Thursday 21 September 2023 from 7.30pm to 9pm
Prof Nel de Mûelenaere teaches history at the VUB. Her research focuses on the relationship between humanitarian aid, nutrition and gender in Belgium and the US during and after the First World War. In 2019, she was the BAEF Cabeaux-Jacobs postdoctoral fellow at Cornell University. She received her PhD from the University of Antwerp in 2016 with a PhD on forgotten militarisation processes in Belgium between 1890 and 1914.
World War I was not only an era of unseen war suffering, but also of large-scale humanitarian aid. Brutal war violence and military occupations triggered an influx of international aid for European civilians and soldiers from 1914 onwards. Occupied Belgium played an iconic role in this, as a recipient of one of the largest humanitarian operations of the time: Herbert Hoover’s Commission for Relief in Belgium. During this lecture, Nel de Mûelenaere will tell the story of the international humanitarian awakening during WWI and how American aid left a fundamental mark on Belgian society.
Practical
Thursday 21/09/2023
Start at 19h15
Knowledge Centre, Ieperstraat 1 B-8980 Zonnebeke
€5.00/person, incl. drink
Payment cash on arrival
Registration will follow later.
DUTCH-SPEAKING LECTURE!