Sanne Steen
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sanne-steen.bsky.social
Sanne Steen
@sanne-steen.bsky.social
Tracing historical values from the early modern times to today. From 9-5 I'm reading old books 📔, pamphlets 📜 and newspapers 📰 about Erasmus. Otherwise cultivating my own vegetables 🥕🍅, practicing new choreographies 💃🏼 or reading new books 📚
Today the beautiful garden at country estate Jagtlust in 's-Graveland was the backdrop to my public lecture about sustainable vegetable gardening inspired by historical gardening manuals. A perfect combination of the Hilversum Sustainability Days and the History Month, topically themed 'Natural'.
October 12, 2025 at 6:27 PM
Linnaeus day 3! Yesterday I did not want to wait in line for the Linnaeus house in the city center, so I came back today. Nice to see so many objects from Linnaeus' original inventory, as well as some nice portraits and other works of art.
September 14, 2025 at 3:26 PM
Linnaeus day 2. Today is Kulturnatten in Uppsala so there is a lot of music, theatre, art and food throughout the city. The Linnaeus garden offered besides the regular exhibition a very nice tour (in English) and a theatre show starring Linnaeus himself (200% Swedish).
September 13, 2025 at 2:42 PM
Today I literally stepped into the footsteps of Carolus Linnaeus through the Danmarksvandring, the reconstructed path Linnaeus took with his students from Uppsala to his outer house Hammarby. Some concrete traces remain, such as trees he planted, his 'lecture horse' and of course the house itself.
September 12, 2025 at 8:27 PM
Two years ago I visited the old center of Kiruna. It was a strange experience to walk through a city that was half empty. Just around the corner were the mines that are causing the slow but sure collapse of Kiruna. Today, the church is slowly but surely moved to a safer location.
August 19, 2025 at 11:36 AM
Greatly enjoyed the Unearthed exhibition last Thursday in the @britishlibrary.bsky.social. It was such a perfect ending to my visit to England for the @people-plants-2025.bsky.social conference. I was not aware of the exhibition until the last moment, so luckily I could squeeze in a visit!
July 12, 2025 at 9:51 AM
Reposted by Sanne Steen
And moving to the final paper of this panel, ‘Gardening as Knowledge Practice: Historical Handbooks for Kitchen Gardens’ by Sanne Steen 🪏🪴📚 #plantsandpeople
July 8, 2025 at 1:36 PM
Reposted by Sanne Steen
Registration is now OPEN for our conference 'Plants and People'! Please sign up for attendance and workshops through our website: sites.google.com/view/plants-...

Thanks to @sshmedicine.bsky.social @camhistory.bsky.social & the Material Culture Forum for their generous assistance.
Plants and People
Conference Details
sites.google.com
May 14, 2025 at 12:21 PM
Vanochtend heb ik al wandelend met een groepje Hilversummers het Winterkoninkje leren herkennen. Met het typische staartje omhoog. In de middag reisde ik naar Museum de Lakenhal in Leiden voor de tentoonstelling "Floris Verster, Thuis in het groen". En wat herken ik daar? Juist, ja! Trrrrr!
April 13, 2025 at 3:04 PM
Today I striked against the budget cuts in Dutch higher education. What an amazing experience to be among so many Rotterdam colleagues with one message: stop the cuts! Afterwards I went to the Erasmus statue to talk to people about Erasmus, activism and enactivism.
April 8, 2025 at 6:23 PM
I was nominated as Best PhD colleague for Erasmus Graduate School for Social Sciences and the Humanities. Feeling very honoured!
March 29, 2025 at 3:46 PM
While I am employed in Rotterdam, I am currently a fellow at the Allard Pierson, working with the UvA special collections. Therefore, I decided to join part of today's strike in Amsterdam. I am inspired for "our" strike in Rotterdam on 8 April! Let's continue the relay strike against budget cuts!
March 17, 2025 at 5:48 PM
"Onze tuin" is een tuinier boek uit het begin van de twintigste eeuw. Dit boek geeft allerlei praktische informatie over het aanleggen en onderhouden van een sier- en moestuin. Met handige afbeeldingen en tabellen kan vrijwel iedereen hiermee uit de voeten. #boekenweek
March 12, 2025 at 4:05 PM
This eighteenth-century design for a large garden for leisure and food production shows that the romantic, landscape-style started to be applied in gardens but were not deemed suitable for vegetable gardens, which instead had to be easy to oversee.
March 5, 2025 at 10:21 AM
How many gardening tools to you have? Or even recognize?
Illustration from Den Neerstigen Bieën-houder.
March 4, 2025 at 10:36 AM
I'm chronologically working my way through Dutch gardening books. This week I entered the second half of the eighteenth century and life became much easier, because authors are now taking up Linnaeus' naming of plants, which we still generally use today, such as this tulp tree or Liriodendrum.
February 27, 2025 at 10:43 AM
Combining research of historical garden books with actual gardening is fun. Yesterday, I harvested a massive parsnip and today I'm reading a seventeenth-century description of the white carrot.
February 24, 2025 at 2:10 PM
Eighteenth-century recognition of climate change: nature, strengthened by the arts, has helped us producing sweeter fruits in the Netherlands. If only they knew what was to come...
February 20, 2025 at 10:07 AM
As every gardener, I am always looking out for natural remedies against snails eating my plants. The seventeenth century is not always the best place to learn environmentally friendly solutions, but inviting birds to eat your snails seems just right!
February 14, 2025 at 3:19 PM
Just found a personalized design for my future garden, bearing my initials.
February 12, 2025 at 9:39 AM
I'm spending February and March in the Allard Pierson reading room to learn who cultivated vegetables and why. These weeks I look into Dutch seventeenth-century books but I aim to proceed untill WWII. I'm really grateful for Louise O. Fresco for funding this fellowship! Stay tuned for fun findings.
February 11, 2025 at 10:18 AM
I think it is amazing how the dark brown pen made light brown pen completely undreadable without spoiling too much ink. But I also think it is annoying. Mostly annoying.
February 5, 2025 at 7:10 PM
Unfortunately, no sign of any golden helmets. Nonetheless I do recommend the NS walk from Assen trainstation.
February 2, 2025 at 4:48 PM
Starting a new language journey...
January 29, 2025 at 7:55 PM
There we go again...
January 29, 2025 at 2:08 PM