What influence do children’s upbringing and education have on their world view? This is the question Professor Judi Mesman is trying to answer. For her research and public outreach activities, she has just been awarded the prestigious Stevin Prize, the highest award in the Netherlands for a researcher…

How did a circle of Soviet artists and writers virtually unknown until perestroika turn into Russia’s most influential contemporary art movement? This book reconstructs the cultural history and canonization of a group of painters and poets known as the Moscow conceptualists, who paradoxically did not…

Ludo Block wrote the eleventh chapter of the book 'Post-Crimea Shift in EU-Russia Relations: From Fostering Interdependence to Managing Vulnerabilities'. His chapter 'Business as Usual? Police Cooperation under a Cloud of Political Animosity' can be found on page 204 of the book.

On 25 January 2024 H.J. Pak successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

Since the late 1990s, Leiden University has been located in two cities: Leiden and The Hague. Leiden Law School is also involved in teaching and research at Campus The Hague.

The figure of the barbarian has captivated the Western imagination from Greek antiquity to the present. Since the 1990s, the rhetoric of civilization versus barbarism has taken center stage in Western political rhetoric and the media. But how can the longevity and popularity of this opposition be accounted…

This book contextualizes the use of terror as part of wider movements of political contention, demonstrating that terroristic innovation occurs as part of wider historical processes rather than in a vacuum.

On the 8th of September Yun-An Olivia Dung successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

Indonesian Law and Reality in the Mahakam Delta

The 21st International Conference on English Historical Linguistics will be held from 7 to 11 June 2021 at Leiden University.

Eine Archäobotanische untersuchung zu Umwelt und Landwirtschaft der Ältesten Bankkeramik.

On 9 January 2019, Willem van der Muur defended his thesis 'Land rights and the forces of adat in democratizing Indonesia'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. dr. A.W. Bedner and Prof. dr. J.M. Otto.

Haunting the future through poetry

In contemporary India, the regional state of West Bengal has often been perceived as somewhat of an aberration in the wider context of a rather chaotic democracy, as the Left Front (spearheaded by the Communist Party of India-Marxist, CPIM) demonstrated a rare instance of political stability, decisively…

Madeleine O. Hosli & Jaroslaw Kantorowicz analyze EU states' foreign policy divergence at the UN General Debate, assessing if Lisbon Treaty reforms increased EU cohesion or if states maintain distinct positions.

Systematic investigations into religious precepts, worldly rules of law and legal practices in the Muslim world show clearly how these societies deal with justice and injustice. Sharia, the Islamic ‘legal system’, plays an important role in this context.

It is still not easy to ‘come out’ about your sexual orientation or gender identity. On Coming Out Day (11 October), the issue was the focus of global attention. This year, instead of the traditional rainbow flag, the ‘progress pride flag’ flew above University buildings.

By analysing neglected (continental) spy centres and integrating these groups of female intelligencers into the traditional, male-orientated historical narratives, this project will proceed towards a gendered history of early modern espionage.

Subproject of

What forms does religiosity take among Muslims in Europe today? How are answers to the question of what it means to be a Muslim in Europe reached in institutions of Islamic higher education, Muslim student organizations, and women’s organizations? What is the relation between the individual and religious…

In this project diverse aspects of the duchesses’ roles in the complex and dynamic relations between town and crown are studied on the basis of systematic research in the account books of four cities (Ghent, Bruges, Leuven and Mechelen) in the Burgundian Netherlands (ca. 1430-1503).

When companies violate women’s human rights.

The Laboratory for Human Osteoarchaeology specialises in the macroscopic and microscopic analysis of human remains. We use cutting edge scientific approaches to address archaeological, historical, and anthropological research questions. In addition to paleopathological, histological, and 3D scanning…

A thorough description of the relationships among languages and their social environment in a given context, reflecting an ecological perspective, involves attention to the agency of local actors, and the policies, discourse, and ideologies that surround them.

How did Anglo-Saxons reflect on the experience of growing old? Was it really a golden age for the elderly, as has been suggested?

Sport Data Center

Bioarchaeology covers the study of all biological remains from archaeological sites.

Announcement of the publication of Vamping the Stage: Female Voices of Asian Modernities, the first book-length study of women, modernity, and popular music in Asia (University of Hawai'i Press, 2017).

What we did this year? Well, we ran for charity, moved a 2,000 kilo electron microscope and ate poffertjes in the garden. Oh yes, and together mapped out a strategy for the next five years. Warm up the fingers and get ready to scroll through the year of Leiden Science in 2023.

Purple clothing and a pride flag flying from all University buildings: Leiden University is once again taking part in Purple Friday. How do people experience this day? We asked some employees and students of the Faculty of Humanities.

On this page you will find more information about the selected projects of the Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (JEDI) Fund for 2022.

How does digitalisation affect the humanities? The introductory course for the Honours College Humanities Lab challenges students to reflect on this through the production of their very own short film.

Promotor: E.F. Smets Co-promotor: J. Geml

Symposium & Workshop

The number of women in the Netherlands dying before, during or after childbirth has halved.

Yesterday marked the start of the National Accessibility Week. How accessible is Leiden University for people with a disability? We asked Lucia Langerak, disabled herself and working at the Honours Academy, about her experiences: ‘Significant improvements are being made.’

Proud family members, lecturers and, above all, students congregated in the Van Steenis building on 27 June to celebrate the students' having completed the Preparatory Study Year in Leiden.

Programming is an excellent career option for blind children, and a way to have fun and express themselves. But the existing tools for programming are often not suitable for the blind and visually impaired. Leiden researchers will change that.

From 1 January 2017 Jojanneke van der Toorn will be the first holder of the Workplace Pride special chair, with a focus on the inclusion of people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT). This new chair is a joint initiative of the Workplace Pride Foundation, Leiden University, and the…

PhD defence

LeidenGlobal Workshop

Four students founded the Leiden Student Working Group on Homosexuality on the day of the Dies Natalis in 1968. This was to be the start of the LBGT+ movement in Leiden, which celebrated its 50-year anniversary this year. What has been achieved and what is the status of emancipation today?

There are around 300,000 people in the Netherlands who donate blood on a regular basis. Women can give blood up to three times a year and men up to five times, resulting in approximately one million blood donations each year. Patients that receive this donated blood are already in a vulnerable condition,…

Theft, prostitution, fortune-telling or murder. Historian Manon van der Heijden and a group of students are researching court records from The Hague from 1600 to 1800. They are tracing crimes and offenders and shedding new light on The Hague’s Gevangenpoort (or Prison Gate). Among their many discoveries…

This 48-month project is to contribute to a solid, accessible, domestically owned knowledge base for people-centred interventions aimed at strengthening access to justice in Libya (A2JiL), and to disseminate such knowledge among stakeholders, enhancing awareness and the capabilities required to provide…

This programme aims to identify the intellectual contexts that were of importance for the architectural theory of the period, and especially to clarify the relation of architectural theory to primitivism.

PhD defence