Leiden University’s Van Vollenhoven Institute has cooperated for nearly three years in the SLEEI project with Indonesian partners. Next week SLEEI will present its main results on 28 March, including a course development handbook, and several teaching guides written by local law lecturers trained in…

Professor Remco Breuker plays the leading role in the new documentary ‘Big in Korea’. Over three Sunday evenings, viewers can follow his journey through South Korea. How has the country developed over the past decades? And what is the impact of last December's failed coup?

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.

Prepare for Leiden University's MSc in Cultural Anthropology & Development Sociology with our tailored pre-master's programme.

The School for Digital Deaf Studies 2025 is a hybrid school consisting of one week school in person in Ghana (15 - 24 August), followed by a one week school online later this year. It aims for the capacity building needed to expand academic research and education activities in digital Deaf studies,…

On 5 September, Elize de Mul defended the thesis 'Digital Döppelgangers: identity in the Culture of Imagination'. The doctoral research was supervised by Simone van der Hof and Esther Keymolen.

Professor Sjef Barbiers is leaving his job as scientific director of LUCL for the position of scientific director of the Institute for the Dutch Language (INT) from 1 September.

On the 16th of December, Ruixue Wu successfully defended a doctoral thesis. Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Ruixue on this achievement!

On the 13th of February, Matthew Sung successfully defended a doctoral thesis. Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Matthew on this achievement!

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

In order to gain a better insight into the basis of the rapid jasmonic acid (JA)-mediated stress response, an integrated approach using a targeted high-resolution mass spectrometry-based (HRMS) platform, was conducted to monitor the metabolism of JA using the model system of cell suspension cultures…

How can the legal and socio-legal research skills of Indonesian jurists be increased in order to promote legal certainty and to strengthen the capacity of the judicial training in the country?

Language is omnipresent: when you talk, app or meet in Teams. Understanding how we communicate with one another and what communication does to us is essential. In her inaugural lecture, Nivja de Jong will call to redress the balance between the sciences and the humanities.

To truly understand Dutch literature, we have to look beyond borders. At least, that is the view of Sander Bax. From 1 August, he will be Professor of Contemporary Dutch Literature and Culture in a Transnational Dynamic.

Our East Asia experts work across various disciplines on global issues such as migration, heritage, and colonialism.

The MA Asian Studies East Asian Studies offers focused study of China, Japan or Korea. You can study the country of your choice from an expansive number of disciplinary perspectives including history, literature, art, art history, sociology, anthropology, media, cultural studies, religious studies,…

The bachelor’s in South and Southeast Asian Studies is a unique multidisciplinary programme that integrates the culture, religion, history, sociology, economics and politics of the region. As a student, you can choose to study Hindi, Sanskrit, Tibetan or Indonesian.

HERLING (Research Lab for the Study of Heritage Languages of the Netherlands) is a new centre that aims to bridge the gap between scientific research and language communities.

Japanologist and linguist Martine Robbeets is going to use her newly acquired ERC Consolidator Grant to study the origins and spread of Trans-Eurasian languages, which include Japanese and Turkish. With it, she’s tackling one of the most controversial subjects in language history.

According to Nivja de Jong, second language acquisition is 'the most fascinating subject in linguistics'. As a recently appointed professor of Second Language Acquisition and Pedagogy, she studies the question of how best to teach people a new language.

Our ambition to contribute to society and the world, searching to solutions to the global challenges of our time, can only be achieved with solid relationships worldwide.

Currently the focus of the project is the development of a tool that utilizes dimensionality reduction techniques in order to analyze and interpret the lexical and phonological variation between different sign languages. Additionally, the application of deep learning techniques for the extraction of…

This project focuses on two Mayan languages in contact: Awakateko and K’iche’. With the aim to create a database to be accessible to researchers, students, and indigenous activists interested in Mayan languages, this project will train Mayan speakers on transcription, translation, and analysis of…

On the 10th of November, Sara Petrollino succesfully defended her PhD-thesis and graduated. LUCL congratulates Sara on this great result.

Professor Johan Rooryck will be examining cognition and core knowledge systems and how possession is expressed in different languages. Rooryck and fellow researchers have been awarded two NWO grants totalling 2.75 million euro to carry out two research programmes: 'Knowledge and Culture' and 'Lend me…

This special issue explores social meaning from the perspective of current theories in pragmatics.

Meet Bart, Reza, Weiyan, James, Daphne and Yasmin.

Cosmopolis seeks to explore the transnational and cultural dimensions of intra-Eurasian encounters through Dutch sources.

Today, globalization makes us all aware of how closely we are connected to, and often dependent upon, the actions of people who are distant from us. Human migration and economic liberalization have confronted local communities with changes happening on a global level. How can we devise ways to share…

This dissertation provides a comprehensive overview of the grammar of Bantawa, a Kiranti (Rai) language spoken in Eastern Nepal.

What are the social, cultural, and/or educational consequences and challenges linked to the introduction of the international bachelor's programme in Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology?

AMT’s mission includes encouraging innovative high-quality research in Leiden on Asia. On this page you will find an overview of AMT related research projects, grant possibilities, publications and vacancies.

Festival, Graduation Ceremony

For three millennia, carved sculptures were ubiquitous among ancient peoples in the Americas. Sculpted in stone, metal or wood, they developed into the well-known totem poles, colossal Olmec heads, royal Maya stelae and golden Inca statues.

The human brain stores not only individual words, but also all kinds of abstract information about these words. Research by Leiden linguists has shown that speakers have ready access to this information.

Language is a little bit like owning a mobile phone. We use it all the time, but we don’t really understand how it works. Where is language located in our brain? Do all humans have language? These and many other questions will be answered by professor Marc van Oostendorp in the MOOC Miracles of Human…

Computer scientist Tessa Verhoef received a Best Paper Award during the ‘ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility’. The paper emphasised the need for interdisciplinary research in sign language processing. The authors state that linguists and computer scientists should collaborate with…

Are predictive archaeological maps a reliable tool to play an important role in the spatial planning? One of the goals of this project was to develop best practices for the production and application of the models.

Serial learners: interactions between Funnel Beaker West and Corded Ware communities in the Netherlands during the third millennium BCE from the perspective of ceramic technology

LUCL member prof. dr. Holger Gzella has been elected as member of the Academia Europaea (The Academy of Europe).

For many deaf Ghanaians, Ghanaian Sign Language is their first language. But for more deaf signers to be able to fully participate in society, more sign language interpreters, deaf school teachers and family members need to be trained. What better way to facilitate this by means of a Ghanaian Sign Language…

Who is Economic Man? Every economic paradigm presupposes an anthropology, a theory of human nature. This project explores the anthropologies presupposed and produced by ancient Greek economic texts, and the specific knowledge forms that shape these anthropologies.