iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Anne Petterson @annepetterson.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Doe je onderzoek in het CABR? Bijvoorbeeld naar je eigen familie? Collega Jan Julia Zurné heeft een goede video gemaakt over hoe in de Bijzondere Rechtspleging verhoren werden afgenomen en wat je moet weten over de processen-verbaal die je vindt in CABR-dossiers. Bekijk 'm hier: vimeo.com/1208394578

vimeo.com

Achter de schermen bij verhoren van collaboratieverdachten 1945-1948

Een korte video over verhoorpraktijken in de Bijzondere Rechtspleging (1945-1948).

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Willemijn Ruberg @willemijnruberg.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Yesterday, Lara Bergers brilliantly defended her PhD thesis at Utrecht University, titled: 'Victims, Perpetrators and the Investigation of Sexual Violence. Knowledge-Making Practices and Dutch Forensic Culture, 1930-1980'. Last publication of my ERC project FORCE. www.uu.nl/en/events/ph...

uu.nl

Security verifications

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Elwin Hofman @elwinhofman.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

Back when the New York Times still had decent reporting (11/11/1937)

Newspaper clipping: 'Marston advises 3 L's for success. 'Live, Love and Laugh' Offered by Psychologist as Receipe for Required Happiness. Predicts U.S. Matriarchy. Thinks Bored Wives Will Start Within Next 100 Years to Take Over the Nation

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Willemijn Ruberg @willemijnruberg.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

On 4 June at 17h at Spui 25 the historian Sebastian Conrad will give a talk on ''The Making of a Global Icon: Nefertiti’s Fame in the 20th Century'. On 5 June there is a roundtable on 'Intellectual history and the history of the body': duitslandinstituut.nl/wetenschappe...

duitslandinstituut.nl

Wetenschap uitgelicht

Bijeenkomsten, projecten en publicaties van de afdeling Wetenschap

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Briony Neilson @brionyneilson.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

The special issue on incarceration for French Historical Studies is now out! In our (open access) introduction, we begin by journeying through the carceral archipelago in France and its empire from the early modern period through to today ... doi.org/10.1215/0016... 🧵🗃️ 1/7 @fuggbug.bsky.social

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Elwin Hofman @elwinhofman.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

How do you get a suspect to talk? In the Netherlands in the 1990s, they had an answer to this question: the 'Zaanse verhoormethode'. I did some of the research in preparation of a short video about this for Andere Tijden, which you can now watch it on YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fJu...

youtube.com

Hoe laat je een verdachte bekennen? | ANDERE TIJDEN

YouTube video by Andere Tijden

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Elwin Hofman @elwinhofman.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

youtube.com

Hoe laat je een verdachte bekennen? | ANDERE TIJDEN

YouTube video by Andere Tijden

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Willemijn Ruberg @willemijnruberg.bsky.social · 21/04/2026

This is a wonderful source for cultural history! Recently I delved into the cultural history of the mirror and found this great blog on this image of Marcia from Giovanni Boccaccio’s book, De Claris Mulieribus (Concerning Famous Women, ca. 1404). artmirrorsart.wordpress.com/2011/11/22/d...

artmirrorsart.wordpress.com

Doing self-portraying: Marcia and her mirrors

I recently stumbled upon a captivating illustration, or more accurately, an illumination, circulating on the internet without any attribution. My attention was drawn to a small mirror held by a wom…

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Tom Hulme @tomhulme.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

"Belfastmen: An Intimate History of Life before Gay Liberation" is published TODAY by @cornellupress.bsky.social! I tell the story of how queer men didn't just exist in Belfast but could be accepted by friends, family & colleagues... at least until a moral panic about homosexuality in the 1950s. 🧵

The book cover for Belfastmen: An Intimate History of Life before Gay Liberation. It shows two men sat on a bench in the 1930s.

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Bob Pierik @bobpi.bsky.social · 03/04/2026

Hey #skystorians! In case you are working on the history of horses directly or indirectly, or know someone who is: Check out my CfP for a session for the @esshc.bsky.social in Lyon 2027. Link to PDF: drive.google.com/file/d/1HRab...

Text of a Call for Papers:
The Horse in History:
Animal Agency, Labour and Mobility, c. 1500-1900
Call for papers for a panel for the ESSHC 2027 in Lyon, FR. April 21-24
Bob Pierik (Vrije Universiteit Brussels)
Humans and horses have shaped each other's histories during an intense symbiosis of millennia. From the Columbian Exchange to industrialization, during grand transformative moments in history as well as during more structural longue durée shifts, the horse was not just there, but was a crucial piece of the puzzle, a co-constitutive actor that supplemented human bodies with strength and mobility. McShane and Tarr famously characterized horses as ‘living machines.’ But horse history is not just a story of practical utility. Horses were deeply ingrained in social and cultural fabrics. Through thousands of years of Eurasian history, one's relation to horses shaped and signified one's social status. The social, economic and cultural status of the horse (or in fact of different types of horse) reveals a lot about a given historical society and is in fact an underappreciated lens to ‘read’ historical societies through. Going even further, in recent decades, human-animal studies have challenged us to think beyond anthropocentric perspectives and accentuate animal agencies.
This session is aimed at bringing together scholars with an interest in the horse as historical subject. It invites perspectives that consider human-horse symbiosis from a social, economic and/or cultural angle. Proposals are invited to consider themes such as:
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The working horse, horsepower and horse labour.
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Mobility, carriages, driving, riding.
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Horses and social status/class
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Animal agency, more-than-human perspectives.
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Horse geography: Fields, stables, streets and roads
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Comparing urban/rural horse experiences
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History of veterinary medicine

Proposals for other topics that fit the broader theme of the history of the horse are also very welcome. I am open to changing accents of the session theme if that is constructive to the overall goal of bringing scholars interested in this broader theme together. I am myself working on Europe in the long eighteenth century, but promising abstracts from other periods and places are very welcome.
Submit your abstract (max. 500 words) as soon as possible and before the 11th of April to bob.pierik@vub.be
Image: Archives Municipales Lyon. Plan scénographique de Lyon, chevaux tractant des embarcations le long de la Saône: gravure NB par Seon et Dubouchet (1872-1876, cote : 2SAT/6/32, pl. 24, détail)

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Historici vertellen @historicivertellen.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

Vanmiddag de boekpresentatie van Cultural History for a Changing World, onder redactie van mij en collega @jochenhung.bsky.social, maar met bijdragen van onze hele afdeling. Wij pleiten voor een cultuurgeschiedenis die urgente issues als post-truth, klimaatverandering, en dekolonisatie bespreekt.

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Elwin Hofman @elwinhofman.bsky.social · 16/03/2026

With @tijmenelias.bsky.social I'm hoping to organize a panel on *The History of Queer Nightlife* for @esshc.bsky.social in Lyon (21-24 April 2027). If you want to be part of the fun, get in touch by 1 April! (Reposts also appreciated!) #QueerHistory

Panel proposal ESSHC, Lyon (France), 21-24 April 2027
The History of Queer Nightlife: Spaces, Feelings and Transformations

‘Queer nightlife’, as the introduction to a recent special issue of The Sociological Quarterly notes, ‘is having a moment’. In the past five years, social scientists and cultural theorists have published more than ten book-length studies of queer bars, nightscapes, dancefloors and parties. Many of them focus on the ‘closure epidemic’ facing gay bars, or highlight the recent transformations of queer nightlife. They often intersect their analyses with arguments about urban redevelopment and gentrification, changing queer identities, and the digitalization of queer life.
However, a longer-term historical perspective is often missing in these studies. For example, is the ‘closure epidemic’ that sociologists observe a recent phenomenon or have spaces of queer nightlife always been precarious? What other transformations has queer nightlife gone through over the past decades and centuries?
This panel will discuss queer nightlife from a ‘longue durée’ perspective, covering different periods and regions to nuance and make sense of the recent developments social scientists are describing. Throughout the different papers we will explore topics such as inclusion, exclusion, spaces, bodies, emotions and experiences as relevant points of discussion on queer nightlife’s history. We propose that nightlife has been essential for the development of queer spaces and communities, for stimulating transnational mobilities and exchanges, and for shaping identities and subjectivities. By giving nightlife its due place, we will gain a new understanding of these foundational topics in queer history.

We are looking for participants who can present a paper as part of this panel: if you are interested, please contact e.l.hofman@uu.nl and t.e.vanvoorthuizen@uu.nl before 1 April 2026.
More information on the conference can be found at https://esshc.iisg.amsterdam/

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Elwin Hofman @elwinhofman.bsky.social · 16/03/2026

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Willemijn Ruberg @willemijnruberg.bsky.social · 06/03/2026

Who is interested in joining a panel on ‘Embodied Human Rights’ with me and Josephine Hoegaerts @singingarchives.bsky.social at ESSHC 2027 in Lyon? Contact me at w.g.ruberg@uu.nl esshc.iisg.amsterdam/en

esshc.iisg.amsterdam

ESSHC | European Social Science History Conference

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Mette Bruinsma @mette.bsky.social · 05/03/2026

14 maart presenteren Elise van Nederveen Meerkerk, @jorritstee.bsky.social en ikzelf het boek 'De Utrechtse Historische Studentenkring 1926-2026: een eeuw verenigd door Geschiedenis'. Kom je ook naar de boekpresentatie in de Neudebieb? Meld je hier aan: forms.uu.nl/universiteit...

forms.uu.nl

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Jochen Hung @jochenhung.bsky.social · 21/02/2026

"Provincialising Weimar Culture" is out! @nwbaer.bsky.social, Britta Schilling and I edited a special issue for German Life and Letters on "local and global perspectives on interwar Germany": onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/14680483....

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Special Issue: PROVINCIALISING WEIMAR CULTURE: GLOBAL AND LOCAL PERSPECTIVES ON INTERWAR GERMANY A SPECIAL NUMBER: German Life and Letters: Vol 79, No 1

Click on the title to browse this issue

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Willemijn Ruberg @willemijnruberg.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

Giving 2 talks today. First for our departmental seminar on shame, together with Zeger Verleye. And tonight in Amsterdam at Spui 25 I will be giving comments at the book launch of @singingarchives.bsky.social's new book Speaking, Stammering, Singing, Shouting: A Social History of the Modern Voice.

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Kristof Smeyers @kristofsmeyers.bsky.social · 27/01/2026

Hi everyone, I'm organising a conference in Leuven, 4-5 June, and you're all invited*! It's called 'Performing evil: the mediation and display of diabolic spectres 1700-2000' and here is the call for papers (get in touch if you'd like a pdf!). Please share widely! *to submit an abstract before 21/3

CALL FOR PAPERS: PERFORMING EVIL: the mediation and display of diabolic spectres, 1700-2000'. 4 & 5 June 2026, Leuven.

This conference explores the tangled histories of supernatural, diabolic evil and all kinds of spectral apparitions in the last three centuries – Walter Scott’s ‘malignant and unhappy beings’. Specifically, it is interested in how and why ghosts, spirits and related apparitional phenomena were framed as diabolic, demonic or malign manifestations from the afterlife.

Diabolic connotations of ghosts and spirits did meaningful cultural work. They were mobilised to discredit ghost beliefs and spiritual practices, to delegitimise competing beliefs, or to invest doctrinal arguments with occult authority. They could also function as tools of scepticism and ridicule as well as triggers of wonder, fear and religiosity. Put differently, the nexus of ghosts and evil is deeply historical. And it was often articulated through performative means: in gestures and expressions of (dis)belief, in visual and textual representations, in séance rooms, on the stage and on the page. Emerging from this nexus are theatrical spirits of evil, staged, embodied, and made legible through mediation and display. In this sense, every ghost is a theatrical ghost. Through the focus on the construction and staging of diabolic spirits, this conference aims to develop a methodological framework for studying historical forms of occultism and demonology more broadly in terms of performance.

Exploring how the relationship of spectrality and evil has shifted in shape over time and across different cultures, the conference invites contributions that can consider a wide range of historical actors – clerics, mediums, ghost-hunters, debunkers, necromancers, stage
performers, eyewitnesses.

This conference aims to study cultural intersections and interactions to arrive at a more granular understanding of discursive, practical and material connections between spirits and evil. At the same time this lens zooms out, making visible broader dynamics of knowledge construction in specific historical moments. How, for instance, did hauntings and possessions shape communities and audiences? How did religious or folkloric ideas about the devil inform spectral encounters?

We hope to bring together historians, art historians, theatre and literary scholars, folklorists and anthropologists from every stage in their career around the above questions. We welcome 20-minute papers on topics that include but are by no means limited to:
- making spectral evil visible: performance, arts, media, technologies, popular cultures
- making spectral evil invisible: popular and occult knowledge circulation
- performing (un)belief: practices and rhetoric, summoning and debunking on the stage (from popular stages to the lecture hall and the laboratory)
- materiality of spectres: the function of bodies and objects
- diabolic spirits and (intellectual, vernacular, theological, folkloric) ideas about morality, mortality and temporality
- occult performance and ‘cultural scripts’ of ghost encounters (from necromancy to poltergeists)
- affect and emotions: fear, grief, trauma… and hope

Send abstracts (c.250 words) and bios (c.100 words) to kristof.smeyers@kuleuven.be before 21 March 2026. Please do get in touch if you have any questions.

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Christophe Schellekens @christopheschfir.bsky.social · 23/01/2026

Early Modernists on Bluesky! Can someone provide me with bibliographical indications on fur trade in Central- and Eastern Europe in the sixteenth century?

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Elwin Hofman @elwinhofman.bsky.social · 20/01/2026

Last week, I talked to Jana Byars about our book about the history of commercial sex in Belgium - have a listen (or read the book!) if you're interested!

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Elwin Hofman @elwinhofman.bsky.social · 07/11/2025

I just had to think very deeply how to translate "tailleur" in English, and, well, clearly the Assimil method is not so effective after all.

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de lage landen @delagelanden.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

‘𝐎𝐧𝐳𝐞 𝐜𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐮𝐮𝐫 𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐝𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐦𝐞𝐠𝐚𝐟𝐨𝐨𝐧: 𝐥𝐚𝐚𝐭 𝐎𝐧𝐬 𝐄𝐫𝐟𝐝𝐞𝐞𝐥 𝐬𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐤𝐞𝐧’ de Volkskrant publiceert onze open brief waarin ruim 100 prominenten uit de cultuur- en mediasector, de academische wereld en het bedrijfsleven hun bezorgdheid uiten over de besparingen van Vlaanderen en Nederland op onze middelen.

volkskrant.nl

Opinie: Onze cultuur verdient een megafoon: laat Ons Erfdeel spreken

De Nederlandse overheid schrapt alle subsidies voor Ons Erfdeel en haar tijdschrift de lage landen. Prominente stemmen uit België en Nederland luiden de noodklok.

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Elwin Hofman @elwinhofman.bsky.social · 16/10/2025

You might have seen pictures from booklets depicting sins (including 'I drank so much I had to vomit'). But what was the purpose of these booklets and how many of them are there? Tine Van Osselaer and I sought it out in a new article that is now published: journals.lub.lu.se/STK/article/...

Two hand-drawn images from a booklet. On the left page, a woman lies passed out next to a table with drinks and the text 'Ebria fui'. On the right page, a woman is vomiting, with an interested pig next to here and the text: 'Ebria fui usque ad vomitum'

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Elwin Hofman @elwinhofman.bsky.social · 16/10/2025

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Elwin Hofman @elwinhofman.bsky.social · 10/10/2025

Always acknowledge your enemies.

Screenshot of acknowledgments in an academic article, reading 'He even benefited from criticism by Professor Leonard Levy, although he cannot pretend that Levy found any part of the Article worth admiring.'

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SHOC VUB @shoc-vub.bsky.social · 06/10/2025

VACATURE voor een doctoraatsonderzoeker aan de VUB (onderzoeksgroep Social History of Capitalism) en de UGent (Vakgroep Geschiedenis) in het FWO-project “Beschuldigingen en smaad op de dorpsvergadering: rurale perspectieven op sociale controle in Vlaanderen, ca. 1400–1600”.

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Elwin Hofman @elwinhofman.bsky.social · 02/10/2025

Preliminary table of contents time! A history of criminal interrogation in Europe, from Inquisition to AI. (Coming to you in the distant future.)

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Elwin Hofman @elwinhofman.bsky.social · 02/10/2025

Preliminary table of contents time! A history of criminal interrogation in Europe, from Inquisition to AI. (Coming to you in the distant future.)

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Elwin Hofman @elwinhofman.bsky.social · 04/09/2025

Afgelopen nacht was ik terwijl u sliep te gast bij De Nacht van NTR Wetenschap op @nporadio1.bsky.social. Gelukkig is radio tegenwoordig multimediaal en kan je dat gewoon terugluisteren: over martelingen, leugentests, sigaretten en valse bekentenissen in de afgelopen 700 jaar

nporadio1.nl

De geschiedenis van het verhoor: van de martelaar tot taart

Good cop, bad cop, de leugendetector, een ferme vuistslag op een stalen tafel of het onverstoorbare geduld van agenten: talloze voorbeelden van verhoren zijn in ons collectieve geheugen geplant door f...

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Jochen Hung @jochenhung.bsky.social · 16/07/2025

Are you looking for a publisher for your manuscript in cultural history or heritage studies? We are setting up a new book series with Bloomsbury, titled Cultural History and Historical Culture.

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Elwin Hofman @elwinhofman.bsky.social · 10/06/2025

Een case die ik ooit grappig vond, vind ik nu best schrijnend. Dat zette me aan het denken over de veranderende emoties van historici, tussen afstand en empathie - in mijn nieuwste column voor De Lage Landen 👇

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Elwin Hofman @elwinhofman.bsky.social · 06/06/2025

I recently talked to BBC News about Leendert Hasenbosch and sodomy persecutions in the 18th century. This is now my most multilingual media performance ever. You can read about it in (we'll start modestly) French www.bbc.com/afrique/arti...

bbc.com

LGBT : l'histoire tragique d'un marin abandonné sur une île et laissé pour mort - BBC News Afrique

L'histoire tragique de Leendert Hasenbosch, le "Controversé Robinson Crusoé", a été remise en lumière par des historiens après 300 ans d'oubli.

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Elwin Hofman @elwinhofman.bsky.social · 03/06/2025

Volgend jaar is het 250 jaar geleden dat wat witte mannen zanikten over self-evident truths. Reden genoeg voor een themadossier van het Jaarboek De Achttiende Eeuw - en misschien een bijdrage van jou? Alles wat vaagweg met de Amerikaanse Revolutie te rijmen valt komt in aanmerking

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Elwin Hofman @elwinhofman.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

This Monday, Maks Del Mar will talk about 'Kinesic Legal Humanities'. Wondering what that is? Send me a message to join online (it's something very exciting, I promise) @culturelawbody.bsky.social

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Kristof Smeyers @kristofsmeyers.bsky.social · 24/03/2025

Come do a PhD with Andreas Stynen and me! On witchcraft heritage and historical culture in the Low Countries since 1800 (excellent knowledge of Dutch is essential) #hextag www.kuleuven.be/personeel/jo...

kuleuven.be

PhD vacancy: remembering of the persecutions of witches in the Low Countries since 1800 - heritage and historical culture

Remembering the 'witch craze'

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Elwin Hofman @elwinhofman.bsky.social · 19/03/2025

Exciting evening on the history and heritage of queer bars in Amsterdam with @tijmenelias.bsky.social and others!

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de lage landen @delagelanden.bsky.social · 12/03/2025

Het grootste deel van de geschiedenis waren criminele ondervragingen rookvrij. Dat veranderde begin twintigste eeuw. Sigaretten in de verhoorkamer wijzen op belangrijke historische verschuivingen, schrijft historicus @elwinhofman.bsky.social.

de-lage-landen.com

In de 20ste-eeuwse verhoorkamer was de sigaret een machtsmiddel

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Elwin Hofman @elwinhofman.bsky.social · 10/03/2025

Last year, Belgium made the world press with a legal framework for sex workers as employees. For @thelowcountries.bsky.social, I put this law in historical perspective - now also in English 👇

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Elwin Hofman @elwinhofman.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

Maandag vertel ik in Utrecht wat een goed politieverhoor is - of was. Het wordt een rollercoaster langs martelingen, psychologische trucs, good cops en bad cops. Ook jij kan erbij zijn! sg.uu.nl/agenda/2025/...

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Elwin Hofman @elwinhofman.bsky.social · 18/12/2024

Hartverwarmende kerstboodschap van de boekhouder.

Screenshot van tekst: "De kalender leert ons dat het jaar 2024 bijna weer wordt afgesloten.
Of u en wij tevreden terugkijken op dit jaar is afhankelijk van veel factoren.
Wij hebben ons best gedaan u zo deskundig mogelijk van dienst te zijn.'

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Elwin Hofman @elwinhofman.bsky.social · 01/12/2024

Starting today, in a world-first, Belgian sex workers can get official employment contracts and hence get a right maternity leave, pensions and more. A new law seeks to give sex workers rights as employees and to protect them better against abuses www.bbc.com/news/article...

bbc.com

Belgium's sex workers get maternity leave and pensions under world-first law

They will be entitled to official employment contracts, health insurance and sick days.

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