The New Netherland Institute hosts a Zoom seminar where academics, public historians, and graduate students meet to discuss a piece of chapter or article length pre-circulated work on New Netherland and the Dutch Atlantic World. Moderated by NNI’s director, Dr. Deborah Hamer, the seminar meets four times per semester on Wednesdays from noon to 1:30 (EST). This time was selected to enable the participation of both American and European scholars.
At the seminar, participants discuss pre-circulated scholarly work of chapter or article length that is in progress. Attendees are expected to have read the work in advance of the seminar. Presenters offer a brief introduction to their papers, and the remainder of the time will be devoted to discussion. Scholars of all ranks, including graduate students, and public historians are warmly invited to attend and contribute to the discussions. As these papers are works in progress, please do not cite them outside of the seminar without first requesting the permission of the author.
Email NNI.Seminar@gmail.com to join the listserv. Papers and Zoom links are circulated to the email list a week in advance of the seminar session. If you have a PhD or are a PhD candidate and you would like to present a paper related to New Netherland or the Dutch Atlantic World, please email NNI.Seminar@gmail.com with your CV and an abstract of the paper that you would like to present.
2026
January 14, 2026: Marian (Molly) Leech, University of Pennsylvania
Unmaking Possession in the Delaware River Valley, 1620–1655
February 11, 2026: Agnes Trouillet, University of Paris Nanterre
March 11, 2026: Paul Feller-Simmons, University of Oklahoma
April 15, 2026: Alan Mikhail, Yale University
2025
January 15, 2025: Virginie Adane, Nantes Université
Empires in Contact: Slavery and Settlement in Seventeenth-Century Schenectady
February 19, 2025: Kyle Dieleman, Dordt University [US]
Theological Approaches to Slavery in the Early Modern Dutch Reformed Tradition and Impacts on New Netherland
March 19, 2025: Jennifer Motter, College of William & Mary
Collection, Cultivation, & Control: Dutch Saltworks in the 17th c. Atlantic
April 23, 2025: Amanda Faulkner, Columbia University
Maritime Lives on Land: Seafaring Experiences and Colonial Communities in New Netherland
September 17, 2025: Giovanna Montenegro, Binghamton University
Moravian Missionaries and their Engagement with Samara Cultural Traditions
October 15, 2025: TBA
November 19, 2025: David Veevers, Bangor University [UK]
December 17, 2025: Jonas Danen, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
2024
January 17, 2024: Elizabeth Hines, University of Chicago
Anglo-Dutch Imperial Experiments
February 21, 2024: Esther Baakman, Radboud University
Reporting Empire, 1667-1713
March 20, 2024: Stephanie Porras, Tulane University, and Aaron Hyman, Johns Hopkins University
Recasting the Silver Fleet, or the Propaganda of Piracy in the Age of Global Extraction
April 16*, 2024: Simon Middleton, College of William & Mary
*please note that this meeting will be on Tuesday rather than our usual Wednesday.
The “manie and great inconveniences which do dayly arise by dealing for monie”: Current Money and Community in early America
September 18, 2024: Mark Thompson, University of Groningen
The “Right Line”: Disputing Borders and Allegiances in the Mid-Atlantic Borderlands
October 16, 2024: Thato Magano, Rutgers University & Leiden University
“They must behave like wild animals indoors”: Deconstructing the Gendered and Racialized Contours of Sodomy in Jessie Burton’s Seventeenth Century Amsterdam
November 20, 2024: Dennis Maika, New Netherland Institute
“Those with an interest in the Country”: Private Entrepreneurship in New Amsterdam, 1640–1645
December 11, 2024: Martijn van den Bel, Centre archéologique Inrap
Lost Letters from the Second Anglo-Dutch War, 1665–1667: Anglo Dutch Commerce in the Leeward Islands
2023
January 18: Joris van den Tol, Radboud University
A Network against the (first) Act of Navigation in the Anglo-Dutch Atlantic
February 22: Mark Meuwese, University of Winnipeg
The Indigenous peoples of Guyana and the Restructuring of the South Atlantic, 1645-1700
April 19: Jared Hardesty, Western Washington University
Two Sisters and a Suriname Plantation: Fairfield Estate, the Dutch Atlantic, and Rethinking New England Slavery
October 18, 2023: Hilde Neus, University of Suriname
Seventy Women of Color Against the Civil Guards, Suriname, 1778
November 15, 2023: Lou Roper, SUNY New Paltz
Poachers Turned Gamekeepers: The Guinea Company and How the English Empire Became a Matter of “State”
December 13, 2023: BJ Lillis, Princeton University
The Settler-Colonial Manor: Indigenous Landscapes and Enslaved Labor in the Creation of New York’s Manors
2022
February 16: Andrea Mosterman, University of New Orleans
Neither Enslaved nor Free: Conditional Manumissions and the Struggle for Freedom of New Netherland’s African Community
March 16: Melissa Morris, University of Wyoming
Tobacco and Colonization in the mid-seventeenth century: New Netherland and beyond
April 20: Michael Oberg, SUNY Geneseo
On Turtle’s Back and Ancestors
May 18: Timo McGregor, MacMillan Center, Yale University
Protective Politics: Violence, Property, and Community in the Dutch Empire
September 14: Maeve Kane, University at Albany
The Capacious Sacrament of Necessity: Community Formation in Early American Godparentage Networks
October 19: Danny Noorlander, SUNY Oneonta
The Elephant and the Finch: A Musical History of the Early Slave Trade
November 16: Christopher Ebert, Brooklyn College, and Thiago Krause, Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro
After the Fall (of Recife): Preserving and Recreating Dutch-Brazilian Ties in the South Atlantic, c. 1655–1730
December 14: Ayasha Guerin, University of British Columbia
Beavers and Boundaries: The Colonization of Manhattan
2021
September 15: Evan Haefeli, Texas A&M University
Forging Peace despite the Covenant Chain: The Delaware Indian Scare of 1694
October 13: Erin Kramer, Trinity University
Brother Corlaer’s New House: Reorienting Mohawk-Dutch Spaces (1660–1686)
November 17: Mark Thompson, University of Groningen
Mattahorn’s Dilemma
December 15: Wim Klooster, Clark University
A Petition to Keep New Netherland: Amsterdam’s Fear of English Ascendancy
