History and Religious Studies in Leiden rank # 17 and #32 in the QS World University Rankings by Subject. With this, History in Leiden ranks as the best in The Netherlands and Religious Studies ranks as second best.

We are experts in the fields of languages, cultures, history, arts, societies and philosophy. Together we cover almost all continents and time periods. Knowledge of these disciplines contributes to a humane, safe and sustainable world.

The focus of this programme is the inter-community social relationships and transformations of island networks in the Lesser Antilles across the historical divide.

Don Scott De Amicis will give the sixth Hazelhoff Guest Lecture on international development finance: challenges and opportunities.

A cultural sequence of western coastal French Guiana from 5000 BP to present

This book explores how public health concerns and political agendas influenced each other in the US over the past century.

The interdisciplinary minor American Studies offers a survey of U.S. history, literature and culture from the establishment of the first colonies on the North American continent in the 15th century to the present.

Last year, LUCSoR welcomed two new Ph.D. students from Iran: Kiyan Foroutan from Ahvaz and Amir Ardalan Emami from Tehran. Kiyan works on a project on the role of the family in medieval and early modern Zoroastrianism in India and Iran (15th-18th centuries). Ardalan works on a much earlier period, the…

As of 1 September , Karel Berkhoff has been appointed professor by special appointment in Ukrainian History. In this position, made possible in part by the KNAW, he will focus primarily on dark moments in recent Ukrainian history: the persecutions that have taken place in the first half of the twentieth…

The Washington Post reviews Nationalism by university lecturer Eric Storm. In this book, Storm explores how nation-states became the dominant political organizational form.

The first biennial symposium Environmental History in the Medieval and Early Modern Low Countries is scheduled for October 25 and 26, 2024. This event aims to facilitate the exchange of recent research, ongoing projects, and key discussions within the realm of environmental history among scholars from…

Promotor: Prof.dr. G.R. de Snoo

This study offers a new view on public services in the early modern Low Countries and answers the following questions: who provided public facilities in urban communities and in which ways did public amenities change in the period between 1500 and 1800?

This workshop intends to bring together early-career researchers from different fields working on international organizations, to discuss methodological challenges together with peers and established scholars. A combination of a master class, keynote lectures, and roundtable discussions aims at providing…

In which way was literary celebrity constructed in the nineteenth century and what forms of fandom were there?

One way for governments to conduct foreign policy and promote national interests is through direct outreach and communication with the population of a foreign country. This is called public diplomacy. Historians such as Helmer Helmers and William T. Rossiter have shown that printed media were already…

As part of Nexus 1492 Subproject 4: A Future for Diverse Caribbean Heritages, which seeks to shed light on how local communities interpret and engage with heritage in the present day, this doctoral study aims to gain insight into how indigenous heritage is represented in the school curriculum for social…

El proyecto consta de la creación de un libro infantil con contenido de leyendas y cuentos andinos kichwas andinos, con realidad virtual aumentada, que fomente el aprendizaje y activación hacia la lengua kichwa de manera oral y escrita a los niños y niñas, mediante la interacción con padres y/o tutores. El…

The Faculty of Archaeology at Leiden University has a strong international reputation for its wide array of regional expertise. While our master’s specialisations consist of thematic courses, you are free to compliment this by choosing electives on specific regions.

Archaeologist Natalia Donner has been awarded a grant of €5,000 from the Bakels Fonds for her research Bridging the Gap: a historical ecological approach to human practices in the Darien Province, Panama. She will use this grant to conduct the first systematic archaeological survey in the region.

Marion Anker is a junior curator at the Rijksmuseum, the National Museum of the Netherlands. She studied History in Leiden and Amsterdam. Together with her team, she organised the controversial exhibition ‘Revolusi! Indonesië onafhankelijk!’ What did studying History teach her?

Even embryos can become embroiled in an evolutionary arms race with another species. Leiden biologists demonstrate this with larvae of the rosy bitterling that parasitize the gills of freshwater mussels. They published their research on February 19 in PNAS.

How is our perception of sound informed by the way we participate in the world? That is the question PhD candidate Gabriel Paiuk has been pondering in recent years. 'The way we experience sound is informed by material, technical and collective conditions that influence our interaction with the envir…

Bruno Munari (1907–1998) was a prolific and influential artist, designer, and writer. Alessandro Colizzi’s study is the first extensive, detailed record of Munari’s graphic design production, and as such provides a substantial base for a full understanding of his oeuvre.

This study presents a re-evaluation of Malay adventure stories.

This project aims to study the Aesopian fable from 1500 to the present day in its complex relationship between text, illustration and education, adopting a broad, transnational perspective.

Nobuaki Murai defended his thesis on 24 January 2018.

The Patriot behind the pot tells the story of pottery, people and politics in the Netherlands during a time of great revolutions -revolutions both in a political and industrial sense.

King Willem-Alexander has commissioned independent research into the role of the House of Orange-Nassau in Dutch colonial history. The research will take three years to complete and will cover the period from the late 16th century to the postcolonial present. The research will be carried out at Leiden…

Museums have long focused on power, wealth and a few famous figures. But that is changing, says Valika Smeulders, head of the history department at the Rijksmuseum. What this change comprises and how it has come about is the subject of her keynote speech at the D&I Symposium on 11 January.

On 25 and 26 October 2024, the first biennial symposium Environmental History in the Medieval and Early Modern Low Countries, is scheduled to take place at Leiden University.

European integration is under pressure. At the same time, the notion of a European administrative space is being explicitly voiced. But does a shared idea of the public servant exist in Europe?

The History of Art section at Radboud University is looking for a Full Professor of History of Art and Architecture between 500-1500 CE (1,0 FTE). Apply before: May 2, 2023.

Professor Ariadne Schmidt and Associate Professor Arie van Steensel (University of Groningen) have produced A Companion to Medieval and Early Modern Leiden, the first English-language history of Leiden. Mayor Peter Heijkoop received the first copy.

The newly established Leiden Jewish Studies Association aims to bring together Leiden scholars working on Judaism. The first annual conference will take place in Leiden on 6 and 7 December. Leiden professors and co-organisers of the LJSA Sarah Cramsey and Jürgen Zangenberg talk about their plans.

Over the last few years, human Rights have become subject of intense debates in historiography. Sam Moyn’s provocative book The Last Utopia (2010) made in particular clear how important it is to investigate precisely which meaning human rights have been given in a particular context. During the research…

We live in a data-drenched society awash with numbers. An inhabitant of the democratic polis of Athens (5th and 4th centuries B.C.E.) increasingly found himself surrounded by numerical data. This project aims to analyze the communicative functions and the political meaning(s) ascribed to these public…

This subproject of 'From Homo Economicus to Political Animal' will be on ancient analogues for modern-day “ersatz economics”, the economics of the “man in the street”.

The researchers in the World Archaeology department of the Faculty of Archaeology concentrate on a range of different periods and regions: from humanity’s origins to the Middle Ages and the modern age, and from Asia to South America.

The seminar series on ‘Diversity and Inclusion in Global Science’ aims to foster debate on inequalities in science across the world.

Perception of material culture, design and digital knowledge applications

What evaluative languages (errors, mistakes, vices, etc.) did book reviewers employ? To what extent and on what occasions did they invoke early modern vices? And to what extent did this differ across fields or change over the course of the century?

This monograph, written by dr. Dennie Oude Nijhuis and published by Cambridge University Press, discusses the postwar development of the welfare state.

Master studies History, Classics, Russian Studies and Dutch Studies have received the label ‘top programme’ in the Keuzegids Masters of March 2018. The study guide bases its results on the opinion of students (through the National Student Survey) and experts (NVAO).

In QS’s World University Rankings of 2016, Leiden University’s History and Linguistics programme rank #19 and #28, respectively. This makes the History programme the best of its kind in the Netherlands, and Linguistics the second best.

Call for Papers: Imperial Artefacts. History, Law, and the Looting of Cultural Property