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Back to the Future @back2futureerc.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

🎓🍻 Yesterday team member Max-Quentin Bischoff successfully defended his PhD-dissertation Merchants' Futures: Plans and Expectations in the Tucher Trading Company, c. 1520 - c. 1550. Congratulations Dr. Bischoff! @urbanhistoryua.bsky.social

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Back to the Future @back2futureerc.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

Wonderful symposium! There is still time to write your proposal!

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Back to the Future @back2futureerc.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

Project member Max-Quentin Bischoff will defend his PhD dissertation "Merchants' Futures: Plans and expectations in the Tucher family company, c.1520-c.1550" on Wednesday 10 June at Felixarchief Antwerpen (start at 13:30). More about this: www.uantwerpen.be/en/projects/...

uantwerpen.be

Blog | Back to the Future | University of Antwerp

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Back to the Future @back2futureerc.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

New publication🎺 Project member Elisabeth Heijmans' "Conveying Certainty: Writing About the Future in French Long-Distance Trade Merchants’ Correspondence in the Eighteenth Century" has just been published (open access) in Enterprise & Society. For a short blog : www.uantwerpen.be/en/projects/...

cambridge.org

Conveying Certainty: Writing About the Future in French Long-Distance Trade Merchants’ Correspondence in the Eighteenth Century | Enterprise & Society | Cambridge Core

Conveying Certainty: Writing About the Future in French Long-Distance Trade Merchants’ Correspondence in the Eighteenth Century

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Back to the Future @back2futureerc.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

Lovely to see the 18th century French correspondences that we worked in the project analyzed and discussed!

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Back to the Future @back2futureerc.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

cambridge.org

Conveying Certainty: Writing About the Future in French Long-Distance Trade Merchants’ Correspondence in the Eighteenth Century | Enterprise & Society | Cambridge Core

Conveying Certainty: Writing About the Future in French Long-Distance Trade Merchants’ Correspondence in the Eighteenth Century

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Back to the Future @back2futureerc.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

CFP Contingency and Imagination. Rethinking Economic Agency in the Early Modern Period tu-dresden.de/gsw/phil/ige...

tu-dresden.de

Workshop

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Back to the Future @back2futureerc.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

🎖️Project member @nicolozennaro.bsky.social received the Special Mention for the Human Solvency Historical Research Prize 2026. Congratulations! More info can be had here: www.uantwerpen.be/en/projects/...

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Back to the Future @back2futureerc.bsky.social · 04/05/2026

‼️Publication alert‼️📯Born under Mercury: God’s Influence on the Future Perspective of the Medieval Italian Merchant by dr. Nicolò Zennaro www.uantwerpen.be/en/projects/...

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Reposted by Back to the Future

Liesbeth Corens @onslies.bsky.social · 13/02/2026

We’re OFF! I can still sneak you in! Very excited to hear all about future thinking!

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Back to the Future @back2futureerc.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

‼️New article alert: our project colleague's article was just published! Open access and all...

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Back to the Future @back2futureerc.bsky.social · 03/02/2026

On Feb 13 Jeroen Puttevils presents the project and some of its results at the Institute for Historical Research's @ihr.bsky.social Low Countries seminar. Live in London and also online! Register below.

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Back to the Future @back2futureerc.bsky.social · 13/11/2025

When combined, these fragments reveal how divine appeals declined unevenly - fading from everyday formulas, but persisting in moments of personal crisis, illness, or war.

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Back to the Future @back2futureerc.bsky.social · 13/11/2025

Through careful cleaning, annotation and contextual study, she compiled a dataset of 7,500 references to divine entities like “God,” “Lord,” and “Jesus.”

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Back to the Future @back2futureerc.bsky.social · 13/11/2025

Using the Corpus of Early English Correspondence, Sara Budts combines digital text analysis and historical interpretation to measure how often—and in what ways—letter writers invoked God when talking about what was to come.

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Back to the Future @back2futureerc.bsky.social · 13/11/2025

📯Publication alert! What can 7,500 divine references in early modern letters tell us about how people imagined their futures? And how do you measure something as elusive as belief?

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Back to the Future @back2futureerc.bsky.social · 10/10/2025

The bibliography is definitely not extensive and reflects the research trajectories and interests of the team members. @urbanhistoryua.bsky.social

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Back to the Future @back2futureerc.bsky.social · 10/10/2025

- histories of the future/futures - theories of history - histories of merchants and merchant correspondences from the later Middle Ages until the modern period - histories of risk and uncertainty - histories of knowledge - histories of emotions and time - histories of time and temporality

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Back to the Future @back2futureerc.bsky.social · 10/10/2025

We have just put the Zotero bibliography of the Back2theFuture project online. www.uantwerpen.be/en/projects/... Throughout the project we have built this bibliography which we hope can serve the scholarly community #skystorians interested in the following subjects:

uantwerpen.be

| Back to the Future | University of Antwerp

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Back to the Future @back2futureerc.bsky.social · 14/05/2025

Today @nicolozennaro.bsky.social presented his paper “Credo per la grazia di Dio farei bene”. Future thinking and knowledge of a risk (in)expert in late medieval Venice at the LVI Settimana di Studi Gestione del rischio, insolvenza e bancarotta nel mondo premoderno (secc. XIII-XVIII) in Prato

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Back to the Future @back2futureerc.bsky.social · 09/05/2025

This afternoon @nicolozennaro.bsky.social successfully defended his PhD dissertation “1400: Un Fortunoso Anno. Future Thinking and Risk Late Medieval Venice” and now goes through life as Dr Zennaro. @erc.europa.eu @urbanhistoryua.bsky.social @uantwerpen.be

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Back to the Future @back2futureerc.bsky.social · 07/05/2025

Today the Conclave starts in the Sistine Chapel. In a previous post on our blog, @nicolozennaro.bsky.social & @jeroenputtevils.bsky.social wrote about the conclave of 1394. Jeroen now moves to that of 1559 and to the subject of betting on the next pope.

shorturl.at

The Antwerp Bourse

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Back to the Future @back2futureerc.bsky.social · 02/05/2025

Confirm your presence at the public defense by sending an e-mail to nicolo.zennaro@uantwerpen.be

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Back to the Future @back2futureerc.bsky.social · 26/04/2025

Nicolò Zennaro is the first in line and he has found stunning details in the famous letters of the Datini company on the death of Antipope Clement VII in Avignon in 1394. This leads him to reflect on parallels to what is happening today and in the near future. medium.com/@JeroenPutte...

medium.com

Returning to the Home of the Father.

This blogpost is intended for our project website Back to the Future | Back to the Future | University of Antwerp (due to technical…

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Back to the Future @back2futureerc.bsky.social · 26/04/2025

The passing away of Pope Francis I and the funeral that is about to take place made a few members of the Back to the Future team think about historical futures and the deaths of popes, their funerals and the ensuing conclaves.

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Back to the Future @back2futureerc.bsky.social · 17/04/2025

To end this thread and the conference: Nicolò Zennaro (Back2theFuture) presented a chapter from his PhD (which he was still writing at that time). Nicolò uses the wealth of the medieval Datini archive. The title of his talk: The Ermine’s game. Mercantile futures and warfare in late medieval Venice

youtu.be

Nicolò Zennaro: The Ermine’s Game: Mercantile Futures and Warfare in Late Medieval Venice

YouTube video by Jeroen Puttevils

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Back to the Future @back2futureerc.bsky.social · 17/04/2025

This concludes this thread. One can find all the links and the program of this past conference about histories of the future here www.uantwerpen.be/en/projects/... /fin

uantwerpen.be

| Back to the Future | University of Antwerp

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Back to the Future @back2futureerc.bsky.social · 17/04/2025

Nicolò’s presentation includes many images but one of them is a really modern one. Can you find it?

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Back to the Future @back2futureerc.bsky.social · 17/04/2025

youtu.be

Nicolò Zennaro: The Ermine’s Game: Mercantile Futures and Warfare in Late Medieval Venice

YouTube video by Jeroen Puttevils

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Reposted by Back to the Future

Back to the Future @back2futureerc.bsky.social · 10/04/2025

Medievalist @kpo.bsky.social Klaus Oschema ( @dhi-paris.fr ) considered what the end(s) of time in the Middle Ages were and how this might takes us to rethink models of histories of the future.

youtube.com

Klaus Oschema: After the End: Medieval Ideas about the Limits of the Future

YouTube video by Jeroen Puttevils

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Back to the Future @back2futureerc.bsky.social · 10/04/2025

@kpo.bsky.social also drew parallels with apocalypticism in contemporary culture.

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Back to the Future @back2futureerc.bsky.social · 10/04/2025

Medievalist @kpo.bsky.social Klaus Oschema ( @dhi-paris.fr ) considered what the end(s) of time in the Middle Ages were and how this might takes us to rethink models of histories of the future.

youtube.com

Klaus Oschema: After the End: Medieval Ideas about the Limits of the Future

YouTube video by Jeroen Puttevils

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Reposted by Back to the Future

Back to the Future @back2futureerc.bsky.social · 01/04/2025

Max-Quentin Bischoff (Back2theFuture & University of Antwerp) drew on the rich Tucher letters from the first half of the sixteenth century and consider the relations between futures in these letters and other types of sources such as testaments and contracts. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zb5F...

youtube.com

Max-Quentin Bischoff: Letters, Contracts and Testaments: The Future Horizon of a Family Firm

YouTube video by Jeroen Puttevils

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Back to the Future @back2futureerc.bsky.social · 01/04/2025

Or how future thinking played a role in labour contracts in the Tucher business:

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Back to the Future @back2futureerc.bsky.social · 01/04/2025

Through a focus on education, Max was able to show what the senior members of the family had in mind for the juniors, or not...

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Back to the Future @back2futureerc.bsky.social · 01/04/2025

youtube.com

Max-Quentin Bischoff: Letters, Contracts and Testaments: The Future Horizon of a Family Firm

YouTube video by Jeroen Puttevils

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Reposted by Back to the Future

Back to the Future @back2futureerc.bsky.social · 27/03/2025

Penelope Corfield (Royal Holloway) presented Shifting views of time: From cyclical to linear and the future of prophecies. Spanning several centuries, Corfield pointed out the changing roles of prophets and how their ideas and those of their followers are related to changing ideas about time.

youtu.be

Penelope Corfield: Shifting Views of Time: From Cyclical to Linear and the Future of Prophecies

YouTube video by Jeroen Puttevils

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