Tim Soens

Prof., History, University of Antwerp

Tim Soens is Professor of Medieval and Environmental History at the University of Antwerp, Belgium. Within the Antwerp Centre for Urban History, he has developed a new research line ‘Environmental and Rural History of Urbanised Societies’ with currently 11 finalized PhDs and 6 more on-going. His research focuses on natural hazards and disasters in pre-1900 Europe, with particular emphasis on floods, pandemics and famines. He is currently leading the EPIBEL project on Epidemics and Inequality in the History of Belgium, as well as Food From Somewhere on urban households, access to land and alternative food entitlements in late medieval cities. Current Publications: (2019) Urbanizing Nature. Actors and Agency (Dis)Connecting Cities and Nature Since 1500, London-New York: Routledge (ed. with Dieter Schott, Michael Toyka-Seid and Bert De Munck); “Seawalls at Work. Envirotech and Labor at the North Sea Coast before 1800”, in: Technology and Culture, 60/3, pp. 688-725 (with Greet De Block and Iason Jongepier); (2018), "Resilient societies, vulnerable people. Coping with North Sea Floods before 1800", in: Past and Present, 241 (1), pp. 143-177: (2020) Disasters and History. The Vulnerability and Resilience of Past Societies, Cambridge, UP, 2020 (with Bas van Bavel et al.) See: www.epibel.be and www.uantwerpen.be/en/staff/tim-soens/