Research School for Economic and Social History

Blog

  • Register now for our Research Master Course ‘Data Management for Historians’ – deadline 10 January 2025

    Register now for our Research Master Course ‘Data Management for Historians’ – deadline 10 January 2025

    From February until May 2025 the N.W. Posthumus Institute organises the Research Master Course ‘Data Management for Historians’.

    This 5 EC online research course will be supervised by Dr Rick Mourits (IISH) and will consist of a series of online sessions with a final closing session at the IISH.

    The course will allow master students within economic and social history to process their own rudimentary data and enable reuse according to the FAIR data principles and instructs them on the basics of quantitative data management. It introduces the quantitative research cycle, programming in R and SPARQL, and how to report on data questions.

    Registration is open until 10 January 2025 to all Research Master students via our online form. Interested but not a Research Master student? Do contact us via e-mail and we will talk about the options.

    MORE INFO

  • Successful PhD Defence Posthumus alumna Charris De Smet

    Successful PhD Defence Posthumus alumna Charris De Smet

    On 10 December 2024 Posthumus alumna Charris De Smet successfully defended her PhD thesis ‘Framing French costumers into citizens. A comparative discourse analysis of debates on luxury and consumption in French parliament and the press in the age of revolution (1789-1848)’ at the University of Antwerp. Promotors were Professor Ilja Van Damme and Professor Marnix Beyen (both University of Antwerp) and Professor Natacha Coquery (University Lumière Lyon 2).

    Charris’ dissertation has reconstructed and comparatively investigated French parliamentary politics of luxury consumption in three revolutionary years, i.e. 1789, 1830 and 1848. Drawing the idea that consumption became depoliticized in this period into question, it has demonstrated that consumption was an important topic of discussion under different modern French political regimes. The close reading of the parliamentary debates has revealed that the contemporary development of consumerism in France was seen as inextricably tied to broader issues of citizenship, representation, political identity and national belonging between 1789 and 1848. Therefore, these topics constituted important political questions that warranted debate in the national legislative bodies on how to harness, encourage or remodel existing consumer behaviour and commodity culture for the sake of the wellbeing of the state and its citizens.

    The N.W. Posthumus Institute congratulates Charris with obtaining her PhD!

  • Masterclass ‘Rich and Poor in Societies Past and Present’ with Professor Guido Alfani – deadline abstracts 16 December 2024

    Masterclass ‘Rich and Poor in Societies Past and Present’ with Professor Guido Alfani – deadline abstracts 16 December 2024

    The Centre for Historical Research at University of Groningen, in collaboration with the N.W. Posthumus Institute, organises a masterclass by Professor Guido Alfani on the topic ‘Rich and Poor in Societies Past and Present’ on Wednesday 12 February 2025. The organisers offer a limited number of (Research) Masters students, PhD candidates and post-docs the opportunity to present their research to Professor Alfani by engaging with his latest book As Gods Among Men: A History of the Rich in the West (Princeton, 2023) from the perspective of their own research. In particular, papers in the fields of economic and social inequality, distribution and concentration of wealth, social mobility, poverty and charity, and the conflation of political and economic interests are welcome.

    Professor Guido Alfani is professor of Economic History at Bocconi University, Milan. His areas of interest include economic history and demography, with a focus on long-term dynamics, on economic inequality and social mobility, and on the history of epidemics, pandemics and famine. He is currently a member of the scientific committee of the Datini Foundation, of the international advisory board of the Posthumus Institute-Research School for Economic and Social History and of the board of trustees of the European Historical Economics Society (EHES). In his latest book he shows how the rich historically justified themselves by helping their societies in times of crisis, why they no longer do, and what that may mean for social stability. Next to the masterclass, Professor Alfani will also deliver a public lecture at the University of Groningen (further details to be announced in due time).

    Those interested in participating in this masterclass should send a paper proposal (250 words max.) to both organisers Arie van Steensel and Bart Danon ultimately 16 December 2024.

    DOWNLOAD FULL CALL (PDF)

  • Introducing Foraging: a podcast in environmental humanities

    Introducing Foraging: a podcast in environmental humanities

    The FORAGENCY project has developed a side-project called ‘Foraging. A Podcast in Environmental Humanities’. Its first season consists in in-depth interviews with four historians and anthropologists. The podcasts will be made available via the FORAGENCY website, Apple podcasts and Spotify. The first episodes scheduled concern:

    • Episode 1.01. Diogo De Carvhalo Cabral on history beyond the human (25 November 2024)
    • Episode 1.02 Kwame Edwin Otu on the queerness of waste (2 December 2024)
    • Episode 1.03 Emelien Devos on multispecies anthropology (9 December 2024)
    • Episode 1.04 Iva Peša on the histories of pollution (16 December 2024)

    MORE INFO

  • NWO XS Grant awarded to Posthumus fellow Felix Meier zu Selhausen

    NWO XS Grant awarded to Posthumus fellow Felix Meier zu Selhausen

    The Dutch Research Council (NWO) has awarded Dr Felix Meier zu Selhausen, Posthumus fellow and alumnus, currently affiliated with the Department of History at Utrecht University, an XS Grant for the project ‘Colonial Origins of African Population Growth? Evidence from Missionary Church Registers in Tanzania’.

    The scale and rapidity of Africa’s population growth is unprecedented in recorded history. Yet, the long-term development and causes of Africa’s mortality and fertility change remain poorly understood due to the lack of longitudinal individual-level data during the colonial era (c. 1890-1960). Felix’s project will collect unexplored historical church registers of the earliest ten Lutheran mission stations in Tanzania to reconstruct and examine child mortality and fertility change under colonial rule. This will significantly improve the understanding of the historical origins of African population growth and shed new light on when and why health improved in the world’s poorest region.

    The N.W. Posthumus Institute staff congratulates Felix wit this award!

  • CEPR Workshop ‘Public Health Interventions in the Long Run: Causes and Consequences’

    CEPR Workshop ‘Public Health Interventions in the Long Run: Causes and Consequences’

    Daniel Gallardo-Albarrán, fellow of the N.W. Posthumus Institute, cordially invites paper proposals to express interest in attending the CEPR workshop ‘Public Health Interventions in the Long Run: Causes and Consequences’, which will take place on 27 and 28 March 2025 at Wageningen University.

    The workshop aims to bring together leading researchers on the topic from various fields, such as economic history, economics, historical political economy, demography or public health history. Kenote speaker will be Professor Melissa Thomasson (Miami University/NBER).

    Submissions deadline closed 15 December 2024.

    FULL INFO

  • Vragenlijst ontsluiting historische bronnen / Questionnaire unlocking historical sources (Huygens Instituut)

    Vragenlijst ontsluiting historische bronnen / Questionnaire unlocking historical sources (Huygens Instituut)

    ~ English version below ~

    Het Huygens Instituut voor Nederlandse geschiedenis en cultuur maakt bijzonder veel historische bronnen en literaire teksten digitaal toegankelijk. In de onderzoeksprojecten van het instituut wordt gewerkt aan en met allerlei verschillende bronnen uit de Nederlandse geschiedenis: van de brieven van Johan de Witt, archieven van de VOC, de resoluties van de Staten-Generaal en registratiekaarten van Nederlandse emigranten tot aan gegevens over sportverenigingen en kunstenaarscorrespondenties. Door middel van innovatieve methoden en technieken (vaak ondersteund door AI, zoals Handwritten Text Recognition-software) worden historische bronnen verrijkt en de geschiedenis van Nederland en daarbuiten ontsloten.

    Het Huygens Instituut maakt deze bronnen graag zo veel mogelijk toegankelijk voor zowel onderzoekers als het brede publiek. In het project ‘Werk aan Uitvoering’ werkt het instituut aan een nog betere infrastructuur om al deze verschillende bronnen aan elkaar te linken, te contextualiseren, doorzoekbaar te maken en te delen met geïnteresseerden.

    Onderzoekers die wel eens gebruik maken van historische bronnen voor studie, werk of uit hobbyisme worden opgeroepen mee te helpen de ontsluiting van deze bronnen te verbeteren! Ga via de knop hieronder naar de korte vragenlijst (5-7 min).

    NAAR ENQUÊTE (NL VERSIE)

    —

    The Huygens Institute for Dutch history and culture provides digital access to numerous historical sources and literary works. Research projects are working on and with a wide range of historical sources concerning the history of the Netherlands, e.g., the correspondence of Johan de Witt, the VOC archives, the resolutions of the States General, and registration cards of Dutch emigrants, but also data on sport clubs and the correspondence of artists. Innovative methods and techniques (often AI-supported, for example by using Handwritten Text Recognition software) are being used to enrich historical sources and to unlock the history of the Netherlands and abroad.

    The Huygens Institute aims to provide access to such sources to both academics as well as to the general public as much as possible. Through the project ‘Werk aan Uitvoering’ [‘Work in Progress’], the institute strives to improve inter-linkage between these various sources, to make them searchable, and to provide context and access to these sources to all persons interested.

    The Huygens Institute calls upon researchers who make use of historical sources (be it either for study, research, or out of hobbyism) to help improving the unlocking of these sources! Please use the button below and fill out a short (5-7 min.) questionnaire.

    TO QUESTIONNAIRE (ENGLISH VERSION)

  • FRESH workshop ‘Empire and Economic Development’

    FRESH workshop ‘Empire and Economic Development’

    On 28 February 2025, Utrecht University will host a FRESH workshop on Empire and Economic Development. Frontier Research in Economic and Social History (FRESH) meetings are aimed at researchers in any field of economic and social history. The purpose of the meetings is to enable scholars to present their ongoing research at an early stage to an audience of interested peers.

    The keynote speaker of this particular meeting will be Tirthankar Roy, Professor of Economic History at the London School of Economics. Organisers of the meeting are Maanik Nath and John Tang (both Utrecht University) in association with Sandra de Pleijt (Frontier Research in Economic and Social History series organiser. This meeting is made possible thanks to funding made available by the European Historical Economics Society (EHES) and the N.W. Posthumus Institute.

    For an overview of the programme and selected speakers, you may download the program as pdf below.

    FULL PROGRAMME (PDF)

  • Symposium ‘The Montreal Moment’ (RIAS and Utrecht University)

    Symposium ‘The Montreal Moment’ (RIAS and Utrecht University)

    The Roosevelt Institute for American Studies (RIAS) and Utrecht University are now welcoming papers for the jointly organized symposium ‘The Montreal Moment: Ozone Depletion and the Rise of International Environmental Governance’, which will be held in Middelburg from 5-6 June 2025.

    After years of campaigning and confrontation, in 1985 twenty countries signed the Vienna Convention, which established a framework for international regulations on ozone-depleting substances and paved the way for the Montreal Protocol. Finalized in 1987, this document represented a landmark multilateral environmental agreement, regulating the production and consumption of dangerous compounds and setting standards in international environmental governance that are still regarded as paramount.

    The ways in which the Montreal Protocol was achieved, the discussions and negotiations it unleashed and entailed, the questions and issues it raised on multiple scales invite historians to further reflect on its origins and legacies vis-à-vis the contemporary rise and consolidation of a complex international environmental governance system. Was the Montreal Protocol an end point of a longer history of international efforts at managing the environment? Or was it the harbinger of new forms of multilateral cooperation? What does its trajectory reveal about similar attempts to regulate global environmental problems like climate change, soil erosion, or pollution? What was the role that non-state actors and nongovernmental organizations played in getting it signed? By converse, how did corporations react to its development and against its provisions? And how did governments position themselves in the broader debates around international environmental safeguard that the Montreal Protocol embodied? How was scientific evidence understood, conveyed, interpreted, and managed in this context? And finally, how did systemic and external variables such as economic volatility and industrial development impact on the international environmental politics of the 1970s and 1980s?

    The organisers invite proposals that address (some of) these questions and that put the Montreal Protocol within the broader framework of environmental internationalism in the 1970s and 1980s. Local, national, regional, and transnational perspectives are mostly welcomed, as well as contributions that shed further light on the politics and diplomacy of the agreement.

    Abstracts (300 words max.) accompanied by a short bio should be submitted via e-mail to the RIAS ultimately 15 December 2024.

    FULL INFO

  • VIDI Grant awarded to Pim de Zwart

    VIDI Grant awarded to Pim de Zwart

    Dr Pim de Zwart, Posthumus fellow and research director of our research network ‘Globalisation, Inequality and Sustainability in Long-Run Perspective’,  received a Vidi Grant from the Dutch Research Council (NWO) for his project entitled: ‘Tragedy of the Tropics: Colonialism, Commodities, and Commons in Southeast Asian Deforestation since 1850’.

    Halting tropical deforestation is central to combat both global warming and biodiversity decline. Yet despite numerous international agreements ‘to stop and halt deforestation’ since the early 2000s, forest losses across the tropics continued to rise. This Vidi project explores which structural factors inhibit the transition to more sustainable land and forest use and how these have emerged historically. More specifically, it investigates how trade and colonialism affected deforestation rates in insular Southeast Asia and in what ways these relationships were shaped by local land rights and sociopolitical inequalities since 1850. To do so, it pioneers a new approach to assess long-run changes in historical forest area using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and combining colonial-era vegetation and topographic maps with statistical and qualitative sources to construct a detailed picture of the spatial transformation of insular Southeast Asia. Drawing on political ecology, trade and institutional theories for its analytical framework, and collecting socioeconomic, demographic and institutional evidence, the project explains the observed patterns of land-use change.

    The N.W. Posthumus Institute congratulates Pim with this grant!