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Introduction
I am a cultural historian of science mainly interested in the history of science, particularly paleontology, and transport. At the moment, my main project is a biography of the German paleontologist Otto Jaekel, aimed at a wider audience.
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Additional affiliations
September 2012 - February 2024
March 2008 - present
February 2017 - June 2019
Education
September 1989 - July 1992
September 1989 - September 1995
Publications
Publications (52)
Diplodocus is a sauropod dinosaur from the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation of North America. It is known around the world primarily because of a single skeleton, that of the Carnegie Diplodocus, because the millionaire industrialist Andrew Carnegie had casts of this specimen mounted in nine prominent cities around the world between 1905 and 1930....
In Duitsland pronken politici graag met doktertitels. Maar als plagiaatjagers, geholpen door het internet, zich in drommen op hun werk gaan storten, leidt dat tot een golf van gesneuvelde reputaties. AUTEUR ILJA NIEUWLAND (HUYGENS ING) Plagiat! Het Tweede Kabinet-Merkel trad aan in het najaar van 2009. Omdat 'Mutti' Angela Merkel destijds nog steed...
From the birth of Berlin's railway network to the time when the bombs of the Second World War and the concrete slabs of the Wall changed the city forever, the Prussian and later German capital counted eight major railway stations. These were beacons in the city: impressive monuments, magnificently built for the bygone rituals of arrival and departu...
A lively tour of paleontology’s early days fails to coalesce into a coherent narrative
Het station Rhijnspoor, later beter bekend als station Weesperpoort, bracht sinds 28 november 1843 reizigers van Amsterdam naar Utrecht. Het gebouw, neergezet te midden van de velden aan de oostzijde van de stad, was het tweede permanente station in de hoofdstad na station Willemspoort aan de westkant. Ook na de opening van het Centraal Station in...
In 1954, Amsterdam's Artis Zoo unveiled a sculpture of the North American dinosaur Stegosaurus. The animal was not rendered at full size "so as not to completely obscure the sun," according to the artist, and reptile sitter Boudewijn Bollee (1893-1957). Two years later Bollee placed an even more imposing 'Tiranosaurus' next to it. The sculptures im...
A once-ridiculed sculpture display is worth a second look.
A renaissance is occurring in the way we render extinct species
this article explores the development of history of science in the Low Countries over the last two decades, pointing at a number of shifts in its participation and organization, that had a profound effect on its journals over the same period. the focus is on the last decade of Gewina and the full lifespan of its successor Studium, from 2008 to 2019...
Over the course of the nineteenth century, virtually every scientifically relevant nation, and those territories whose citizens aspired it to become one, saw the founding of annual or bi-annual gatherings of scholars of all scientific disciplines in alternating venues. These nomadic organizations may be seen as an assertion of a new scientific clas...
A new history reveals how the wealthy elite helped shape modern natural history museums in America
In early July 1899, an excavation team of paleontologists sponsored by Andrew Carnegie discovered the fossil remains in Wyoming of what was then the longest and largest dinosaur on record. Named after its benefactor, the Diplodocus carnegii—or Dippy, as it’s known today—was shipped to Pittsburgh and later mounted and unveiled at the Carnegie Museum...
THE DINOSAUR’S AMBIGUITY
Sea snakes, Iguanodons and why Brussels did not receive its Diplodocus
In the opening years of the twentieth century, the Scottish magnate Andrew Carnegie used the donation of plaster casts of the dinosaur Diplodocusas a means to influence European heads of state in favor of his scheme for conflict arbitration. This contrib...
When Tiberius Cornelis (or “Tjibbe”) Winkler, Teyler’s custodian of mineralogy and palaeontology, passed away in July of 1897, he took the museum’s century-long tradition of long-lasting gentleman scientists with him. Yet to regard Winkler as an encyclopaedic scholar in the same sense as his predecessors Van Marum and would be a mistake. Although l...
The finds of large dinosaur remains in German East Africa in 1908 proved to be a game-changer in the German attitude towards the study of dinosaurs. Suddenly the scientific elites of a nation that was the world leader in scientific activity had to form an opinion about creatures it had never seriously occupied with.
Never was that better illustrate...
Universiteitsmusea ‘Full Circle’? Vijftig jaar academisch erfgoed
Unquestionably, the tank resembles an armadillo, a caterpillar, a diplodocus, a motor car, and a traveling circus. It has more feet than a caterpillar, and they have steel toenails which take it over the ground; its hide is more resistant than an armadillo’s, and its beauty of form would make the diplodocus jealous. No pianist was ever more tempera...
Gerhard Heilmann’s ‘The origin of birds’ from 1926 is a remarkable book. Written by an illustrator-cum-amateur-biologist, it gained worldwide authority almost immediately upon publication. It is demonstrated that Heilmann’s skills as an artist, and his ability to use illustration to support his argument, were crucial in gaining this status. Further...
The relations between the Netherlands and Prussia got off to a flying start after Napoleon’s initial defeat in 1813. However, mutual appreciation was soon to be replaced by annoyance. For William I, the result of the negotiations around the formation of the new United Kingdom of the Netherlands and Belgium was nothing short of a disappointment. Alt...
