dr. Joep Schenk

Joep Schenk is working as a post-doctoral researcher within the ERC project ‘Securing Europe, fighting its enemies 1815-1914′ led by Prof. Beatrice de Graaf. He is interested in explaining major international events in the nineteenth and twentieth century as results of social processes. Behind events such as war, genocide or (industrial) revolution one can reveal power structures within which political, economic or religious motivated actors can be identified. The tensions between individual actors and historical, social and geographical structures on the one side, and between (national) state interests and (international) private interests on the other, is a common theme in his research.

Prior to his appointment in Utrecht Joep Schenk worked as a researcher at the Dutch Institute for War Documentation in Amsterdam and wrote about the Second World War as a global phenomenon. He started his PhD  within the research project ‘Outport and Hinterland. Rotterdam Business and the Ruhr industry, 1870-2010‘ in 2009. His research concerned the origins of Rotterdam as the main seaport of the Ruhr area since 1870. In 2015 he will defend his thesis.