Research School for Economic and Social History

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  • Financial, Economic and Business History Summer School (University of Groningen)

    Financial, Economic and Business History Summer School (University of Groningen)

    The Financial, Economic and Business History (FEB-HIS) Summer School for PhD students and Postdocs will take place in Groningen from Monday 24 June to Friday 28 June 2024. It is organised by the Faculty of Economics and Business of the University of Groningen (UG) and made possible thanks to funding by NWO, the Groningen Growth and Development Centre and the European Historical Economics Society. The FEB-HIS Summer School is coordinated by Posthumus fellow Amaury de Vicq and Posthumus PhD Thalassa de Waal

    The school’s main aim is to offer PhD students and Postdocs the opportunity to develop core research skills, ranging from presenting their research project, receiving feedback, providing commentary on the work of their peers, and moderating each other’s sessions. Participants will receive feedback on their presentations from leading scholars in the field. Moreover, these scholars will deliver keynote speeches on the latest developments in financial, economic and business history, shedding light on the digitization of historical data and innovative research methodologies. Moreover, students will receive guidance on publishing their work from (former) journal editors and gain valuable insights into academic career prospects. In celebration of the third female (and first in economic history) Noble Memorial Prize winner in Economic Sciences, Claudia Goldin, we will also pay particular attention to women in academia.

    Confirmed speakers are Posthumus board members Jutta Bolt (University of Groningen & Lund University) and Abe de Jong (University of Groningen & Monash University), Posthumus alumni Sandra de Pleijt (Wageningen University) and Selin Dilli (Utrecht University) as well as Rui Pedro Esteves (Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva), and Sibylle Lehmann-Hasemeyer (University of Hohenheim).

    Deadline for applications is 15 March 2024. A registration fee for admitted participants applies.

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  • PhD Defence Posthumus alumna Sietske van der Veen

    PhD Defence Posthumus alumna Sietske van der Veen

    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!

  • Public lecture Professor Nigel Penn on ‘Rough Treatment: Slavery and unfree labour in the Cape Colony 1750-1900′

    Public lecture Professor Nigel Penn on ‘Rough Treatment: Slavery and unfree labour in the Cape Colony 1750-1900′

    On 9 January 2024, Professor Nigel Penn (University of Cape Town) will deliver the public lecture ‘Rough Treatment: Slavery and unfree labour in the Cape Colony 1750-1900’. This lecture is organised by the multidisciplinary research group Colonial Relations and Structures at Radboud University.

    In this public lecture, visiting scholar Nigel Penn from the University of Cape Town will present his research on the Khoisan and Slave Revolt of 1801, exploring how race, class and gender oppressions combined to provoke a major anti-colonial uprising in the Cape Colony. Afterwards you are cordially invited to join the opening of the travelling South African exhibition ‘Fugitives’ on the ground floor of the Erasmus Building. This exhibition is a unique and innovative research and art hybrid collaboration, in which pracademic and forensic facial imaging specialist Kathryn Smith (Stellenbosch University) reconstructed portraits of 19th-century runaway enslaved people together with historians.

    Attendance is free of charge, prior registration however is requested.

    REGISTER

  • FRESH Workshop ‘Institutions, human capital, and long-term development: lessons from pre-modern Europe’ (UC Louvain)

    FRESH Workshop ‘Institutions, human capital, and long-term development: lessons from pre-modern Europe’ (UC Louvain)

    On 24 and 25 June 2024, LIDAM at UCLouvain will host a FRESH workshop on ‘Institutions, human capital, and long-term development: lessons from pre-modern Europe’. The purpose is to create the opportunity for graduate students and early-stage researchers to present and discuss their work in an environment especially focused on constructive feedback and support. The keynote speakers for this meeting will be Joel Mokyr, Professor of Economics and History at Northwestern University, and Nico Voigtländer, Professor of Economics at UCLA Anderson.

    This meeting is organized by David de la Croix (LIDAM, UCLouvain) and Paula Gobbi (ECARES, ULB) in association with the Frontier Research in Economic and Social History series (FRESH-organizer Sandra de Pleijt). This meeting is made possible thanks to funding made available by the ERC grants of the organizers and the European Historical Economics Society.

    Researchers interested in presenting should send an abstract of max. 500 words and/or a full paper, as well as a brief (1-2 page) CV by 31 January 2024. Detailed instructions are to be found in the full info via the button below.

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  • PhD Defence Posthumus alumna Eva van der Heijden

    PhD Defence Posthumus alumna Eva van der Heijden

    On 21 March 2024, Posthumus alumna Eva van der Heijden successfully defended her thesis ‘Educational Endeavors: Children of immigrants in education in the Netherlands, 1980-2020’ at Leiden University.

    Promotor was Professor Leo Lucassen (Leiden University), co-promotor Professor Helga de Valck ( Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute, University of Groningen).

    The N.W. Posthumus staff congratulates Eva with this achievement!

  • Save the date: SZW Wetenschapsdag 2024

    Save the date: SZW Wetenschapsdag 2024

    ~ because of scope, in Dutch only ~

    Het Ministerie van Sociale Zaken en Werkgelegenheid (SZW) streeft naar beleid dat daadwerkelijk bijdraagt aan werk en bestaanszekerheid voor iedereen, gebaseerd op feiten en state of the art kennis. Gedegen onderzoek – zowel theoretisch als praktijkgericht – speelt hierbij een grote rol. Het Ministerie van SZW organiseert daarom onderzoekers van hogescholen, universiteiten en publieke kennisinstellingen uit voor de vierde SZW Wetenschapsdag op donderdag 7 maart 2024 in Den Haag. Tussen 10.00 en 17.00 kunt u in diverse interactieve sessies kennismaken en kennis delen met beleidsmakers van het ministerie.

    Geïnteresseerden kunnen hun interesse via het daartoe bestemde formulier kenbaar maken.

    AANMELDING

  • PhD Defence Posthumus alumnus Damion Bunders

    PhD Defence Posthumus alumnus Damion Bunders

    On 15 March 2024, Posthumus alumnus Damion Bunders will defend his thesis ‘Gigs of their Own: can platform cooperatives become resilient?’ at the Erasmus Research Institute of Management of Erasmus University Rotterdam.

    Damion’s dissertation is about platform cooperatives as an alternative form of organisation where gig workers own and manage a digital platform collectively. It includes an analysis of the challenges these cooperatives face to better understand the conditions under which they could become resilient organisations.

    Promotors are Professor Tine De Moor (Erasmus University Rotterdam), Professor Agnes Akkerman (University of Amsterdam), and Professor Pearl Dykstra (Erasmus University Rotterdam).

    We wish Damion a succesful defence!

  • International Workshop ‘The Fragmented City in Premodern Europe’

    International Workshop ‘The Fragmented City in Premodern Europe’

    On 25 January 2024, the Centre for Urban History of the University of Antwerp, supported by the N.W. Posthumus Institute, will host the International Workshop ‘The Fragmented City in Premodern Europe’. Organisers are Posthumus PhD Bente Marschall and Posthumus fellow Professor Peter Stabel.

    This workshop wants to explore the notion of the fragmented city. It can be defined as urban settlements with multiple and often various political, legal, cultural or social entities operating in the same space, in which the local (urban) government lacked control over the entire territory or did not encompass all social relations within the city limits. Premodern European cities were defined by a patchwork of distinct enclaves with far-reaching implications that influenced the economic, political, juridical and cultural lives of their residents. By analysing patterns of fragmentation, the workshop aims to bring together early career and advanced scholars to trace the effects of these divisions on urban cohesion and urban agency.It starts from the idea that cities did not constitute a unified whole, either as an economic unit, a political body or a cultural scene ry. It is now more widely accepted that the medieval city was polycentric, encompassing multiple power centres and distinct legal frameworks. While the subject has been predominantly explored from a political perspective, there is an increasing number of studies emphasising the social and economic consequences of extra-territoriality.

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  • PhD Defence Posthumus alumnus Patrick Naaktgeboren

    PhD Defence Posthumus alumnus Patrick Naaktgeboren

    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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  • Conference ‘Commodities and Environments in Early Modern Global Asia, 1400 – 1800’

    Conference ‘Commodities and Environments in Early Modern Global Asia, 1400 – 1800’

    The organisers of the international conference ‘Commodities and Environments in Early Modern Global Asia, 1400–1800’ call for papers. This conference is organised under the auspices of the European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant Project, CAPASIA ‘The Asian Origins of Global Capitalism’, and will be hosted at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy on 13-15 November 2024. The conference explores the relationship between environments and commodities in early modern Global Asia between 1400 and 1800. It investigates the environmental consequences in these regions of the extraction, production and trade in commodities.

    This conference aims to integrate multiple historiographies which have sometimes operated in mutual isolation: (i) the literature on material culture and commodities in global history; (ii) the growing field of environmental history; and (iii) studies in the history of science which have examined how the natural sciences and ethnography served Europe’s quest for trade, profit, and colonial domination.

    Keynotes will be given by Professor Jakobina Arch (Whitman College) and Professor Sujit Sivasundaram (Cambridge University).

    Proposals from scholars at all career stages, including early career, are welcome. Papers will be selected on the basis of proposals submitted, and with the aim of ensuring a broad spread of topics for the conference. Abstracts should be submitted ultimately 20 February 2024.

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