ISRF First Book Grant Fellow 2023-24
ISRF First Book Grant Fellow 2023-24
Laura Nys obtained her PhD in history and criminology at Ghent University and Vrije Universiteit Brussels, Belgium. Her research interests include the social history of emotions, history from below, gender history and the history of social movements in the 19th and 20th centuries. From 2020 until 2022, she was assistant-professor at the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Seoul. Previously, she has worked at Ghent University as member of an interdisciplinary research team studying European urban architecture and social movements in the early twentieth century. In Fall 2023, supported by the ISRF First Book Grant, she will start writing a book on the history of emotional practices in Belgian reform schools, based on her doctoral research.
During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, thousands of minors were sent to juvenile reformatories, aimed at transforming ‘problematic’ youngsters into obedient citizens. While the history of reform schools is well documented, little is known about the emotional practices taking places within their walls. Drawing on extensive archival research, this research explores the changing patterns of emotions and power in Belgian reform schools between 1890 and 1965. The project focuses on the role of emotions in three domains: the psycho-pedagogical observation techniques that were applied in the reformatories; the interpersonal relations between the educators and the detained minors; and lastly the emotional practices of the detained minors themselves. Autobiographical documents not only offer insight in the detention experience, but also show how emotions became a site of contestation. Connecting methodologies from historical criminology and the history of emotions, this research offers a framework to study disciplinary institutions through the prism of emotions and power, therein enriching our knowledge of emotional practices of underprivileged groups in society.
If you would like to contact any of our Fellows to discuss their ISRF-funded work, please contact Dr Lars Cornelissen (Academic Editor) in the first instance, at [email protected].