Timeline

Donald Trump and the Authoritarian Tradition in American Politics (19 January 2021)

A talk about the deep roots of authoritarianism in U.S. political culture.

Roosevelt Lecture: The Democratic Party and the U.S. South (21 January 2021)

This lecture focused on the Democratic South; how did Democrats become the dominant party in the region, why did they lose it, and will they be able to win it back?

Podcast: Rural populism in the Netherlands (13 March 2021)

A discussion of Hendrik Koekoek’s Farmer’s Party, its popular appeal in the 1960s, and parallels between current-day populist movements.

Hinterlands symposium (3-4 June 2021)

Delivered a paper titled “They Came from the Swamp: Leander Perez and the Hinterland Origins of American Authoritarianism” at this symposium.

Three-month secondment at Roosevelt Institute for American Studies (Fall 2021)

In the fall of 2021 I was based in Middelburg, the Netherlands, where I did a secondment at the Roosevelt Institute for American Studies (RIAS).

Polarization in the United States: A New Civil War? (13 October 2021)

A comparison between divisions in current-day U.S. politics and the differences between North and South that led to the outbreak of the American Civil War (1861-1865).

Rural Imaginations @ RIAS (1-2 November 2021)

In early November, the Rural Imaginations research group of the University of Amsterdam visited RIAS for a two-day workshop on methodology and hinterlands.

Podcast: The Frontier (4 December 2021)

Paul de Jong en Tim Streefkerk of the Tim & Paul Geschiedenis Podcast traveled to Middelburg to talk with me about the Frontier in U.S. history.

Publication of “How Drenthe Got the Blues: Harry Muskee and the Migration of Blues Music” (16 December 2021)

This article (written in Dutch) examines the migration and appropriation of blues music by Harry Muskee, a singer who lived in Drenthe, a province in the rural North of the Netherlands.

Moved to Oxford, Mississippi, and started work as visiting fellow at the Center for the Study of Southern Culture (1 March 2022)

The Center for the Study of Southern Culture is an interdisciplinary research institute investigating the American South.

Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations conference, New Orleans, Louisiana (16-18 June 2022)

Delivered a paper titled “Pipelines and Plantations: The Toxic Fallout of Jim Crow Politics” at this conference.

Rural Imaginations conference, University of Amsterdam (24-26 August 2022)

Delivered a paper titled “The Rural in the Race Land Project” at this conference.

Publication of Voor Elkaar Met Elkaar: Black Lives Matter (5 September 2022)

I wrote the preface for this book, which examines the role of communism in the U.S. civil rights movement, with specific attention to the support of Dutch communists for American civil rights activism.

SouthTalk: The Race Land Project (14 September 2022)

A presentation at the Center for the Study of Southern Culture about four case studies of the Race Land project, counter-plantation initiatives, and the transnational Far Right today.

In the Shadow of the Plantation Complex: Lives Made Visible in the Racial Ecology of the Rural U.S. South (23 February 2023)

This talk was part of a seminar on invisibilities of the U.S. South, organized by “Invisible Lives, Silent Voices,” an international research group.

Multispecies Justice in the Plantationocene: The Cold War Mississippi Delta as a Case Study (27 February 2023)

The UM Study of Race & Racism Exploration Group organized a forum on Race and Ethnicity, where I presented a paper on the theoretical framework of the Race Land project.

Visiting fellow at the New Orleans Center for the Gulf South (Spring 2023)

A three-month secondment with the New Orleans Center for the Gulf South (NOCGS) at Tulane University. The NOCGS is an interdisciplinary, place-based institute that promotes the understanding of New Orleans and the Gulf South region.

History Is Lunch: The Race Land Project (1 March 2023)

“History Is Lunch” is a weekly lecture series of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History (MDAH) that explores different aspects of the state’s past.

Jamie Whitten and the World: The Agrochemical Mississippi Delta and its Global Entanglements (3 March 2023)

Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Mississippi Historical Society in Jackson, MS.

Publication of “Je deelt wat je hebt: Samen voorwaarts” (27 April 2023)

Together with journalist Laila Frank I wrote this article for the Dutch magazine Groene Amsterdammer. It examines the legacy of Fannie Lou Hamer and the work of Black farmers in Mississippi today.

“Southern Trans/formations,” Southern Studies Forum symposium, Amiens/Arras, France (21-23 September 2023)

Delivered a paper titled “Placemaking in the Plantationocene: Agricultural Transformations in the Mississippi Delta, 1930-1980” at this symposium.

Publication of “Swamp Things: The Wetland Roots of American Authoritarianism (10 November 2023)

This chapter is part of the edited volume Planetary Hinterlands: Extraction, Abandonment and Care. It studies the hinterland origins of American authoritarianism through a case study of Leander Perez, the segregationist strongman leader of Plaquemines Parish in Louisiana.

Global Souths conference, University of Louisiana at Lafayette (23-25 March 2023)

Discussed Plantationocene practices and counter-plantation projects in a paper titled “Neoplantations and Freedom Farms: Placemaking in the Agrochemical Mississippi Delta during the Civil Rights Era.”

New job! Researcher Low Saxon History and Culture (1 June 2023)

In June 2023 I started a new (part-time) job as researcher Low Saxon History and Culture. With this position I have the chance to put my newly acquired regional studies skills into practice.

Publication of “Plantationocene Geographies: Petro-Multinationals, Agribusiness, and the Racial Ecology of the Cold War Mississippi Delta” (6 October 2023)

This article appeared in The Global South and explores the global reverberations and entanglement between the oil and petrochemical industry in Louisiana and the plantation complex in the Mississippi Delta.

TIMELINE