GLOBALISE newsletter 2

1 July 2022

New blog post, archival news & team introductions

Blog: "Rediscovering Early Modern Polities: First Thoughts on Dataset Creation" Wonder why we create reference datasets and how we go about that? Read all about data curation in GLOBALISE in a new blog post by Manjusha Kuruppath. GLOBALISE seminars The first two installments of the GLOBALISE seminars are now behind us, but we will continue the series after summer break. We have different topics in mind, but would love to hear from you: what would you like to discuss with us, what would you like to know more about? What we do at GLOBALISE intersects with much of (digital) historians’ and developers’ work. The series is meant to foster the exchange of knowledge and experience, and should be beneficial to everyone participating – so let us know by your preferred communication channel, or through the form below: Go to Google Form

Get to know us! At GLOBALISE, we work in a growing team of historians and developers. We would like you to get to know the people behind the project better, which is why we will introduce each of our colleagues in this and upcoming newsletters. First up: Manjusha, Kay and Henrike from work package 3: Historical Contextualisation.

Manjusha Kuruppath I am an early modern historian with a focus on the Dutch encounter with Asia. My doctoral dissertation was brought out as a book titled Staging Asia: The Dutch East India Company and the Amsterdam Theatre by Leiden University Press in 2016. As part of the GLOBALISE project, I am now involved in the creation and curation of datasets on polities and commodities. I am also part of the effort to create HTR ground truth and annotate the OBP.  Our datasets require expert knowledge about early modern trade, polities and commodities. If you are an expert on any of the aforementioned fields and would like to get in touch, please let us know.  Fun fact: In a previous life, I dreamt about directing, writing and acting in plays.

Kay Pepping As research-assistant for WP3, I spend a lot of my time creating ground truth for our HTR model. When I am not arguing with a computer model about whether a particular character is an ‘i’ or a ‘j’, I work on compiling a dataset of the various commodities you might find in the cargo lists of VOC-ships. Any glossaries, datasets or transcriptions you have on that topic are more than welcome.  In my free time I am  working on creating the ultimate vegetarian chili-recipe. Tips on that are just as welcome as commodity-related ones!

Henrike Vellinga I just joined the team this week as student-assistant and will be working on the commodities dataset and annotations. A fun fact about me is that I used to do hammer throwing as a sport when I was younger and was quite successful, as there are only about ten girls that do hammer throwing in the entire Netherlands. Outside of my work for GLOBALISE, I will be busy writing my thesis for the research master Politics, Culture and National Identities at Leiden University. You can contact me about anything related to the history of colonial science, especially research into poisonous plants from colonies

Resource news: TANAP Historians working with VOC archives might have noticed that the TANAP database of VOC documents has been down for some time.The website has been archived and its pages can be accessed here. You can still find the inventory of (international) repositories keeping VOC documents and the reconstructions of the archives of VOC settlements based on the Overgekomen Brieven en Papieren (OBP), amongst others. The National Archives (NA) is also working towards restoring this valuable resource as much as possible on their own servers. The weblink tanap.nl will be redirected to the website of the NA. The NA already hosts a searchable index of the OBP here and soon the NA will also provide an index of the transcriptions of the VOC archives in Cape Town.