Arabic and its Alternatives discusses the complicated relationships between language, religion and communal identities in the Middle East in the period following the First World War.

Until 2019, LUCIS organised an annual conference to highlight state-of-the-art research on a central theme within the academic study of Islam and society. Researchers from around the globe convened in Leiden to share and discuss their work.

The recent terrorist attacks in Europe are presumably not just acts committed by individuals, but acts facilitated by larger jihadist networks. But how do such networks operate? Understanding their modus operandi can be useful knowledge to counter terrorist threats.

From the smallest level of interaction among families and close friends, over the meso-level of schools, shops, churches, religious communities and companies, to the highest level of nation-states and international organisations: Language Policy and Planning (LPP) is everywhere!

The NVIC offers academic courses in Arabic & Islamic studies and in the study of Ancient Egypt, in the framework of study programmes at the Dutch and Flemish universities that support the institute. NVIC also puts its teaching experience at the disposal of companies, embassies, international organisations…

In a modernist interpretation of migration controls, nation states play a major role. This book challenges this interpretation by showing that comprehensive migration checks and permanent border controls appeared much earlier, in early modern dynastic states and empires, and predated nation states by…

Interested in studying Colonial and Global History at Leiden University? Find out what our alumni said about this master's programme.

The minor Global Affairs is built on two pillars of International Relations: International Security and International Political Economy. This minor aims to provide students with the tools and knowledge to understand the most important global trends and challenges.

The objective of the minor Law, Culture and Development is to teach students about the central concepts of law and the connections between law, culture and development.

Abdolreza Alamdar Baghini defended his thesis on 5 December 2019.

Since 2006, HJD has made an important contribution to shaping diplomatic studies as an international academic field. Our new HJD Diplomacy Reading List presents a diverse collection of analyses categorized into forty-five topics published in HJD over the years. We hope these lists prove a valuable resource…

A History of Modern Political Thought in East Central Europe is a two-volume project, authored by an international team of researchers, and offering the first-ever synthetic overview of the history of modern political thought in East Central Europe.

In the contemporary myriad of definitions and approaches of landscape, the starting points and limits of the concept of landscape biography are being explored, but also tested in this thesis. What exactly is a landscape biography? What does it constitute of? Is landscape biography just a narration of…

The project aims at highlighting and strengthening Dutch research into the diversity of the world’s languages from a historic and a cognitive perspective.

On the 21st of June, Marieke Meelen succesfully defended her PhD-thesis and graduated. LUCL congratulates Marieke on this great result.

From as early as classical antiquity there has been an interplay between literature and medicine.

The subject of this thesis is Alverata, a twenty-first-century typeface whose design was inspired by the shapes of Romanesque capitals such as those found in inscriptions of the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

Research projects which are assisted by the NVIC in the field of Arabic studies.

This year, eleven exchange projects from Leiden University received an Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility education grant. The total award of almost €510.000 enables 98 students and staff members to go on exchange.

The Modern Devotion: pone of the most influential religious initiatives in the late medieval Low Countries.

Authority and Control in the Countryside looks at the economic, religious, political and cultural instruments that local and regional powers in the late antique to early medieval Mediterranean and Near East used to manage their rural hinterlands.

This is an Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility project of Leiden University with the American University in Cairo.

At LUCIS we offer a varied programme of scholarly meetings (conferences, workshops) which reflect our multidisciplinary and comparative view on Islam and Muslim societies in past and present.

Two thousand years ago, the Middle East found itself caught between the rise of the Roman Empire in the west and the Parthian Empire in the east. PhD candidate Nolke Tasma has been awarded an NWO grant to investigate how local inhabitants experienced these changes.

This book explores how changes in the patterns of cooperation and conflict among states, regional actors and transnational non-state actors have affected the rise of emerging global powers and the suggested decline of US leadership. Scholars, students and policy practitioners who are interested in the…

With regard to governance, policies and law, many Muslims and Muslim countries recognise the possibility that Islam has something important to say about the way society is to be ordered, governed, and regulated.

From colonial times through to the present day, large numbers of Javanese have left their homes to settle in other parts of Indonesia or much further afield. Frequently this dispersion was forced, often with traumatic results.

What is the iconography of propaganda specifically as it relates to the historical development of political ideologies in modern Egypt and how was/is this propaganda disseminated among creative fields such as cinema, art, monuments, architecture, and literature?

On young Muslims seeking to understand their place and make their way in a transformed world.

Intensive public debates have erupted about integration of immigrants in Europe. The influx of refugees from the middle east during the summer and autumn of 2015, the increasing visibility of immigrants throughout European societies, but also the widely publicized occurrences on New Year’s eve in Cologne…

The NVIC library is a public, academic reference library. Entrance is free—no membership needed—and offers access to our book collection and two reading rooms, which have a WiFi connection. It is not possible to borrow books from our library.

LUCIS promotes high-quality research on Islam and Muslim societies and actively communicates the insights and findings of that research to the larger public.

Once you have decided on your field of research, you should start looking for a supervisor as early as possible.

In recent years, and especially since the ‘Arab Spring’ of 2011, a growing body of research, media reporting, and scholarly literature has focused on the role of ‘Arab youth’ as the drivers of social and political movements across the Middle East and North Africa.

Aesthetic formations and cultural repertoires give meaning to our reality in ways that are never neutral. Focusing on the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and its global interlocutors, this project brings together a team of scholars from Leiden University who bring in inter-disciplinary, inter-area…

Leiden’s Faculty of Humanities is one of the broadest of its kind, offering courses in no fewer than 80 different languages and a very broad spectrum of academic disciplines.

If you are interested in an academic programme, but do you not wish to complete the entire programme? Then, you can choose one of the many à la carte courses the Faculty of Humanities offers.

What is it like to study Urban Studies in The Hague? Sonia Dobkowska, second year student, describes what a typical day looks like for her.

Conference, Public Event

Designed for high-achieving students, Leiden University’s research MA Asian Studies offers access to unique resources and expertise. Asian Studies at Leiden University has a reputation for excellence that is unmatched in Europe.

Now and then we organise book launches to present the latest publications, both academic and popular, in our broad field.

The master's in Assyriology, a specialisation of the Classics and Ancient Civilizations programme, at Leiden University provides you with a multidisciplinary study of the languages, literatures and cultures of ancient Mesopotamia and Anatolia.

LIAS has a School of Asian Studies (SAS), a School of Middle-Eastern Studies (SMES) and a School of Religious Studies (LUCSoR). These designations, and the fields within them, remain foundational to our work. At the same time, the academic community benefits from the presence of cross-regional networks…

On 28 and 29 August, Dr. Ben Van Rompuy and Dr. Armin Cuyvers gave a two-day training to the Competition Commissioners of the newly established East-African Competition authority.