2025, the number of participants for this course has already reached its maximum. Registrations between now and the deadline of 15 March will be placed on a waiting list in order of registration date, however first prioritising (Research) Master students over PhD students.
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.
Linked to the combined research team of slavery projects at the International Institute of Social History (Amsterdam) and Radboud University (Nijmegen), researcher of both institutions jointly organise a hybrid seminar series ‘Micro-Global Histories of Slavery: Sources and Approaches’.
As a global turn in slavery studies urges us to bring together the study of histories of slavery from across the globe, from Asia to the Atlantic, from local regimes of slavery to the impact of colonial slave trade and slavery, this seminar aims to further critical reflections of sources and approaches for the study micro-global histories of slavery.
The organisers invite scholars to share insights, questions and ideas that are grounded in research practice and experiences with colonial and other or vernacular sources. Discussing sources, research practices and methodologies thus serves as a way to further develop the practice of micro-global histories of slavery.
If you would like to be present at a seminar, or present in it, please contact Dr Sanne Muurling for more information.
Confirmed dates and speakers
(please note that time and locations vary! Updated: 20 February 2025)
18 February 2025, 11:00 CET, IISH (Amsterdam)
Titas Chakraborty (Duke Kunshan University) – Studying enslaved mobilities in Asia
5 March 2025, 15:00 CET,
Radboud University (Nijmegen)
Timo McGregor (Leiden University) – Navigating Court Records and Legal Pluralism in Colonial Contexts
2 April 2025, 15:00 CET, IISH (Amsterdam)
Meenu Mathai and Susan Thomas (Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit) – (Un)Making the Aṭima in Malabar/Kerala: Sources from the Syrian Christian Church Grantavari
14 May 2025, 15:00 CET, Radboud University (Nijmegen)
Claude Chevaleyre (CNRS / Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies) and Koen van der Lijn (Leiden University) – Contracted into slavery? Coerced labour in early modern China
4 June 2025, time TBA, IISH (Amsterdam)
speaker and title TBA
2 July 2025, 15:00 CET, Radboud University (Nijmegen)
Wouter Raaijmakers (Radboud University) – Living in an Empire of Laws: Between Legislation and Litigation in the Indian Ocean World
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 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.
The Institute of Medieval Studies (FCSH; Nova University, Lisbon) and the City Council of Castelo de Vide will host the X International Conference on the Middle Ages which will be held from 2nd to 4th October 2025 under the theme ‘Memory in medieval urban Europe’. With a focus on Christian, Islamic and Jewish Europe, researchers from any scientific discipline (e.g., History, Archaeology, History of the Art, Literature) are invited to present proposals for sessions and/or individual presentations.
Proposals for papers and/or panels should be submitted ultimately 30 April 2025. Please note a conference fee applies. Working languages of the Conference are: Portuguese, Spanish, French, and English.
