Posthumus Fellow emeritus Professor Peer Vries and Annelieke Vries-Baaijens recently published their book The rise of the modern state in Europe, 1450-1914. Whereas the current world consists of states with their own, demarcated, usually contiguous territory, and recognised authority, in the Late Middle Ages legitimacy of government authority was not based on institutionalised participation by…

Recently, Leuven University Press has issued a new edition of TSEG – The Low Countries Journal of Social and Economic History, the Dutch-Flemish academic journal on social and economic history. The latest edition contains a lot of interesting articles, some authored by Posthumus fellows, among which an article by Reinder Klinkhamer on the response of…

On 23 June 2025, Posthumus alumna Robin Rose Southard successfully defended the PhD thesis ‘Biting the hand that feeds: contesting the food guilds in 18th-century Brussels’ at Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Supervisor was Professor Wouter Ryckbosch (Vrije Universiteit Brussel). The N.W. Posthumus staff congratulates Robin Rose with obtaining the PhD!

Tresoar and the Friends of Tresoar stimulate a new generation of researchers of Frisian history, literature, culture and/or literature. Together they established the Tresoar Fellowship. Every year a stipend is made available to a young academic from home or abroad. This allows an innovative research project of up to three months to be supported. Candidates…

For the NWO-funded Vici-project ‘Care and Coercion. Patriarchy, (Forced) Labour and Caregiving in the Household in the Dutch Empire, c. 1750-Present’, the research group of Economic and Social Historyis hiring three postdoctoral researchers, who will study the intricate relations between care and coercion in households in the Dutch Empire. The positions are divided in three different…

On 2 June 2025, Posthumus alumna Heleen Blommers successfully defended the PhD thesis ‘Deconstructing the War on Poverty: why a failure narrative became entrenched in American political discourse, 1964–1974’ at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Supervisors were Professor Karel Davids (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam), Dr Dienke Hondius (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam), and Professor Damian Pargas (Leiden University). Heleen’s…

The news magazine de Volkskrant and the International Institute of Social History (IISH) are welcoming submissions for the Volkskrant-IISH Thesis prize 2025. The prize of 1,500 euros is annually awarded to a student who, according to the jury, has written the most innovative master’s thesis at a Dutch university. For the 2025 edition, Master theses…

On 27 and 28 May 2025, the Posthumus Conference 2025 was held in Nijmegen at Radboud University, hosted by Dr Dries Lyna and Dr Joris van den Tol and visited by c. 140 participants. This year’s conference was on the central theme ‘The People vs Structures’ with a reflection on how legal systems, institutions, and…

The Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) has awarded a FWO Senior Postdoctoral Fellowship to Dr Kristof Loockx, fellow of the N.W. Posthumus Institute and postdoctoral researcher a the University of Antwerp. This fellowship is awarded to selected researchers who have completed their PhD a few years ago to further specialise in their research discipline. With the…

The Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) has awarded a FWO Junior Postdoctoral Fellowship to Dr Charris De Smet, fellow of the N.W. Posthumus Institute and postdoctoral researcher at the Department of History as well as affiliated to the Centre for Political History (PoHis) of the University of Antwerp. This fellowship is awarded to selected researchers who…