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  • NWO Veni Grant awarded to Tim Riswick

    NWO Veni Grant awarded to Tim Riswick

    In July 2024, Dr Tim Riswick, Posthumus fellow and member of the Educational Committee of the N.W. Posthumus Institute, was granted a Veni Grant by the Dutch Research Council (NWO) for his project ‘Unravelling Health Inequalities: The Historical Roots of Inequality in Death and Disease in West-European Port Cities, 1850-1950’.

    Social inequality in health is a continuous and urgent societal challenge. This inequality, influencing our everyday-life, has deep historical roots. Understanding the causes of this historic inequality is currently hindered by the use of inadequate sources, a merely national focus and an almost exclusive emphasis on death rates.

    In his project, Tim Riswick challenges the issues mentioned above by using a comparative approach, investigating three main West-European port cities: Amsterdam, Copenhagen, and Glasgow, over the period of 1850-1950. For all three cities digitised certificates on death causes and patient registers are available, enabling research on both mortality and morbidity, using unique data at an individual level. Also, all three cities had a high burden due to disease, a high level of population circulation, severe economic changes and progression in the field of public health in the periode concerned, making these cities representative examples of the developments throughout Western Europe at the time. The comparison between these three cities will allow research on the question whether and if so, how and why specific determinants contributed to health inequalities, related to the causes of death.

    The N.W. Posthumus Institute congratulates Tim with this award!

    PERSONAL WEBSITE

  • Conference ‘The Netherlands a Tax Paradise? Complexities of Corporate Tax Avoidance’ (Rotterdam, 29 Nov. 2024)

    Conference ‘The Netherlands a Tax Paradise? Complexities of Corporate Tax Avoidance’ (Rotterdam, 29 Nov. 2024)

    The local organising committee invites you to the international conference on corporate taxation and its avoidance at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam on 29 November 2024: ‘The Netherlands a Tax Paradise? Complexities of Corporate Tax Avoidance’. This conference is part of a larger international historical project financed by the German Volkswagen Foundation.

    The conference addresses the historical interplay of growing capital mobility, an expanding fiscal state and tax competition and it asks what lessons this may hold for policy. It does so by focusing on the Netherlands as an important host and home country for transnational companies funneling international capital flows since the 1920s. It addresses the questions of when, how and why the Netherlands emerged as a Tax Haven, how it evolved and what its current status is. It focuses on the interaction and tensions between Dutch tax authorities on the one hand and financial institutions, entrepreneurs and MNEs on the other. The conference aims to bring together a wide range of scholars (legal, economic, historical), professionals, business leaders and policy makers to discuss the past, present and future of Dutch corporate tax strategies and other national tax regimes within a larger international context. Further background details on the project and the conference can be found in the pdf, downloadable via the button below.

    If you would like to join the conference and participate in the debates, please register before 1 November 2024 via the dedicated form, see button below. After registration you will receive the program. The conference is free of charge and a lunch is included but you will have to make your own travelling and hotel arrangements if travelling from abroad.

    TO REGISTRATION FORM

    FULL INFO (PDF)

  • New PhD Representatives

    New PhD Representatives

    At the General Board meeting of the N.W. Posthumus Institute of 24 September 2024 two new PhD representatives were welcomed.

    Silke Baas will take the place of her namesake Silke Geven. Silke Geven is now focusing on the completing of her PhD trajectory at the University of Antwerp. We thank Silke for her efforts for the N.W. Posthumus Institute and wish her success in obtaining her PhD. Silke Baas is a PhD candidate working in the Economic and Social History department since March 2022. Before joining her colleagues in Utrecht, she studied at the University of Amsterdam, where she earned a bachelor’s in Sociology and completed a research master’s in Social Sciences. Her academic interests center around gender (in)equality within Dutch society, women in the labour market, and the organization of gender-inclusive healthcare.

    PROFILE PAGE SILKE BAAS

    Jeroen Kole joined the PhD representative as new fifth PhD. Jeroen obtained his master’s degree from the University of Antwerp in 2022 with a master’s thesis on the vocabularies of consumption and consumer mentalities on the secondary markets of eighteenth-century Amsterdam and Antwerp. He is currently a PhD candidate at the Centre for Urban History at the University of Antwerp where he is preparing a doctoral thesis on material culture and social inequality in nineteenth-century Antwerp. His research focuses on developing a multidimensional approach to understanding social inequality, considering various strategies of social distinction.

    PROFILE PAGE JEROEN KOLE

    The N.W. Posthumus Institute welcomes both new PhD representatives!

  • Environmental History PhD Seminar (Roosevelt Institute, Middelburg)

    Environmental History PhD Seminar (Roosevelt Institute, Middelburg)

    Opportunities for pursuing research in environmental history are expanding in the Netherlands and beyond. In the wake of accelerating climate change, many environmental historians are reflecting on how the environment changes their research practices and the implications of doing environmental historical research while inhabiting the era of climate change. To further promote and facilitate dialogue within this growing field of research, the Roosevelt Institute for American Studies and the Dutch Environmental History Network are organising an International PhD Seminar in Environmental History in Middelburg on 12-13 June 2025.

    The organisers welcome proposals dealing with any timeframe or empirical focus engaging with environmental issues, especially in regard to the history of the United States. Also welcome are proposals that showcase in particular how engaging with the environment in historical research challenges and changes approaches to place, scale, time, and agency.

    Abstracts could be submitted until ultimately 30 November 2024.

    FULL INFO

  • Moving Humanities Conference 2024 on ‘Resistance’

    Moving Humanities Conference 2024 on ‘Resistance’

    The Moving Humanities Conference 2024, organised by Radboud University and Groningen University, will take place on 31 October and 1 November 2024. This year’s theme is ‘Resistance’ taken in its broadest sense, both within subjects of research and the humanities itself. Resistance can be to the common way of understanding things, to other positions and interpretations, to change, or as a subject in itself. Abstracts submission deadline passed on 31 July 2024, but you can still register as non-presenting participant, see the button below.

    For the full programme of the event, please click here for the pdf.

    TO REGISTRATION FORM

  • Conference ‘Back to the Future: Thinking about Futures in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe and Beyond’

    Conference ‘Back to the Future: Thinking about Futures in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe and Beyond’

    On 14 and 15 November 2024 the conference ‘Back to the Future: Thinking about Futures in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe and Beyond’ will be held in Antwerp and online.

    This conference is directly related to the ERC-funded project ‘Back to the Future: Future expectations and actions in late medieval and early modern Europe, c.1400-c.1830’. The Back2theFuture project tries to answer the question of what people did in the past think about the future and how this affected their actions. It draws on a highly innovative combination of close and distant reading methods for more than 15,000 letters written in Dutch, English, French, German and Italian – by and to European merchants – in the period 1400-1830. These practical documents enable the identification the merchants’ thinking and shed light on their future expectations. By reviewing letters from various European regions and over a span of several hundred years, the project will be able to identify transformations.

    Registration is required and can be done via the webpage (see button below), preferably before 15 October 2024.

    MORE INFO

  • Mini-conference ’40 years of abortion legislation in the Netherlands’

    Mini-conference ’40 years of abortion legislation in the Netherlands’

    Organisers Yuliya Hilevych, Karen Hollewand and Hanneke de Boer (all University of Groningen) will organise a mini-conference on the topic ’40 years of abortion legislation in the Netherlands’

    Legal abortion access and provision cannot be taken for granted. While some states have made abortion illegal again today, there are also states that – on the contrary – ensure this right by putting it into their constitution. Histories of legal abortion and journeys towards it matter and they need to be remembered and acknowledged. 1 November 2024 marks 40 years since abortion was legislated in the Netherlands. However, it is still debatable if it can be seen as fully legislated. This mini-conference aims to bring into a conversation the historical and contemporary perspectives on abortion legalisation, abortion travel, abortion care and activism in the Netherlands and internationally.

    Those interested to attend, are asked to register ultimately 30 October 2024.

    FULL INFO AND REGISTRATION

  • New: Online Lecture Series ‘An Introduction to Inequalities in Health using Historical Causes of Death’

    New: Online Lecture Series ‘An Introduction to Inequalities in Health using Historical Causes of Death’

    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. The registration for Module 1 is open now. Module 2 will address sources and databases (expected February 2025 – June 2025). 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 1: Theory

    Please note that registration for this module has closed on 1 October 2024.

    Description

    Participants will gain detailed knowledge from six expert-led lectures on various key topics. The epidemiological transition lecture will give general knowledge on the change in disease prevalence and mortality statistics across different periods; the inequalities in health session is for understanding the socioeconomic and demographic factors affecting these inequities; and the life course determinants of mortality, exploring the impact of various phases of life on health outcomes. Besides, the series will cover intergenerational transmission in health and related behaviors, drawing on how health and behavioral patterns are passed down through generations. Finally, the series covers, with two separate lectures, the views from both medical and public health perspectives and thus provides a comprehensive understanding of how historical causes have influenced current inequities in health.

    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

    4 October 2024 – Professor Isabelle Devos, Ghent University
    The epidemiological transition

    11 October 2024 – Professor Jonas Minet Kinge, University of Oslo
    Understanding inequalities in health

    25 October 2024 – Professor Tommy Bengtsson, Lund University
    Life course determinants of mortality

    8 November 2024 – Dr Emre Sari, NORCE Norwegian Research Centre
    Intergenerational transmission of health and behaviors

    22 November 2024 – Professor Oonagh Walsh, Glasgow Caledonian University
    Medical perspectives

    6 December 2024 – Professor Ivan Miškulin, University of Osijek
    Public health perspective

    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.

    Please note that registration for this module has closed on 1 October 2024.

  • GIS Tutorial and Project Presentation ‘(Re)Counting the Uncounted’ (IISH)

    GIS Tutorial and Project Presentation ‘(Re)Counting the Uncounted’ (IISH)

    The researchers involved in the recently completed project ‘(Re)counting the Uncounted’ welcome you at the project presentation on 16 October 2024 at the International Institute of Social History. In this project, funded by the Dutch Research Council NWO, the researchers have taken on the challenge of replicating and testing the findings of four so-called cornerstone publications that provided medieval and/or early modern population estimates for the Netherlands and Belgium. The presentations will mark the formal end of the project, and the release of the first set of data and results to the public.

    Thus far, more than 2,000 censuses (of hearths, communicants, houses, individuals, etc.), dating from the mid-fourteenth to mid-nineteenth centuries, from all parts of the Low Countries, including areas now in France and Germany, have been traced and catalogued. About 750 of these have been used in one or more of the four studies in question. Well over 600 censuses are now fully processed, with 75,000 observations linked to the correct historical administrative areas using a specially designed historical GIS dataset: ‘Historical Atlas of the Low Countries’. The latest public versions of the datasets can be found at the website datasets.iisg.amsterdam.

    GIS Tutorial

    Preceding the presentation, between 10:00 and 14:00, there will be a hands-on tutorial for a maximum of eight people interested in working with the data in combination with the GIS maps. Lunch will be provided. Expert knowledge of GIS is not required, but we do ask that participants have QGIS installed on their laptops and are familiar with the software. If more than eight people register, the organisers may make a selection based on how immediately useful the training will be to their research. If you wish to bring your own data, this is possible, but consultation in advance would be appreciated. For more information, contact Rombert Stapel.

    How to register

    Please let your attendance known by sending an email to the IISH. Please make it clear whether you will be attending the presentations only or (also) the data tutorial in the morning.

    FULL INFO (PDF)

  • Matthias Van Laer genomineerd voor de Scriptieprijs Brabantse Geschiedenis

    Matthias Van Laer genomineerd voor de Scriptieprijs Brabantse Geschiedenis

    Op donderdag 19 september wordt wederom de Scriptieprijs Brabantse Geschiedenis uitgereikt aan degene die de beste masterscriptie over de Brabantse geschiedenis schreef. Ook promovendus Matthias Van Laer (Uantwerpen en Posthumus alumnus) is één van de genomineerden met een scriptie getiteld: “Vermogensongelijkheid en leeftijd in België. Casus Borgerhout, 1856-1920”. Succes Matthias en de andere genomineerden!

    Meer informatie:
    https://stichtingzhc.nl/2024/09/01/uitreiking-scriptieprijs-brabantse-geschiedenis-19-september-2024/