This PhD project investigates how language models can be used to extract structured knowledge from text in a way that is accurate, robust, and applicable to real-world use cases.

What do ten-year-old children and chatbots have in common? PhD researcher Bram van Dijk studied language development in both children and AI language models. ‘It’s actually quite practical that we attribute human traits to a chatbot.’

We are pleased to invite abstracts for a conference on ‘Advancing Social, Economic, and Cultural Rights in a Polarised, Digitalised, and Unequal World’ to be held at Leiden University on 4 and 5 September 2025, in collaboration with Netherlands Network for Human Rights Researh (NNHRR).

Conference

In this dissertation, Dutch secondary school teachers’ attitudes, knowledge, noticing skills and reasoned practices regarding culturally responsive teaching in a multicultural classroom context, were examined.

If you had something important to write down in ancient times, you would usually write in Greek in the eastern Mediterranean. University lecturer Joanne Stolk has been awarded an ERC grant to explore the kinds of spelling mistakes that were made in these scripts. And, more importantly, what improvements…

This thesis discusses the constructions relevant to Object Shift from the intonational perspective, by presenting experimental data from all the Scandinavian languages.

What is the role of technology and cyberculture in Korean social structures and in the potential formation of a new collective subjectivity? How do we reorient disoriented souls?

Dlshad Marf defended his thesis on 4 July 2016

This book explores intercultural management challenges in sub-Saharan Africa through a case study of Vasco Silva, a Portuguese businessman in Luanda, Angola.

How are night spaces imagined, produced, experienced and narrated by migrant communities in Europe? This research project considers this question in eight European cities: Aarhus, Amsterdam, Berlin, Cork, Galway, Lisbon, London, Rotterdam. Authorities have historically wrestled with the issue of night-time…

The general aim of the project is a description and analysis of the Leiden anatomical collections from a humanities perspective. The project investigates how historical and cultural practices and concerns have shaped anatomical preparations and how exhibitions of the anatomical body have informed cultural…

Intensive 5-day programme on the world-famous Antwerp-based printing and publishing house founded by Christopher Plantin in 1555. International experts will discuss how it developed the production and distribution of religious books and related illustrations and prints in the following centuries.

On 28 and 29 May, Carlotta Rigotti, postdoctoral researcher at eLaw, held a workshop on fairness and diversity bias in AI-driven recruitment at the annual symposium of the Japanese Society on Artificial Intelligence (JSAI) in Hamamatsu, Japan. The workshop was organised as part of the BIAS project in…

This book celebrates Maarten Mous, professor of African Linguistics at Leiden University.

This project combines and reconsiders all the available evidence of the Scheurrak SO1, and use new archival databases and modern archaeological techniques to shed new light on the material culture of the Baltic grain trade and the Holland shipbuilding industry at the turn of the sixteenth century.

This PhD project investigates how grammatical features and lexical elaboration in Fulfulde Juguureere reflect aspects of cattle culture.

Leiden Asia Departments

Carsten Stahn has just published Confronting Colonial Objects: Histories, Legalities and Access to Culture. The book is part of the OUP Cultural Heritage Law and Policy Series.

Nietzsche says

Huda Abi-Fares defended her thesis on 10 January 2017.

Lecture, LUCL Colloquium series

In the South and Southeast Asian Studies programme you will gain a strong foundation in the academic, language and critical thinking skills essential to understanding the history, culture and modern context of this dynamic and increasingly important region.

The expansion of European powers overseas brought Europeans into contact and conflict with the inhabitants of Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Historians of colonialism and post-colonial scholars have long argued that this encounter was crucial for the formation of European identity, which originated…

The use-wear analysis of domestic implements provided new insights of the Single Grave Culture population in the Netherlands.

Fokelien Kootstra defended her thesis on 23 April 2019

Information activities MSc in Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology

How did the life course, with all its biological, social and cultural aspects, influence the lives, writings, and art of the inhabitants of early medieval England?

As museums face more scrutiny and are being demanded to decolonize, there are opportunities for Dominican museums to adopt a critical perspective and turn their collections and exhibitions into connections to our cultural past, present, and future.

Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology

Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology at Leiden University is known for its student-centred teaching and world-leading faculty.

NUFFIC’s Orange Knowledge programme, funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, awarded a grant to the proposal of Jacqueline Vel, Adriaan Bedner and Leiden alumnus Fachrizal Afandi just before the Christmas holidays.

Leiden is to have a new language museum in 2015, a public institute focusing on language in all its facets and where science and social developments come together for a broad public. It won't be in a building, but at different places in the city. Dynamic, contemporary, flexible and affordable. The details…

Leiden University offers ambitious students a world-class environment in which to reach their full potential.

Leiden University offers ambitious students a world-class environment in which to reach their full potential.

Leiden University offers ambitious students a world-class environment in which to reach their full potential.

From Crisis to Critique

This work provides a typologically oriented description of clause linkage strategies in Ket, a highly endangered language spoken in Central Siberia. It is now the only surviving member of the Yeniseian language family with the last remaining speakers residing in the north of Russia’s Krasnoyarsk pro…

Conference

On October 9th, Peter Alexander Kerkhof succesfully defended his doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Peter Alexander on this great result.