On 23 and 24 November scholars working on European Justice and Home Affairs, united at the European University Institute in Florence on the occassion of the 25th year jubilee of the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice. The EU policy area covering migration, asylum and criminal justice cooperation.

Van Vollenhoven Lecture 2025

Whereas most outgoing professors are offered a congress, Nico Kaptein's former students and PhD students took a bigger approach. They treated him not only to a farewell congress, but also to a two-week tour of Indonesia, filled with lectures, and trips.

Dr Amany Soliman joined the NVIC as a postdoctoral research fellow in October 2017. She is a lecturer of modern history and international relations at the Mediterranean Studies Institute at the Faculty of Arts, Alexandria University. For her PhD thesis, she examined the nationalist movements in Spain,…

This dissertation develops an innovative approach to cultural transformation in the kingdom of Commagene (modern south-east Turkey) during the 1st c. BCE, focusing on a palatial context in the capital Samosata.

The premier LUCIS lecture series, running since 2021. Each year, two eminent scholars visit Leiden to deliver landmark lectures in Islamic and Middle East Studies. This forum for presenting and discussing cutting-edge research brings together researchers, students, and other interested participants…

Why obey the state? Dorota Mokrosińska presents a fresh analysis of the most influential theories of political obligation and develops a novel approach to this foundational problem of political philosophy, an intriguing combination of the elements of natural duty and associative theories.

Both on a personal and institutional level, the staff of Leiden CADS collaborates with:

In October 1740, a tragedy unfolded in Batavia, the Asian headquarters of the Dutch East India Company on the island of Java. Faced with a spontaneous Chinese peasant uprising, Batavia’s vengeful inhabitants carried out a bloody massacre of their fellow Chinese within the city walls. The murderers marched…

Clustered Neighbourhood Settlements of the Central Anatolian Neolithic ca. 8500-5500 Cal. BC

In a modernist interpretation of migration controls, nation states play a major role. This book challenges this interpretation by showing that comprehensive migration checks and permanent border controls appeared much earlier, in early modern dynastic states and empires, and predated nation states by…

What makes a good historian? When historians raise this question, as they have done for centuries, they often do so to highlight that certain personal attitudes or dispositions are indispensable or studying the past. Yet their vieuws on what virtues, skills or competencies historians need most differ…

Isis on the Nile. Egyptian gods in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt

Links to related organisations, institutes, journals and archives.

LUCIS’ research on Islam and society is guided by three overarching themes, which are fundamental to our research programmes.

The ultimate aim of the project is to find out whether there are such things as

As a student or staff member at Leiden University, do you want to organise a meeting and invite an expert? We advise you to contact one of these institutes.

Law is of major importance for socio-economic development. Ideally, law organises human interaction in a way that promotes justice and legal certainty and protects vulnerable groups from exploitation and arbitrariness.

In this book, Peter Akkermans provides a systematic overview of the Halaf culture of the 6 th millennium BC in the Syrian portion of the valley of the Balikh River, a tributary of the Euphrates.

Urban development and lack of appropriate management has been threatening the archaeological site of Tell Balata. In order to save it from further destruction, in 2010 the Tell Balata Archaeological Park project was started.

On the 18th of June, Abel Warries successfully defended a doctoral thesis. Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Abel on this achievement!

How have British cities changed in the years since the Second World War? And what drove this transformation? This innovative new history traces the development of the post-war British city, from the 1940s era of reconstruction, through the rise and fall of modernist urban renewal, up to the present-day…

The prestigious Praemium Erasmianum Dissertation Prize is annually awarded to the five best dissertations published in the year before in the fields of Humanities, Social sciences and Law. During a festive ceremony in Utrecht Lennart Kruijer received the award from the hands of professor Bas ter Haar…

How did people move and form communities when human societies first shifted from hunting and gathering to farming? A new study of the Neolithic period in southwest Asia, the birthplace of agriculture, offers fresh insights.

The Faculty of Archaeology used to be involved in several excavations in Syria, before the outbreak of civil war made travel to the region impossible. One of these excavations is the one of tell Hammam al-Turkman, which started in 1981. Student Ruben Hartman, together with archaeologist Dr Diederik…

Tolerance and democracy are not our European values

Lecture

PhD defence

Procedural administrative law in a constitutional comparative law perspective

The historiography of the Bretton Woods conference of July 1944 is dominated by the personal clash between the principal negotiators, Harry Dexter White of the United States and John Maynard Keynes of Britain.

Climate finance, especially for developing countries, is crucial for limiting global warming to 1.5C. However, the current level of North -South climate finance is chronically inadequate. As the climate crisis intensifies, more actors are entering the climate finance market, transforming the global…

Southern Africa has a rich tradition of social history, one inspired by the tumultuous changes that have regularly convulsed the region from the 1780s onwards. Scholars have always sought to understand what these changes meant for everyday life and emphasised a perspective of marginal groups, how these…

Do you want to follow a full academic programme? If so, after obtaining your bachelor’s degree you can continue with a master’s programme. Once you have successfully completed your master’s you will have earned the title of Master of Arts (MA).

On the 7th of November, Rasmus Thorsø Nielsen successfully defended a doctoral thesis. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Rasmus on this achievement!

Histories Connected seeks to explore social, cultural, and political issues that connect people of Asia, the Middle East, Africa, the Americas, and Europe throughout different periods of time.

The Revolt in The Netherlands erupted in 1566 and tore apart the Low Countries. In Memory Wars in the Low Countries, 1566-1700 Jasper van der Steen explains how public memories of the Revolt in the Habsburg Netherlands in the South and the Dutch Republic in the North diverged and became the objects…

To what extent is the image of the Taino settlements on Hispaniola representative for the whole island, or is it only related to a few large settlements of known caciques?

Leiden University and the Netherlands National Museum of Antiquities (Rijksmuseum van Oudheden) are jointly involved in the intensive archaeological exploration of Northern Syria, by means of field surveys and large-scale excavations at a number of archaeological sites in the Balikh basin: the Tell…

Commission on Legal Pluralism - Keynote Lecture

PhD defence

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.

Lecture, COGLOSS lecture

The Jordan Times has interviewed Peter Akkermans about the damage done to the Early Islamic archaeological site of Khirbet Al Umari, Jordan.

Recent fieldwork at the vast desert region in north-eastern Jordan has revealed an immensely rich heritage of an area that is difficult to access and archaeologically less known. Professor Peter Akkermans was interviewed about his groundbreaking research in this area, known as the Black Desert.