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.

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…

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.

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.

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.

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.

Nobuaki Murai defended his thesis on 24 January 2018.

Exploring cultural production in Europe, Latin America and Africa, the institute’s research programme focuses on the continuous interconnectedness of the Arts and Society in both the textual culture of literature, learning and public debate and the visual culture of art, architecture, film, photography…

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 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…

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.

The Institute for History has a new academic director. Professor of Early Modern History Jeroen Duindam will take on this role from 1 September. ‘You can only do this job properly if you make time for it.’

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

Lecture and Masterclass with Alexandra Sapoznik (King's College London) Connecting economic and environmental histories in the pre-modern world 12 and 13 May 2025, Universiteit van Amsterdam. Deadline for submissions: 29 April 2025, 13:00

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”.

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…

Recent insolvency cases highlight the growing importance of cross-border insolvency matters in international transactions. To this end, many instruments have been introduced and implemented in recent years across the world. At this page we present a selection of relevant instruments in the field of…

Many metalloenzymes that are key to bioenergetics are membrane enzymes, with canonical examples the complexes I, II, III and IV in the mitochondrial inner membrane. To study these enzymes in a native-like lipid membrane environment, we aim to develop novel bioelectrochemical techniques.

Indigenous Latin American artifacts have attracted the interest of Europeans since the earliest moment of contact between Europeans and the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. The ERC-funded BECACO project uses an innovative multidisciplinary framework to investigate the provenance of ethnographic and…

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

Perception of material culture, design and digital knowledge applications

Osteoarchaeologists help forensic scientists solve crimes. They also study bone material from the Second World War in order to identify victims.

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

The Hazelhoff Centre for Financial Law provides academic education and performs research in the field of financial law.

Two Humanities research masters and one master’s programme score well above average in the Keuzegids Masters: the research master History, the master and research master Classics and Ancient Civilizations.

Fondazione 1563 launched a call for the Summer School of the Turin Humanities Programme, that will take place in Torino from September 6 to September 8 2023. The theme is: Writing global medieval history: comparative and connected approaches. Deadline for applications: June 25.

French title: Entre la “détresse’’ et l’inter-connectivite : le case de Mbororo réfugies sur les frontières Cameroun-Centrafrique. This research project investigates the meaning of duress in the lives of nomadic refugees in Cameroon and investigates if and how the accessibility of new ICT’s allow them…

During the week of 27 June - 2 July, the Institute of History was host to the first SHAFR Graduate Summer Institute held outside of the United States. The theme of the Institute was Culture, Propaganda and Intelligence in Cold War History.

Assistant professor Stephanie Noach has won the Dissertation Prize of the Praemium Erasmianum Foundation. She is receiving this prestigious prize for her research on darkness in contemporary art from Latin America and the Caribbean.

Usage Guides and Usage Problems in British and American English, 1st Edition

Jasmijn Rana demonstrates in the article 'Secular-religious self-improvement: Muslim women’s kickboxing in the Netherlands' that young Muslim women who kickbox develop agentive selves by challenging gender norms and living out their religious subjectivities.

An overview of Professional Associations and Journals

Corporeality, intimately bound to the notion of space, to the diffuse border that connects, entangles, and fuses an inside and an outside, is understood in this book as a space which puts the individual at stake as a war machine that, in its fight for a form of life, redefines political territories.

The book reinterprets the role of the UN during the Congo crisis from 1960 to 1964, presenting a multidimensional view of the organisation.

The Brazilian economy has long been defined by its enormous potential. Over the past 30 years, some of this has at last been realised. Latin America’s largest economy has rapidly risen in global importance while poverty at home has declined. Yet, despite periods of progress, Brazil remains prone to…

How do speakers adapt to multilingual contexts?

Tensions between Venezuela and the USA have risen over the past few months. Associate Professor Salvador Santino Regilme explains on Al Jazeera what Donald Trump’s plans might involve.

This year the PhDs of the institute had their traditional day out (uitje) to The Hague. The last two years they had stayed in Leiden, so The Hague already seemed like quite the adventure. Indeed, it seems almost that as time progresses and more and more archives become digitized, history PhDs slowly…

Lecture

In July 2021 the Leiden Empowerment Fonds (LEF) awarded a research grant of €13,500 for research into the history of maritime law in early modern times.

There has been a lot of media attention for the report recently completed by the Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML) from Leiden University. However, it has long been known that Dutch surface water contains too many toxic pesticides. ‘We will have to improve our ways of life together with many…

How can we supply the growing world population with sustainable energy? At Laurens College in Rotterdam, Prof. Marc Koper speaks with the students about the crucial role of chemistry in the energy transition. Guest classes like this are a good way for school students to learn about the academic world,…