“Ik vind het echt schokkend dat in principe rechtstatelijke partijen als de VVD en de SGP meegaan met de populisten in de Tweede Kamer, die op deze manier de democratische rechtsorde willen inperken.” Beatrice de Graaf is ook vernietigend over hun gedrag: www.historischnieuwsblad.nl/antifa/

On my way back from the "Planetary Futures" conference in Manchester, organized by @sadiahqureshi.bsky.social and @duncanwilson78.bsky.social Two days of vibrant discussions on how the humanities can help us understand extinction.

We are seeking a PhD candidate with an interest in East–West European relations (1970s–1990s) to work with me and Aline Sierp. The deadline for submitting proposals is 28 September. vacancies.maastrichtuniversity.nl/job/Maastric...

Impressions from #eseh2025: a speech by Linnaeus himself, grandiose academic architecture and a quaint natural history museum. But, above all, wonderfully engaging panels and workshops. And, abover all, catching up with old and new friends. Many thanks to the organizers!

Good morning Sweden! On the train towards #eseh2025

Raf De Bont (@rafdebont.bsky.social) discusses how computers changed zoos, touching upon databases, ‘infrastructural globalism’ and transcontinental flows of Siberian tigers! Read it here: doi.org/10.1017/S174...

1/ Happy to share that my article “Beyond Homecoming: The Reintroduction of Seven Przewalski’s Mares in the Gobi Desert” has been published in Environmental Humanities. It is the story of seven mares flown from Australian zoos to Mongolia’s Gobi Desert in the 1990s doi.org/10.1215/2201... #envhist

Make sure to read @monicavasile.bsky.social's wonderful new article in Environmental Humanities - arguing we should think of reintroduction projects not as a form of 'homecoming', but as 'homemaking'. #MovingAnimals read.dukeupress.edu/environmenta...

New special issue of OSIRIS: "Animal Mobilities" 🐫🐠🐛 The volume was edited by MPIWG Research Scholars Tamar Novick, @lisaonaga.bsky.social, and Gabriel N. Rosenberg of the working groups "Out of Place, Out of Time" and "Proteins and Fibers." 🔗 bit.ly/amv4025 #HistSci #EnvHist #STS #Zoology

📸🪶 Congrats to Pauw Vos on securing an #NWO PhDs in the Humanities grant! His project: "Narratives of the Nest: Early Dutch Bird #Photography and the Visual Construction of Conservation (1890-1940)”. Supervised by @rafdebont.bsky.social & Miriam Meissner.

Warning: DB rant approaching.

The imagined student-professor relationship at Basel university looks rather, uh, Leninist.

"It amounts to misleading your readers scientifically and – pardon me – it is rather questionable as human behaviour." Ethologist Rudolf Schenkel, unhappy about a reference to his work in a book by Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt, expresses his frustration in an angry letter in 1968.

New article in Osiris, entitled 'Flying Rhinos', in which I follow two northern white rhinoceroses to discuss the entanglement of mid-twentieth century zoo conservation, colonialism and celebrity culture: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

🤩🤩🤩 Tweede Kamer stemt tegen taaltoets voor anderstalige studies – universiteiten en hogescholen verheugd www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2025/...

Academische vrijheid staat onder druk en moet beter worden beschermd. Die conclusie lees je vandaag in dit KNAW-rapport: www.knaw.nl/nieuws/knaw-... Aanbevelingen o.m.: meer vrijheid van onderzoek, bescherming tegen intimidatie en minder inhoudelijke overheidsbemoeienis.

Spent the morning in Heerlen at Studio Europa's presentation of a new policy brief on the Digital Services Act. Interesting (and sometimes) sharp discussions on an important topic.

Tiny me buying Puffin books would never have believed I would grow up to write a book for Penguin. I still have several puffin books in my library. Not only did I write a book for Penguin, but it has finally arrived in roarsome real life form. Great time to preorder for 5 June launch (T-26 days).

The Flemish government is condemned for the (near) extinction of the European hamster: www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/20...

Our Annual Research Report is there! It gives a general sense of what the FASoS Research Institute has been up to, and highlights the work of some of our early career Researchers. Have a look! 👇

"At the same time that borders are strengthened, the need for humans and other animals to migrate is being supercharged by climate breakdown. It is a worrying future in multiple respects.” www.theguardian.com/environment/...

We don't just need universities to train doctors and engineers... We also need humanists, to help us to understand the world we live in. I am striking because we need to educate the next generation of teachers, journalists, and opinion makers. @tullioviola.bsky.social #WOinACTIE #StakingHO

Check out this great new initiative from my colleagues Darryl Cressman and @masssimons.bsky.social - Society for the History of the Philosophy of Technology. bsky.app/profile/hpts... | @fasosmaastricht.bsky.social | @ccmmody.bsky.social | @rafdebont.bsky.social | @sallywyatt.bsky.social

Today’s Daily Cartoon, by Lisa Rothstein. #NewYorkerCartoons nyer.cm/QAnwGsj

The Dutch govt has funded sector plans for collaboration in #highered. FASoS contributes to themes like humane #AI, #inequality, #culture, & #democracy, with new staff advancing this work within and beyond the Faculty. Find out about the research carried out👉 tinyurl.com/2vxwrn8a

Animal representations at the car mechanic: toy beech martens selling ultrasound devices.

Mooie presentatie van het landschapsboek 'De Maas in Limburg' onder redactie van collega's Nico Randeraad en Pieter Caljé

Intussen op de steppes van Glysofatië

Academic Freedom 2014-24, an index by the Institute of Political Science, FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg. This matches my experience. There is a lesson in this for all of us: it's a sliding scale; we have to protect and further institutionalize academic freedom and equal participation in academic governance.

Now that this has started to happen, just starting a thread cataloging the breaking of the infrastructural sciences. bsky.app/profile/davi...

Well ...this fund is funded with existing funding from the science foundation (no additional funding) so that money cannot be spent elsewhere (zero sum game). And the 'we value science and talent' political rhetoric comes amidst huge budget cuts in higher ed and research nltimes.nl/2025/03/20/n...

Thought-provoking papers at the Museum Koenig #rewilding conference. Good discussions aout, among other things, baselines and imaginaries, refugee species, illicit reintroductions, land-grabbing and the landscaping power of bovids

The rewilding conference at Museum Koenig comes with an indoor taxidermic savannah for the coffee breaks.

Setting up camp at my usual railway stranding place (Liège-Guillemins). The train delays give me some extra time to anticipate what looks like a wonderfully interdisciplinary conference: Rewilding in Europe, at Museum Koenig, Bonn.

How did computers change zoos? I discuss the question in an article that just came out in the Journal of Global History - touching upon databases, 'infrastructural globalism' and transcontinental flows of Siberian tigers. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

How did people in the 19thc decide if birds were intelligent? Find out in my new article "Avian architects: Technology, domestication, and animal minds in urban America" doi.org/10.1177/0073... (1/3)

'De reis ligt in het verleden' - De nmbs-app: diepzinnig en poëtisch.

De Randstad - altijd even wennen als je uit het landelijke zuiden komt.

Voor sectorplan overleg aan de VU, waar Van Leeuwenhoek toeziet op de kwaliteit van de kebab.

Even een ander nieuwtje in tijden van polycrisis: in Tsjechië bouwden bevers een dam en creëerden in een handomdraai een natuurgebied waar de autoriteiten al jaren over steggelden. Ze bespaarden de Tsjechen daarmee 1,2 miljoen euro. Bevers 1 - bureaucratie 0. www.volkskrant.nl/buitenland/t...

A new paper from the Moving Animals project is out in the world! Vincent Bijman writes on sea lamprey invasions, in a wonderful special issue of the Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences edited by @julesskotnesbrown.bsky.social

We are hiring two new educational coordinators for the @fasosmaastricht.bsky.social #Teaching & #Learning Hub. These are supporting roles that focus on operational processes, including logistical and administrative issues. Details ☞ tinyurl.com/educodata tinyurl.com/educo1 #SoTLSky #TeachLearnSky

Great presentations and discussions yesterday with this wonderful bunch, at the colloquium 'Moving Animals: Wanderings in the Anthropocene', co-organized with @vbateman.bsky.social

To celebrate and conclude five years of research by the Moving Animals project, @rafdebont.bsky.social and I have organized the conference “Moving Animals: Wanderings in the Anthropocene” on Jan 31 in Maastricht. #envhist #animalhist Program at: moving-animals.nl/upcoming-mov...

Nadenken over de geschiedenis en toekomst van de natuurbescherming op het Natuurfocus Symposium:

Reactie van de minister op de demonstratie vandaag In de categorie ‘ik hoor u wel, maar ik luister niet’ #doehetniet @woinactie.bsky.social

Meer dan 20.000 betogers die de #Eppocalyps willen afwenden op het Malieveld! #WOinActie

Op het Malieveld tegen de ongeziene bezuinigingen op onderwijs. En we waren met velen!

Morgen protesteren we om 13:00 op het Malieveld in Den Haag tegen de onverantwoorde bezuinigingen op het hoger onderwijs. Zonder onderwijs - geen toekomst! Wij van @fasosmaastricht.bsky.social zijn erbij op het Malieveld. Zie ik je daar?

Protests at every university! Just imagine all these people together in The Hague, november 25! Reports here in a thread. Starting in Twente 1/ www.utoday.nl/news/74870/s...