Nobuaki Murai defended his thesis on 24 January 2018.

This study presents a re-evaluation of Malay adventure stories.

This project aims to study the Aesopian fable from 1500 to the present day in its complex relationship between text, illustration and education, adopting a broad, transnational perspective.

European integration is under pressure. At the same time, the notion of a European administrative space is being explicitly voiced. But does a shared idea of the public servant exist in Europe?

This project investigates how the first generation of Dutch printed books (the incunabula, 1473-1501) affected late medieval spirituality, religious practice and visual culture in the Low Countries.

Five research projects of the Institute for History have been selected for the Research Traineeship Programme 2016-2017. The programme was initiated by The Faculty of Humanities to offer motivated students the opportunity to develop themselves in academic research. In December the research trainees,…

An overview of Professional Associations and Journals

The book reinterprets the role of the UN during the Congo crisis from 1960 to 1964, presenting a multidimensional view of the organisation.

This book concerns cultural production in contemporary Latin American cities: chaotic cities where the ideal of order has become fragmented and the walls of the lettered city have become porous. New and multifarious urban trajectories—intersecting, colliding, superimposing—trace the image of the postmodern…

Taking as a point of departure the Italian American community in Boston and its process of collective remembrance surrounding Saint Anthony’s Feast, we address the limits and potential of montage.

Call for Papers: Imperial Artefacts. History, Law, and the Looting of Cultural Property

The Institute for History has a new academic director. Professor of Early Modern History Jeroen Duindam will take on this role from 1 September. ‘You can only do this job properly if you make time for it.’

In QS’s World University Rankings of 2016, Leiden University’s History and Linguistics programme rank #19 and #28, respectively. This makes the History programme the best of its kind in the Netherlands, and Linguistics the second best.

Political scientists Rebekah Tromble and Michael Meffert (Leiden University) address the question why certain frames persist over time in the media while others fade away and still others disappear very quickly. They suggest an approach based in event-history methodologies for assessing the causes of…

Lecture and Masterclass with Alexandra Sapoznik (King's College London) Connecting economic and environmental histories in the pre-modern world 12 and 13 May 2025, Universiteit van Amsterdam. Deadline for submissions: 29 April 2025, 13:00

During the week of 27 June - 2 July, the Institute of History was host to the first SHAFR Graduate Summer Institute held outside of the United States. The theme of the Institute was Culture, Propaganda and Intelligence in Cold War History.

This subproject of 'From Homo Economicus to Political Animal' will be on ancient analogues for modern-day “ersatz economics”, the economics of the “man in the street”.

We live in a data-drenched society awash with numbers. An inhabitant of the democratic polis of Athens (5th and 4th centuries B.C.E.) increasingly found himself surrounded by numerical data. This project aims to analyze the communicative functions and the political meaning(s) ascribed to these public…

This project investigates the effects of the Asia-Pacific War (1931-1945) and the Korean War (1950-1953) on the production, distribution, preparation and consumption of food in transwar Japan and Korea.

This year the PhDs of the institute had their traditional day out (uitje) to The Hague. The last two years they had stayed in Leiden, so The Hague already seemed like quite the adventure. Indeed, it seems almost that as time progresses and more and more archives become digitized, history PhDs slowly…

Assistant professor Stephanie Noach has won the Dissertation Prize of the Praemium Erasmianum Foundation. She is receiving this prestigious prize for her research on darkness in contemporary art from Latin America and the Caribbean.

This thesis investigates the application of deep learning techniques in image analysis across various domains, focusing on four main themes: feature extraction, classification, segmentation, and integration, demonstrating the transformative potential of these technologies.

What motivated past human societies to repeatedly invest labour, generation after generation, in constructing, maintaining, and enhancing monumental structures in an environment prone to frequent and unpredictable natural disasters? Moreover, how did societal resilience and periods of heightened or…

Two Humanities research masters and one master’s programme score well above average in the Keuzegids Masters: the research master History, the master and research master Classics and Ancient Civilizations.

Over the last few years, human Rights have become subject of intense debates in historiography. Sam Moyn’s provocative book The Last Utopia (2010) made in particular clear how important it is to investigate precisely which meaning human rights have been given in a particular context. During the research…

Fondazione 1563 launched a call for the Summer School of the Turin Humanities Programme, that will take place in Torino from September 6 to September 8 2023. The theme is: Writing global medieval history: comparative and connected approaches. Deadline for applications: June 25.

The newly established Leiden Jewish Studies Association aims to bring together Leiden scholars working on Judaism. The first annual conference will take place in Leiden on 6 and 7 December. Leiden professors and co-organisers of the LJSA Sarah Cramsey and Jürgen Zangenberg talk about their plans.

Lecture, China Seminar

Lecture

Three alumni of our Master’s degree programme in Ancient History talk to us about how they found a job after graduation during the coronavirus pandemic. During the interview, Gabriël hung a huge board covered in post-it reminders behind his laptop, Molly was glad that the members of the selection committee…

This project is a close and sensitive contextual study of Jacob of Sarug's (ca. 451-521 AD) metrical homily

In July 2021 the Leiden Empowerment Fonds (LEF) awarded a research grant of €13,500 for research into the history of maritime law in early modern times.

To be eligible for Latin American Studies (research) at Leiden University, you must meet the following admission requirements.

For questions related to Leiden Latin American and Caribbean Centre, please contact Mara Constantinescu, the Regional Coordinator for Latin America and the Caribbean.

On 8 February 2024 Leiden University celebrated its 449th anniversary.

Do you have a question about student life in Leiden, studying at Leiden University, or do you want more information about the Arts and Culture master's programme? Chat with a current student for answers to your questions!

How were Spanish commanders fighting in the Low Countries between 1567 and 1577 portrayed in Spanish and Dutch narrative sources during the Eighty Years War?

Fanny Wonu Veys was appointed Professor of Art and Material Culture of Oceania on 1 August. Time for an introduction.

The Saxo Institute, Faculty of Humanities, University of Copenhagen (UCPH) invites applicants for a tenure-track assistant professorship in economic history

Spycraft, by professor Nadine Akkerman and Pete Langman has been selected by History Today and The Economist as one of 2024’s best books

How can we supply the growing world population with sustainable energy? At Laurens College in Rotterdam, Prof. Marc Koper speaks with the students about the crucial role of chemistry in the energy transition. Guest classes like this are a good way for school students to learn about the academic world,…

There has been a lot of media attention for the report recently completed by the Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML) from Leiden University. However, it has long been known that Dutch surface water contains too many toxic pesticides. ‘We will have to improve our ways of life together with many…

The Leiden wall formulae, Einstein's sink or the signature wall of Ehrenfest. It are just a few of Leiden's hidden science treasures. Alumnus from the Leiden Observatory Alex Pietrow described a few of these places on travel website Atlas Obscura.

Exploring cultural production in Europe, Latin America and Africa, the institute’s research programme focuses on the continuous interconnectedness of the Arts and Society in both the textual culture of literature, learning and public debate and the visual culture of art, architecture, film, photography…