Talks
Organisation & hosting
2025
Co-organization and co-hosting (with Steven Claeyssens) of the conference ‘Historische kranten in het AI-tijdperk’ in the Dutch National Library, The Hague (21.03.2025)
Co-organization and co-hosting (with Carsten Schnober, Jose Angel Daza, Parisa Zahedi, Mees van Stiphout and Willem-Jan Faber) of the workshop ‘Using AI to analyse historical texts’ at the Dutch National Library, The Hague (20.03.2025)
2022
Co-organization (with Parisa Zahedi and Carsten Schnober) and hosting of the workshop ‘Developing Dutch Language Models for Historical Research’ at the NL eScience Center Amsterdam (09.12.2022)
Co-organization and co-hosting (with Pieter Huistra) of the panel ‘Tussen vraag en verhaal: het hoe en waarom van replicatie in historisch onderzoek’ at Historicidagen 2022 Rotterdam (26.08.2022)
2018
Co-organization (with Joris van Eijnatten) of ‘Using Computational Techniques to Account for Cultural Change over Time’ Panel at ESSHC 2018, Belfast, (05.04.2018)
2017
Co-organization (with Jaap Verheul) of ‘Data Driven Conceptual History: New Methods and Approaches’ Panel at Genealogies of Knowlegde I, Manchester University (08.12.2017)
Co-organization (with Lisanne Walma and Peter van Hooff) and host of national text mining workshop, Utrecht University (07-08.11.2017)
Co-organization (with Lisanne Walma) and host of text mining in education workshop at Historicidagen, Utrecht (26.08.2017)
Host of the ‘Geschiedenis in een digitale wereld’ discussion panel at Historicidagen (25.08.2017)
2016
Co-organization (with Prof. Joris van Eijnatten) and host of the session ‘Visualizing Modernity: using digital techniques to trace the rise of Modernity in Europe’ at ESSHC 2016, Valencia (01.04.2016)
2015
Organization and host of expert meeting Digital Humanities at Utrecht University (10.06.2015)
Co-organization (with Melvin Wevers and Ilja Nieuwland) and host of THATCamp Utrecht (28-29.01.2015)
2014
Co-organization (with Jaap Verheul) of the international conference Reference Cultures and Imagined Empires from a Western Perspective, 1850-2000, Utrecht University (11-13.06.2014)
Co-host (with Bram Mellink) session ‘Bedolven onder bronnen’ at THATCampDH14, The Hague (14-15.01.2014)
2013
Organization and co-host of the ‘Genetics, eugenics and culture: transatlantic perspectives, 1900-2000’ Symposium at the International Congress of History of Science, Technology and Medicine 2013, Manchester (27.07.2013)
Chair of the ‘Vernetzung in Wirtschaft, Wissenschaft und Technik’ panel at the conference ‘Mittler, Verflechtung, Netzwerke: Deutschland und die Niederlande im 20. Jahrhundert’, Amsterdam (26-27.09.2013) (an account of the conference can be found here at H-Soz-u-Kult)
Presentations
(texts and slides available on request)
2025
‘The future of history. Between human interpretation and machine learning’, keynote presentation at the Studenten Geschiedenis Nederland annual conference, Groningen (20.06.2025)
‘Historians using machine learning. Two case studies from environmental history’, presentation for the Natural Language and Text Processing group of the Methods and Statistics department of Utrecht University (03.06.2025, together with Parisa Zahedi)
‘“Auf zerbrochenen Pfeilern können wir keine Brücken bauen.” 80 Jahre Gedenken in den Niederlanden, 1945-2025’, presentation for the Volkshochschule Borken (29.04.2025, together with Katharina Garvert-Huijnen)
‘The semantics of sustainability. Hoe machine learning kan helpen de conceptuele geschiedenis van duurzaamheid in Nederland te bestuderen’, presentation at Historische Kranten in het AI-tijdperk Conference The Hague (21.03.2025, together with Pablo Merayo Montes)
2024
‘Benefits and Limits of Reproducibility in History’, keynote presentation (with Pieter Huistra) at the Annual Symposium of the Dutch reproducibility network at the UMCG Groningen (06.12.2024) (YouTube link)
Commentary of keynote paper Jo Guldi, Historicidagen Maastricht (22.08.2024)
‘Once more with feeling. Replications in History’, presentation (with Pieter Huistra) at the Open Research Week of the University of Essex (27.02.2024)
2023
‘What AI can do for history (and vice versa). A machine learning approach to studying Dutch public debates’, presentation at the GKG departmental seminar series (02.10.2023)
‘Podcasts as public history’, Presentation at the Cummunity Engaged Learning @Humanities seminar series (20.06.2023)
‘The Semantics of Sustainability. A machine learning approach to the conceptual history of the Dutch sustainability discourse’, presentation at the UU Environmental Governance Seminar series (05.06.2023)
‘Replications in History. Reflections on two experiments’, presentation (with Pieter Huistra) at the Metascience 2023 virtual Symposium: Replication in the Humanities (26.04.2023)
‘Something happened to the future 2. Reconstructing temporalities in English parliamentary debate, 1800-2005’, presentation (with Joris van Eijnatten) at ESSHC 2023 in Göteborg (14.04.2023)
‘Was nützt die Fussnote? Datafizierung und Qualitätskontrolle in den (digitalen)Geschichtswissenschaften’, lecture at the Offenes Forschungskolloquium digitale Geschichte Humboldt University Berlin (08.02.2023) (YouTube link)
2022
‘Something happened to the future’, Deswarte Prize Seminar paper (08.11.2022) (YouTube link)
Invited speaker at the session ‘Deepfakes en de geschiedwetenschap’ at Historicidagen 2022 in Rotterdam (26.08.2022)
‘Left in the cold. A machine learning approach to map changing discourses around the fossil fuel heritage in the Netherlands, 1950-1990’, presentation (with Gertjan Plets) at the DePOT Conference in Bochum (19.08.2022)
‘Everyday memory: A computational analysis of changing relation between past and present in Dutch newspapers in the twentieth Century’, long paper at DH2022 Tokyo (28.07.2022)
‘Mining for clean energy: a machine learning approach to historicized sentiment mining of fossil fuel discourse in the Netherlands’, long paper at DH2022 Tokyo (27.07.2022)
‘What’s in a footnote? Datafication and the consequences for quality control in historical scholarship’, keynote at Datafication in the Historical Humanities. Reconsidering Traditional Understandings of Sources and Data conference, German Historical Institute Washington (03.06.2022)
‘Podcasts as public history’, presentation at the UU TLL Inspiratiecafé (17.02.2022)
2020
Participant and speaker at the Arcadia workshop on research workflows using digitised newspapers, Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History, Luxembourg University (30-31.01.2020)
2019
“Buy healthy, tasty, pure!” A digital text analysis of neoliberal trends in Dutch food culture, 1950-2010’, poster presentation at DH2019 Utrecht (10.07.2019, with Melvin Wevers)
2018
‘Introduction to text mining’, break-out session for the Utrecht University Data Science Day, Utrecht (20.04.2018)
‘Using word embeddings for digital conceptual history’, paper at DHd: Digital Humanities Germany conference, Cologne (27.02.2018)
2017
‘Using word embeddings to study conceptual change in historical newspapers’, Data Driven Conceptual History: New Methods and Approaches Panel at Genealogies of Knowlegde I, Manchester University (08.12.2017) (with Jaap Verheul)
‘Distributional modelling and conceptual change. Tracing concepts in Dutch newspapers using word2vec’, Lorentz Workshop ‘The Mental Lexicon’, Leiden University (15.06.2017)
‘Keyword generator & dictionary viewer’, lightning talk at the presentation of the renewed KB Lab website, National Library, The Hague (11.04.2017)
‘Applying distributional semantics on Dutch historical newspapers to trace conceptual change’, talk at the AIUCD 2017 conference, Rome (26.01.2017)
‘De evolutie van concepten in kranten’, talk at the Historische kranten als ‘big data’ II: Concepten op drift’ conference at the National Library, The Hague (20.01.2017)
2016
‘Texcavator, a Tool for Cultural Text Mining in Historical Newspaper Repositories’, talk at the What is Digital Humanities? panel at Historikertag 2016, Hamburg, 22 September 2016 (with Jaap Verheul)
‘From Keyword Searching to Discourse Mining’, talk at DH2016, Krakow, 15 July 2016 (with Juliette Lonij)
‘Design and Implementation of ShiCo: Visualizing Shifting Concepts over Time’, talk at Histoinformatics2016 - the 3rd International Workshop on Computational History, Krakow, 12 July 2016 (with Melvin Wevers)
‘How the Big World enters a Small Country. The USA and Germany in Dutch Historical Newspapers’, talk at the Remapping Centre and Periphery Conference at UCL, London, 23 June 2016
‘Conceptual text mining’, talk at the Utrecht University & University of Sheffield Digital Humanities Workshop, Utrecht, 12 May 2016
‘From keyword searching to discourse mining’, talk for the Encounters between the Humanities and Computing Colloquium series, Utrecht, 18 February 2016
2015
‘Digitaal historisch onderzoek: Kwantitatieve geschiedschrijving revisited?’, talk for the Werkgroep Lichaamsgeschiedenis, Utrecht, 16 December 2015
‘Texcavator: a distant reading tool for historical news media’, presentation at the NLeScience Center Lorentz eHumanities Day, Leiden, 14 December 2015
Workshop ‘Cultural Text Mining’ at the DH Autumn School at Trier University, 1 October 2015
‘Concepts over time. Tracing concepts in Dutch Newspapers using Sequential Word Vector Spaces’, in the First DiscourseNet Conference at Bremen University, 24 September 2015
‘Big Data for historical research: Limits, challenges, and opportunities’, in the conference Making ‘Big Data’ human: doing history in the digital age at Cambridge University, 9 September 2015
‘De belofte van vitamines’, talk for Medisch-Historische Club D. de Moulin, Nijmegen, 16 June 2015
‘Big Data in historical research’, talk at NWO Bessensap, 12 June 2015
‘From keyword searching to concept mining’, talk at the National Library, The Hague, 28 May 2015
2014
‘Finding Reference Cultures in Big Data’, Europeana Newspapers Information Day, National Library of the Netherlands, The Hague, 28 October 2014
‘Finding Reference Cultures after the “Digital Turn”’ in the international conference Reference Cultures and Imagined Empires from a Western Perspective, 1850-2000, Utrecht University, 11-13 June 2014
Introduction to the Tranlantis research project, meeting with the Postdemokratie und Neoliberalismus Project team, Helmut-Schmidt-Universität der Bundeswehr Hamburg, 22-23 April 2014
Workshop presentation on BILAND and Translantis, Mining Digital Repositories Conference, The Hague, 10-11 April 2014
‘Digitale Zeitungsarchive als Quellen (digitaler) Geschichtsforschung’, Europeana Newspapers Information Day, Staatsbibliothek Berlin, Berlin, 28 February 2014
2013
‘Biland: Digital approaches to eugenic thinking in the Netherlands, 1860-1945’, 1st International Workshop on Histoinformatics at the 5th International Conference on Social Informatics, Kyoto, 25 November 2013
‘Translantis: Het Amerikaanse bedrijfsmodel als referentie voor de Nederlandse economie, 1890-1990’, talk at the Studiedag Stichting bedrijfsgeschiedenis, Utrecht, 21 November 2013
‘Biland: Digital approaches to eugenic thinking in the Netherlands, 1860-1945’, Descartes Centre for the History and Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities, Utrecht, 19 November 2013
‘Biland: Digital approaches to eugenic thinking in the Netherlands, 1860-1945’ at the ‘Genetics, eugenics and culture: transatlantic perspectives, 1900-2000’ Symposium at the International Congress of History of Science, Technology and Medicine 2013, Manchester, 27 July 2013
‘Biland: eine Webapplikation für historisch-komparatives Text Mining in öffentlichen Medien aus unterschiedlichen Ländern’, Textgrid Workshop, Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Berlin, 18 April 2013
‘Biland: eine Webapplikation für historisch-komparatives Text Mining in öffentlichen Medien aus unterschiedlichen Ländern’, Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Berlin, 15 January 2013
2012
‘Biland: eine Webapplikation für historisch-komparatives Text Mining in öffentlichen Medien aus unterschiedlichen Ländern’, Trier Center for Digital Humanities DH Kolloquium, Trier, 28 November 2012
‘Biland: developing a web-application for comparative historical data-mining in public media from different countries’, NeDiMAH Using Large-Scale Text Collections for Research Workshop, The Hague, 21 November 2012
‘Biland: developing a web-application for comparative historical data-mining in public media from different countries’, Digital Humanities Congress, Sheffield, 6-8 September 2012
‘Genetic and eugenic thinking in public discourse in the Netherlands and Germany, 1860-1945’, The Biological Future of Man - Continuities and Breaks in the History of Human Genetics before and after 1945, Nuremberg, 21-23 June 2012
2011
‘De belofte van vitamines’, Farmaceutisch Historische Dag, Arnhem, 27 October 2011
‘De belofte van vitamines’, Salon Boerhaave, Leiden ,19 October 2011
Referent at a colloquium on the public discussions about the contested past of the Netherlands and Germany, NIOD, Amsterdam, 1 April 2011
2010
‘The Science of measuring Vitamins’, Drugs, living things and the Problems of Standardization, Braunschweig, 25-27 March 2010
2009
‘L.K. Wolff en de professionalisering van het voedingsonderzoek in de jaren twintig en dertig’, Het universitaire bedrijf in Nederland, Utrecht, 27 November 2009
‘Der Wissenschaftler als Vitaminexperte’, Graduiertenkolleg Duitsland Instituut Amsterdam, Amsterdam, 9 October 2009
‘De belofte van vitamines’, Promovendicongres Huizinga Instituut, Barchem, 17 April 2009
‘Wetenschap en propaganda’, Tweede promovendicongres wetenschapsgeschiedenis, Kerkrade, 22 January 2009
2008
‘Voedselcontrole als taak van de wetenschap, 1918-1945’, Eten en drinken: steeds gezonder? Historische aspecten van voedselveiligheid en -kwaliteit en hun gevolgen, Eindhoven, 28 November 2008
‘Collaborations between university and industry’, Artificial Cold and International Cooperation in Science, 1870-1920, Leiden, 4 August 2008
‘Science, industry and government in nutrition research in the Netherlands, 1918-1945’, 17. Studientag Wissenschaftsgeschichte Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Berlin, 16 May 2008
2007
‘Universiteit en industrie, 1914-1940’, Promovendicongres wetenschapsgeschiedenis, Barchem, 11-12 January 2007
