In 2025-2026, the RSPH Summer School will focus on how historians have approached Dutch and German colonialism, with particular attention to the interaction between historical narratives and contemporary societal and political engagements with colonial legacies. Central themes include experiences of violence, systems of domination in international politics, and the positionality of the historian: Who can—or should—write colonial history? Participants will also consider how national histories presented in schools and museums might incorporate the colonial past, and what role states or societal groups should play in shaping (post)colonial identities.

The Summer School invites Research Master students to explore recent developments, debates, and dilemmas in the Netherlands and Germany, and to place these in an international scholarly context.

The Summer School is organised alongside the 13th Association of Political History’s international conference, ‘Dynamizing and Decentring Empires: A Recalibration of the History of the Political’, which will take place immediately afterwards in Münster, Germany. Participants are warmly encouraged to attend both events.