The specialisations Art History and Museum Studies both engage in critical perspectives and in current practices and the development of a professional network. The specialisation Art History puts emphasis on the analysis of art works within a museal and curatorial context. Our courses, taught by art…

Postcolonial Displacements explores the multiple ways in which migration in South Asia contributes to the imagining, questioning, subverting and reframing of territories, nations and communities. The project focuses on the contested fringes of the politically divided South Asian subcontinent, across…

We invite motivated students from around the world to apply for our master's programme in Archaeology. Admission requirements may vary per specialisation, please visit the specialisation of your interest to find out more about the entry requirements.

This research develops and applies a new approach to study Aegyptiaca Romana from a bottom-up, Roman perspective.

The material and intellectual presence of Egypt is at the heart of Western culture, religion and art from Antiquity to the present. This volume aims to provide a long term and interdisciplinary perspective on Egypt and its mnemohistory, taking theories on objects and their agency as its main point of…

Almost 4400 anatomical drawings from the collections of Leiden University Libraries (UBL) are now available through Europeana. The collection shows medical art on paper from the early eighteenth century to the present day. Most of the drawings were created in or around the Leiden University Medical…

A group of confidants including a former student of Meijers managed to avert his deportation to a death camp. In her lecture on 27 November, Cleveringa Professor Marjan Schwegman revealed the history of the persecution of the Jewish Professor Eduard Meijers.

Audrey Heijns explored the mindset of alumnus Henri Borel. From 1894 to 1916 he was an interpreter of Chinese and later a government officer for Chinese affairs in the Dutch East Indies. Borel's way of 'translating' Chinese was both unique and inimitable. PhD defence on 28 June.

Mexico, between 500 B.C. and A.D. 900

Two Leiden University science communication projects have been awarded a WECOM grant through the Dutch Research Agenda (NWA). One project is a study of the history of the deaf community in the Netherlands and the other is of a condition that causes people to lose their way.

How do local, non-institutional ideas about end-of-life care influence professional palliative care and vice versa? These questions will be answered by medical anthropologists Annemarie Samuels and Natashe Lemos Dekker in the coming years.

During the one-year master’s programme in Colonial and Global History you will learn about the importance of a comparative perspective for understanding transnational processes such as imperialism, colonialism, islamisation, modernisation and globalisation.

Filipino anthropologists Andrea Malaya M. Ragragio and Myfel D. Paluga look back at the groundbreaking Netflix show Trese and what it missed about the stories of Indigenous peoples. They published the article 'What Netflix Got Wrong About Indigenous Storytelling' in the digital Anthropology magazine…

In close collaboration with the Center for Medieval Studies (Fordham), Centre for Medieval literature (Odense and York) and Centre for Medieval Studies (York), the University of Ghent organizes an Autumn School for PhD- and MA-students in Medieval Studies (18-22 October 2021). It will be organized in…

Lecture, LIAS Lunch Talk Series

The Journal of the LUCAS Graduate Conference was founded in 2013 to publish a selection of the best papers presented at the biennial LUCAS Graduate Conference, an international and interdisciplinary humanities conference organized by the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS). The…

The Faculty of Humanities’ On-Campus Master’s Experience Day was a pleasantly busy event. The information sessions and corresponding information market went down well with interested undergraduates.

PhD candidates are encouraged to start thinking about their future careers well before the defence of their thesis.

The changing status of anatomical collections from the early modern period to date.

ASLU 27 Sjoerd van der Linde (2012)

The project entails research by international comparison into the effects of commercialisation in heritage management on the academic relevance and quality of the results of work that is essentially applied research. The research is carried out by Prof. dr. W.J.H. Willems and dr. M.H. van den Dries…

This study seeks to identify suitable local environments conditions for the objects displayed at the Jordanian museums using the proper methods in order to contribute to the stabilization of these objects.

Proceedings of the 25th International Congress of Roman Frontier Studies 1

The Faculty of Archaeology ranks as the best on continental Europe and is in the top ten of the world. Our master’s degree in archaeology offers the most diverse programme of its type in the Netherlands.

The choices you make during your bachelor's programme are crucial for your future career. Our Anthropology graduates work in fields varying from the development sector to policy work and heritage institutions.

Conference, D&I Symposium

Global Interactions sponsors a number of research projects of Leiden University researchers.

In August 2022 we welcome our new colleague Dr Letty ten Harkel as Assistant Professor in Roman and Post-Roman Archaeology. For the past ten years she has built up an impressive track record in the School of Archaeology at the University of Oxford. Read the interview about her background and research…

Archaeologist Annelou van Gijn received an NWO Archeologie Telt grant to investigate domestic craft and subsistence activities of late Neolithic peoples in the coastal area of the Netherlands

In his new six-hour series, Africa's Great Civilizations, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. takes a new look at the history of Africa, from the birth of humankind to the dawn of the 20th century. One of the experts interviewed in the programme is our own dr. Sada Mire.

Research on the process and construction of news stories about human rights issues in Latin American newspapers.

This autumn Leiden University is launching eight new MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) that are available free to the general public. You can follow courses on the theory of evolution, mindfulness, political economy, international law, music, cultural heritage or archaeology.

Leiden Asia Departments

Understanding Late Neolithic Ceramic Containers from Upper Mesopotamia

Unravelling networks of human mobility and exchange of goods and ideas from a pre-colonial, pan-Caribbean perspective

Research conducted in this group aims at furthering our understanding of how communities and individuals deal with social change, conflict and trauma through remembrance and commemoration as well as forgetting in the arts.

Just behind the entry gate of Angkor Wat, known as Gopura 4 West, through which every year millions of tourists enter the most iconic temple of the UNESCO World Heritage Site, ground-penetrating radar surveys revealed a set of masonry structures: six ‘tower’ bases in geometrical alignment, possibly…

On 7 June, the National Museum of Antiquities opened a mini exhibition 'Scanning for Syria'. The exhibition shows how Leiden archaeologists and Delft technical specialists make reconstructions of 3000-year-old Assyrian clay tablets. The originals, stored in museum depots in Raqqa (Syria), have been…

The Leiden Faculty of Archaeology is a world renowned academic centre for the study of the past. Our archaeologists and heritage experts are involved in innovative projects all over the world.

Researchers using remote sensing technologies have characterized pre-Columbian regularly-shaped earthworks in forests in Central America and the Amazon. In tropical forested mountains in South America, two challenges arise when identifying archaeological sites through remote sensing. Firstly, sites…

When and how to use the concept of “culture” . To medical anthropologists this is a core question, but also a challenging one.

The Leiden University Centre for the Study of Islam and Society (LUCIS) and the Abdulaziz Saud Al-Babtain Cultural Foundation will join hands in promoting the understanding of Arabic culture. Generous support from Mr. Abdulaziz Saud Al-Babtain enables LUCIS to invite a visiting professor in Arabic culture…

The one-year master in Southeast Asian Studies, a specialisation of Leiden University’s master in Asian Studies, offers a large and varied selection of subjects and the freedom to choose the areas on which you will focus.

Rising geopolitical tensions are causing states and national elites to innovate their use of the past for present-day political ends. This is certainly true for the People’s Republic of China, which prepares to celebrate its 75th anniversary in 2024 amid mounting superpower rivalry, ideological tensions…