Piercing through the skull with an ice pick, administering electric shocks without an anaesthetic, or applying leeches to the uterus: these may seem like medieval methods of torture, but they are in fact therapies used in medicine. Willem van der Does writes about all of them in his new book. ‘Physicians…

Ever since Nadine Akkerman, Professor of Early Modern Literature & Culture, came across a woman spy in her research, secret agents have kept cropping up in her work. Now there’s Spycraft, a popular history book exploring the espionage techniques used by early modern spies, which she has co-written with…

Jessica den Oudsten won this year’s Uitgeverij Verloren/Johan de Witt thesis award for history with her master’s thesis, entitled

The Department of History of Art in Oxford has appointed Leiden University professor Caroline van Eck as Slade Professor of Fine Art for the second semester of academic year 2016-2017. As Slade Professor Van Eck will spend a semester in office at Oxford University and deliver eight public lectures and…

Kaarle Wirta is one of the four PhDs in Cátia Antunes’ ERC Research Project 'Fighting Monopolies'.

Below you will find an overview of all PRE-Classes provided by the various programmes of Leiden University. For each section, you can find a description of the content and more specific information about the requirements for participation in the Class.

Louis Sicking's Maritime Conflict Management in Atlantic Europe was awarded an 'Internationalisation in the Humanities' grant from NWO. What can we learn from how maritime conflicts were managed in the past?

Rachel Schats has been a familiar face at the Faculty of Archaeology since she started her bachelor’s in Archaeology in 2005. Now she is an assistant professor, working on her Veni project on malaria in the Middle Ages. ‘I have included in this project so many skeletal collections that no one has ever…

As of 1 February 2015, dr. David Napolitano is postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for History. He is particularly interested in the figure of the medieval city magistrate.

Damjan Donev is a PhD student in the ERC granted research project 'An Empire of 2000 Cities: urban networks and economic integration in the Roman empire', directed by Luuk De Ligt and John Bintliff (Archaeology).

On the occasion of the retirement of Robert Ross, Professor in African History at Leiden University, his successor and former student Jan-Bart Gewald wrote a valedictory note.

Since August 2013, Alanna O’Malley is the new Assistant Professor for International Studies at the Institute for History, Leiden University.

Edgar Pereira is one of the four PhDs in Cátia Antunes’ ERC Research Project 'Fighting Monopolies'.

Maria started as a team-member in one of dr. Catia Antunes' research projects in December 2014 as Early Stage Researcher of the Marie Curie – ITN Project ForSEAdiscovery on ‘Portuguese forest resources and timber supply in the Early Modern period’.

Honorata Mazepus works at the research group Political Legitimacy since september 1st 2011 and studies Russia within that group.

On 18 June, 2015, Erik Kwakkel was elected to the Comité International de Paléographie Latine (CIPL), a scholarly committee that specialises in the study of the medieval book.

Esther Baakman is a PhD-candidate at Leiden University Institute for History.

How did colonial law work to turn people into property? This project argues that colonial ideas about households and domestic authority were critical to legal processes of enslavement in the early modern Dutch empire. Using colonial court records from Dutch Brazil, Suriname, and the Moluccas, the project…

Chrissoula Tzanetea is a PhD student in the ERC granted research project 'An Empire of 2000 Cities: urban networks and economic integration in the Roman empire', directed by Luuk De Ligt and John Bintliff (Archaeology).

Long into the 19th century, seascapes were considered an expression of patriotism. Artists who painted in a 17th century style were valued more. This tradition stifled innovation in the genre, Cécile Bosman has concluded. She will defend her PhD thesis on 13 October.

Pieter Houten is a PhD student in the ERC granted research project 'An Empire of 2000 Cities: urban networks and economic integration in the Roman empire', directed by Luuk De Ligt and John Bintliff (Archaeology).

University lecturer Dario Fazzi and postdoctoral researcher Gaetano Di Tommaso set up a virtual collaboration with the United States last year thanks to a VIS grant. And it was a such a success the project will be repeated next year. Fazzi is looking forward to once again offering his students a multicultural…

In the sixteenth century, many Protestants fled to the Northern Netherlands to avoid Spanish oppression in the south. This exodus included tapestry makers from Oudenaarde who eventually settled in Gouda. Professor by Special Appointment Yvonne Bleyerveld and researcher Jos Beerens have been awarded…

Carolien Stolte lectures at the Institute for History within the Faculty of Humanities in Leiden. She intends to use her Veni grant to research the international networks of Indian activists during the period of decolonisation. We spoke to Carolien about her reaction.

De modest fashion-industrie is een miljardenindustrie, ontstaan vanuit de behoefte van vrouwen om zich meer bescheiden (lees: bedekt) te gaan kleden. Het Stedelijk Museum Schiedam presenteert daarom in samenwerking met Arminius het Modest Fashion Symposium.

Bij Amsterdam University Press verschijnt 'Imams in Western Europe. Developments, Transformations and Institutional Challenges' onder redactie van Mohammed Hashas, Jan Jaap de Ruiter en Niels Valdemar Vinding, een publicatie waarin tal van zaken met betrekking tot imams in Europa behandeld worden. De…

This research will investigate which aspects of On the sublime received attention in the intellectual milieu of the seventeenth century and how the sublime found its way in the political and artistic discourse of that time. Thus I aim to shed light on the role of art in politics and society in this…

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).

This project will clarify how these concepts operated in theoretical writings on performance ,this broadened conceptual framework will not only give us a clear view on how sublime effects in performance were theorized, it will also provide us a concrete apparatus to understand the cultural and political…

This PhD research aims to trace the impact of the Arab conquest, both immediate and long-term, on the material and social organization of Central Asia from 651 to 821 through an “urban change” perspective in four cities: Merv, Paikent, Balkh and Samarkand.

This research cluster centres on regional, national, and global intersections and interactions between a variety of artistic expressions and society. It focuses not only on objects (artistic, literary, cinematic, and medial), but also on practices (aesthetic, political, and cultural).

A collaboration between linguists, geographers and anthropologists aims to uncover how languages spread across South America over thousands of years. Associate Professor Rik van Gijn is responsible for the linguistic side of this NWO project.

Political scientists Tom Louwerse, Simon Otjes & Cynthia van Vonno introduce the Dutch Parliamentary Behaviour Dataset, a record of parliamentary (voting) behaviour in the Dutch Tweede Kamer (Second Chamber, House of Representatives) since 1945.

The new blog Afro-Asian Visions showcases new and ongoing research on Afro-Asian interactions through networks of artists, intellectuals, technical experts, and activists. It is designed as an online magazine.