In the eighteenth century, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) housed its enslaved people on ‘Slave Island’ in Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka. Today ‘Slave Island’ is under serious threat from property developers. Senior lecturer Alicia Schrikker, together with her Sri Lankan colleagues Iromi Perera…

The Turn of the Soul: Representations of Religious Conversion in Early Modern Art and Literature

Engin Kiliç defended his thesis on 11 june 2015

On Thursday 29 January 2026 Uğur Derin successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

Het Departement Architectuur (Faculteit Ingenieurswetenschappen, Campus Heverlee KU Leuven), zoekt kandidaten voor het project: “Verloren middeleeuwse forten in de Lage Landen ontsloten in 3D”. Het betreft een volledig gefinancierde doctoraatsbeurs in het veld van de architectuurgeschiedenis. Deadline…

The ERC-project CaPANES (Causal Pattern Analysis of Economic Sovereignty) is looking for a postdoctoral researcher and two PhD's. This project addresses economic sovereignty of commercial cities in the period of c. 1400-c. 1620. Deadline for applications: November 4.

The NWO just announced the results of the Vrije Competitie proposals. Paul Smith, professor at the French department is, as a member of LUCAS, one of three scholars within the Faculty of Humanities at Leiden University who has been awarded this grant.

French title: Communication et violences dans le Guéra et le Moyen-Chari (Tchad) de 1940 à 2010. This research investigates the relationship between the introduction of new means of communication and violence experienced by the local populations in the Moyen-Chari and the Guéra regions in Chad from…

For the project ‘Professionals and the People’ Tilburg University is looking for a historian with a PhD with passion for archival research. The postdoc will investigate the administrative culture and the functioning of urban civil servants in the Low Countries during the late Middle Ages and Early Modern…

In this research group, led by Dr. Joost Beltman, the aim is to employ mathematical and computational dynamical modelling approaches in order to quantitatively and mechanistically understand the dynamical behaviour and regulation of intracellular networks of genes, proteins and metabolites as well as…

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?

How did nineteenth century scholars evaluate each other and each other’s work through more or less informal practices of peer review?

How did disability become a global concern? In this project we will identify the contribution of international agencies, governmental and non-governmental organizations and, just as importantly, disabled people themselves, to the IYDP and by showing the connections, interactions and entanglements between…

How do first-hand narratives of war of commanders in the front line relate to the official narrative of the Eighty Years’ War?

It is crucial that Leiden University reflects on its colonial history. These were the words of Cleveringa Professor Gert Oostindie in his inaugural lecture on 24 November. ‘As a university community, we must dare to hold up a mirror to ourselves and, where possible and necessary, also take concrete…

This project explores themes at the intersection of maritime history and environmental history by looking at the problems Dutch ships encountered in the different climates of the Atlantic and Indian Ocean worlds, and the solutions they could provide.

Blood, Sweat and Tears: The Changing Concepts of Physiology from Antiquity into Early Modern Europe

This volume challenges the idea that the development of ‘democracy’ is a story of rise and progress at all. It is rather a story of continuous but never completely satisfying attempts of interpreting the rule of the people.

This study employs a comparative perspective to identify generic and specific qualities of petitions and petitioning. It charts the chronological development of petitioning practices over centuries. The interdisciplinary approaches provide range of conceptual and methodological expertise for reade…

Beginning teachers often experience difficulties making activating lessons. This study investigates how and if the practical teaching model can offer them a hand in learning to design lessons.

The Executive Board has appointed Herman Paul (Institute for History) as Professor of History of the Humanities. He will take up the role from 1 January 2019.

This study interrogates contemporary and historical uses of barbarism, arguing that barbarism also has a disruptive, insurgent potential.

In this article, Ben de Jong, research fellow at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs, examines the relationship between double agents and their handlers.

International Coalitions for Peace in the Era of Decolonization, 1918-1970

The soya sauce in our kitchen cabinets is not a recent acquisition. This sauce is an important element in a long history of exchange between Asia and Europe. This is what Anne Gerritsen claims in her inaugural lecture for the Kikkoman Chair on Friday 12 December.

The Team International Relations and European Studies addresses the interconnections and interdependence of contemporary global political, economic, security and culture from a multidisciplinary perspective rooted in the humanities. More specifically it is concerned with the study of international relations…

Asim Zubcevic defended his thesis on 11 November 2015

This project proceeds from the observation that since the second half of the twentieth century, forgiveness and reconciliation have become pervasive themes in western culture, both on a political level and in personal relations.

This research investigates the impact of socioeconomic developments on the physical condition of medieval populations in Holland and Zeeland between AD 1000 and 1600 through the analysis of human skeletal remains from three archaeological sites.

In this doctoral dissertation (2012) the effects of the monetization of the Greek world in the 5th and 4th century on conceptions of reciprocity in friendship are analyzed.

The historical archaeology of the Port of Sandy Point and its anchorage, St. Kitts, West Indies

During the early modern period, many medieval manuscripts were cut up into strips of parchment which were reused to reinforce the bindings of newly printed books. Until recently, these reused pieces of medieval manuscripts only came to light when the early modern book binding was damaged and/or subjected…

Thirty years ago, the Leiden Journal of International Law (LJIL) was born, at a time when the writing of histories was hardly a popular endeavor for international legal scholars. In his 1987 article ‘Probleme der Völkerrechtsgeschichte’ (‘The Problems of International Legal History’), Heinhard Steiger…

Ann Marie Wilson and Andrew DJ Shield have been recently awarded a Leiden Global Interactions SEED grant to support the launch of a new platform for sexuality studies at Leiden University: the Leiden Queer History Network (LQHN).

As always, 5 students take part in the Departmental Teaching Committee History. The five of us want to represent the history students to the best of our abilities and enhance the visibility of the Committee. We are looking forward to an interesting year!

On February 10 2025, the Leiden Jewish Studies Network convened a lively roundtable and catered reception at the Faculty Club to celebrate the launch of Dr. Kate Brackney’s new book, Surreal Geographies: A New History of Holocaust Consciousness (University of Wisconsin Press, 2024), winner of the George…

In the series 'PhD in the Picture', our PhD students tell us all about their research: what are their findings? How did they do it, and how does their research touch upon hot topics in our society today?

Key publications of the Skin Barrier and Vaccination group.

Promotores: J.J.M.M. Rutten, F.S. de Boer, Co-promotor: M.M. Bonsangue

On 4 March 2021, Michiel Spanjers defended his thesis 'Belastingbudget'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. J.P. Boer and Prof. H. Vording.

This book offers readers an alternative history of the origins of the discipline of International Relations.

Promotor: Prof.dr. F.S. de Boer, Co-promotor: D. Clarke

Each year, the Leiden University Student Platform (LUS) presents the Leiden Education Prize.

We strive to address the challenge of constructing a modeling language to write software which can take advantage of recent hardware developments (multicore, cloud) without compromising in its abstraction levels.

Taal als sleutel tot het begrijpen van de mens.

Promotor: F.S. de Boer Co-promotor: P. T. de Gouw