The COEB Research Blog

  Last December I read Trust by Hernán Díaz, about an obscenely wealthy couple in 1920s New York, whose story is told by four competing texts: an infamous novel, an defensive autobiography, a expository memoir, and a lost diary. I had never encountered this kind of story-telling, but, because of a small clip of Dua Lipa interviewing the author, I wanted to give it a try, and I can say: the novel did not disappoint. The story absolutely delivers, and in such a way that it made me think about my research. So, the rest of this blog post will contain my reflections about the theme of Trust and how it applies to archival visits. Let’s go! (Oh, BTW, even though I won’t spoil anything too much below, I still recommend you to read the book yourself.) So, the theme of Trust ! Well, it is about… Trust. But what kind of trust are we talking about? Trust in what way? Even though the thesis is not spelled out in the text, the author brings forth different understandings of trust by subvertin...

At the end of January this year I went to the Art & History Museum in Brussels where I had the privilege to visit the archives of the Institut belge des  hautes  études chinoises and got access to copies of Chinese student dossiers. The dossiers in question were produced in the late 1920s and early 1930s, around the time that the Boxer Indemnities scholarship program was formally established between China and Belgium. (1)  The files are mostly forms filled in by Chinese students who were residing in Belgium at the time or had just arrived. The documents are either part of the application for the Boxer scholarship or part of registration upon arrival.  After carefully sorting the photo copies, I came to a unique total of 183 Chinese student dossiers. Even though the archival material does not cover all students in the 1930s, the collection of forms is still very informative for two main things:  1) The documents provide informat...