Everyone has heard the Ciceronian maxim “History is life’s teacher”. Yet behind this initial idea there are hiding history teachers, university courses, textbooks, and other concrete ways of conveying historical knowledge and expertise. Starting from this maxim, we would like to invite you to a debate that will consider the transmission of such historical expertise and how its fruits can be applied in practice. One of the key elements in this discussion will indeed be applied history and its potential in educational, policymaking, and other practical contexts.
Our guests during the debate will be researchers from two projects that are strongly connected yet have a different approach to applied history: Corvus Historical Consultancy (KU Leuven/State Archives of Belgium) and RETOPEA – Religious Toleration and Peace (Horizon 2020). Both projects are focused on rethinking the past in order to address issues in the present or about future and have in recent years adopted their own ways of fulfilling this ambition.
Violet Soen is associate professor in Early Modern History at the KU Leuven (Belgium) and editor-in-chief of the series Habsburg Worlds at Brepols Publishers. She takes a special interest in the religious and political history of the Spanish Monarchy, the Low Countries and France. As co-supervisor of RETOPEA and academic supervisor of Corvus, she holds a leading position in both applied history-projects and continues to work on the further development of this subfield.
Bram De Ridder is postdoctoral researcher in applied history at the KU Leuven (Belgium). He studied international relations at the University of Cambridge, graduated with his PhD in history at the KU Leuven, and was a visiting scholar at Harvard University. In 2019 he became founder of Corvus Historical Consultancy, but he previously worked as assistant-coordinator for RETOPEA. In both capacities he played and continues to play a key role in bringing historical knowledge and expertise to non-historians in education, government, and business.
Practical information
Register in advance for this meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYvc-uurDMqHtyfGebqgsi8WJZw1EZjUN-g
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting. This online discussion is a scholarly event organized by RETOPEA and moderated by Alicja Bielak and Michał Choptiany (University of Warsaw). The event is open to everybody interested in the topic.