Terug in Nederland! It’s been a little under a year, but I’m back in Holland. It’s been a little under a year, but the research blog is back. I was warned that teaching occupies a large share of one’s time as a first-year professor. Creighton (and the move to Omaha) offered a multitude of distractions, from service opportunities to student seminars, to conference presentations, to settling into a new city/new state.

Happily, one of the products of last years research trip has finally seen the light of day. The research workshop “Resilience in disastrous times: the processing of historical catastrophes in the Low Countries (ca. 1600-1850)” resulted an edited volume in the interdisciplinary journal of Low Countries Studies, Dutch Crossing. The collection includes work from Raingard Esser on resilience to seventeenth century flooding and Marijke Meijer Drees’ contribution thoughtfully reconsiders the role of providential thinking (a particular fascination of mine) in the context of the Delft gunpowder explosion of 1654. Joop Koopmans and myself discuss shipworms. Koopmans considers the role of media (in particular newspapers, periodicals, and pamphlets) in the early years of the epidemic, and my own article addresses the paalwormepidemie in the context of disaster novelty.

Finally, Lotte Jensen brings us in to the 19th century with her analysis of Louis Napoleon’s complicated relationship with his subjects, especially in the context of his management of disasters. Naturally, it’s nice to see a project completed to my satisfaction. The research into shipworms is far from over (stay tuned for more info on the subject), but I’m excited expand the work in new directions in the coming month.

Like last year, this blog will document my travels, my research, and my thinking about subjects related to my research on Dutch 18th century disaster. My schedule this summer is much less focused on conferences. Aside from a presentation in late June sponsored by the Stichting voor de Middeleeuwse Archeologie in Hoorn (NL), my schedule is almost completely dictated by my research needs. My research goals for this summer will touch on several themes, but will largely be focused on three subjects:

1. Gathering further evidence of shipworms infestations, especially those prior to 1730 (for instance, on the island Goeree in 1728)
2. Collecting cattle plague mortality data. This work relates to a collaborative research project independent of my manuscript with Filip van Roosbreuck.
3. Collecting archival source material on the Dutch River floods of 1740-41. This final goal will dominate my time and will lay the foundation for a collaborative paper with Toon Bosch and (possibly) a final case study for my manuscript.

One can’t work all the time, though! It’s the weekend and I’ve just finished a long standing project (more on that to come). I’m off to Gelderland for some lekker fietsen!