Although cryptocurrencies and -tokens have revolutionised financial markets, finding the law that governs their ownership remains a key problem. Traditionally, the problem is solved by seeking a connection to a geographic location, such as the location of the asset. Digital assets and their underlying technologies challenge this solution because they are unencumbered by borders or central authority, leaving no or too many legal systems to connect to. This project aims to develop a comprehensive solution to the problem of ownership of digital assets and provide the Dutch legislator with a roadmap for improving the legal framework to emerging technological changes.

A century before the factory system became commonplace in Britain—an event later remembered as the Industrial Revolution—plantation masters in the West Indies had anticipated one of the modern factory’s most notable characteristics: the regimentation and rationalization of human labor. Studies that address these similarities, however, largely treat the development of the plantation and the factory as separate phenomena, even though revolutionary industrialists were often themselves also plantation owners. As scholars reassess the role of slavery in the creation of modernity, it is vital to investigate how the practice slavery influenced the development of modern conceptions of work.

Het schoolsysteem op Sicilië staat in de voorhoede van de strijd tegen de maffia. Het belangrijkste doel is een culturele heropvoeding die bedoeld is om gedachtegoed uit te roeien dat de georganiseerde misdaad ten goe-de komt. Dit project onderzoekt de mogelijkheden en functies van een van de belangrijkste instrumenten die voor dit doel worden gebruikt: de biografische film. Door te onderzoeken hoe onderwijzers antimaffia-biopics in de klas gebruiken, wil het de geschiedenis en praktijk van film-gebaseerde antimaffia-educatie reconstrueren. Hiermee bevordert het ook een origineel begrip van het medium in relatie tot de bevordering van actief bur-gerschap.

In Collecting Practices and Opisthographic Collections in Qumran and Herculaneum, Ayhan Aksu offers a new perspective on practices of collection in both the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Herculaneum papyri. This study focuses on the intriguing question how ancient scribes and scholars used manuscripts to bring different texts in conversation with each other. Central to Aksu’s approach are opisthographic manuscripts – scrolls that contain text on both the front and back side. Comparative research of the rich papyrus collection from Herculaneum reveals that scribes across various regions of the Mediterranean developed dynamic approaches to engage with their texts.

Women political dissenters face dual oppression—political and gender-based—raising complexities in the quest for justice. While European human rights litigation plays a crucial role in addressing political oppression, it is unclear whether judicial rulings capture the gender dimensions of such cases. This pilot study will scrutinize two landmark European Court of Human Rights cases—Zarema Musayeva and Vanessa Kogan—going beyond their text and applying the PAN (process-actors-narrative) approach in human rights litigation. It will investigate the procedural history, key figures, and socio-political contexts behind these cases to develop and test a framework for analyzing gendered political oppression.