Posthumus Conference 2026 (Amsterdam, 21-22 May)

Detailed programme

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Thursday 21 May
10:00-10:30
Entrance hall
Arrival and registration
10:30-12:15
Nikolaevskij
Session 1A – Historical research and the Museum
Organised by Research Network ‘Economy and Society of the Pre-industrial Low Countries in Comparative Perspective’
Mathieu Willemsen (Radboud University) – Objects and archives, a matching pair: Reading a musket instead of a book
peer commentator: Paulien Daelman
 
René de Kam (Museum Catharijneconvent Utrecht) – The object and the story
 
Janna Coomans (Utrecht University) – Material objects and daily uses of fire in late medieval cities
10:30-12:15
Posthumus
Session 1B – The economy of slave trade
Organised by Research Network ‘Routes and Roots in Colonial and Global History’
Vincent Laarman (VU Amsterdam) – The financial activities of the Dutch Reformed Church related to slavery
peer commentator: Elene Vernaeve
 
Britt van Duijvenvoorde (International Institute of Social History) – Outcasted into slavery: commercial enslavement and caste on the eighteenth-century Malabar Coast
peer commentator: Camille Le Brettevillois
 
Pepijn Brandon (VU Amsterdam) – The Trans-Atlantic slave trade and the development of Europe
commentator: Viola Müller
10:30-12:15
Scheltema
Session 1C – For richer, for poorer
Organised by Research Network ‘Inclusion, Exclusion, and Mobility’
Jeroen Kole (University of Antwerp) – Material culture and social inequality in Antwerp, 1835-1912
peer commentator: Sophie Vries
 
Julie De Groot (University of Antwerp) – Material culture and social inequality in Antwerp, 1835-1912
 
Robert Vonk (Utrecht University) – Poverty in an affluent society: Contours of a research project on post-war poverty in the Netherlands
12:15-13:15
Max Nettlau
Poster presentation PhDs cohort 2025
13:15-14:15
Lunch room
Lunch break
14:15-16:00
Max Nettlau
Session 2A – Social inequality and the origins of life chances
Organised by Research Network ‘Life-Courses, Family and Labour’
Tom Hacha (Ghent University) – Between birth and death: Social inequalities in stillbirth mortality in Antwerp, 1820-1923)
peer commentator: Wieke Metzlar
 
Sarah Wiertsema and Kristina Thompson (both Wageningen University and Research) – Exploring social mobility’s role in the social gradient in mortality in the Netherlands, 1850-2023
 
Daniel Franken (University of Groningen) – Maternal-infant health in Brazil: Evidence from the São Paulo Maternity Hospital, 1901-1925)
14:15-16:00
Posthumus
Session 2B – Globalisation, trade, and productivity
Organised by Research Network ‘Globalisation, Inequality, and Sustainability in Long-Term Perspective’
Maite Van den Borre (Utrecht University) – Commodity frontiers as knowledge frontiers: Tin in Bangka-Belitung and bauxite in Suriname
 
Abe de Jong (University of Groningen), Tim Kooijmans (Taiwan National University) and Peter Koudijs (New York University) – Finance and the slave trade
 
Ewout Frankema (Wageningen University & Research) – South-South comparisons of manufacturing productivity: A new benchmark of the Philippines and Mozambique, 1956
14:15-16:00
Scheltema
Session 2C – Nominees TSEG Essay Prize 2025
Organised by TSEG – The Low Countries Journal of Social and Economic History – organizer: Astrid Verburg, moderator: Corinne Boter; the winner will be announced at the plenary meeting on the afternoon of 21 May 2026)
Paulien Daelman (Ghent University) – Who is afraid of insect capital? Rethinking the role of nature in economic history.
 
Sanne Hermans (University of Antwerp) – Society’s therapist
 
Koen Hoogendoorn (Utrecht University) – Drugs: A debate without memory
 
Josie Laüferts (Utrecht University / IISH) and Silke Baas (Utrecht University) – A call to action: Rethinking the historian’s responsibility in turbulent times
 
Dulce van Vliet (Eindhoven University of Technology) – Speaking the same language: Re-imagining wellbeing monitors for social and economic (and environmental) history
16:15-17:30
Max Nettlau
Plenary session
 
Welcome by Ewout Frankema, chair N.W. Posthumus Institute
 
Introduction
 
Keynote lecture by Professor Sven Beckert
 
Announcement result TSEG Essay Prize 2025
18:00 Conference Dinner
Restaurant Oceaan, R.J.H. Fortuynplein 29