This 3-year EU Erasmus+ co-funded project focuses on the strengthening and improvement of teaching qualitative research methods across a range of disciplines in the Social Sciences and Humanities in Bhutan.

China is a one-party regime, yet elections are held for the local congresses. PhD candidate Wang Zhongyuan investigated how the Communist Party uses this democratic instrument to strengthen the authoritarian regime. PhD defence 31 January.

Exploring the language of the lower classes in the nineteenth century

Conference, Workshop

While Old Germanic studies might seem dated and, regrettably, occupies a less than secure position in various academic institutions, exciting new research presented by young researchers shows that the field is still vibrant and may have a bright future. On Thursday, the 7th of April, the ‘Junius Symposium…

It is one of the most personal and simultaneously most universal experiences of human life: caring for a young child. Professor Sarah Cramsey has been awarded an ERC Starting Grant to investigate how factors such as nationality, political systems, and religion influence the first thousand days after…

How many cities were there actually in the Roman Empire? And why did some regions only have a few cities, while others consisted of a tight urban network? Luuk de Ligt, Professor of Ancient History, wants to know the answer to all these questions. With the ERC Advanced Grant of 2.5 million awarded to…

This collection brings into conversation several kinds of scholarship on medieval authorship which have tended to remain separate over the last two to three decades, a period of steadily increasing scholarly interest in this topic.

This dissertation examines how Benedictine monks at the Abbey of Fécamp designed, produced, and read books over the course of the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

In August it was announced that Jeff Fynn-Paul was named co-recipient of a 15,000 EUR grant given by the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO).

In honour of Prof. Dr. Gerard Persoon’s and Prof. dr. Ton Dietz’ work and on the occasion of their retirement from Leiden University, Ton Dietz’ and Gerard Persoon’s portraits have been added to the ‘Hall of Fame’ of the Insitute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology.

Lecture, Ancient History Research Seminar

Bordering Up: Regulating Mobility Through Passes, Walls and Guards

Campaign initiated at Generosity to cover the cost of construction.

A new collaborative monograph of democratic theory, The Sciences of the Democracies, was released by UCL Press on August 7. The book, in the style of a democratic manifesto, is written by a large number of co-authors in a bold attempt to expand and deepen how democracy is studied and understood. Among…

Dilara Erzeybek and Oumaima Hajri, two PhD students in Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology received a Mosaic 2.0 grant last week. This NWO programme supports PhD students with a non-western migration background - an underrepresented group within science - in order to foster diversity in…

Women confined to the kitchen? Not in Scheveningen around 1900. There, some women ran entire shipping companies. This is according to new research by history student Sjors Stuurman. He compiled the results in a book he wrote for Muzee Scheveningen.

Showing your face at dinners and parties at court: it was the way to get noticed by the king in William I's time. Joost Welten's latest book reveals how, during the reign of William I, the elite danced around his throne both literally and figuratively.

This PhD project mainly investigates in what way (i.e., serial or parallel mode or other mode) the parser processes the Mandarin Chinese. In addition, are there any specific linguistic features governing the decoding of Mandarin Chinese that are different from other languages? Are there any processing…

This dissertation the role of the English dissenting minister Joseph Priestley (1733-1804) as a grammarian is studied.

This project will study the cultural meaning of the mythological figure of Orestes within the ancient Greek imagination, as it emerges from various literary sources from the archaic and classical periods.

This PhD project investigates the argumentative-rhetorical strategies by which the Russian state attempts to substantiate the legitimacy of its war against Ukraine.

This year, Leiden University will participate for the first time in the Cultural Talent to the Top monitor. This will provide insight into the University’s diversity policy with regard to staff from a non-western background. The ultimate aim is to promote ethnic and cultural diversity in certain rol…

On November 12, dean prof. Willem J.H. Willems was elected as one of the twelve members of the European Union’s academic committee Joint Programming Initiative Cultural Heritage and Global Change.

Charles wrote an article 'Assimilating Afro Caribbean Carnivalesque Culture' for the publication 'Understanding América. The essential contribution of Afro-American music to the sociocultural meaning of the continent'

Investigating the contribution of interpreters, informants, hunters and guides in the making of colonial scientific knowledge.

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.

This paper explores how citizenship is enacted and experienced in welfare encounters for Egyptian migrant parents in Paris, Amsterdam, and Milan, highlighting the importance of social citizenship and personal interactions in shaping belonging.

The 2011 disasters precipitated widespread concern among heritage scholars about the fate of Tohoku’s cultural properties, tangible and intangible. Damage to not only buildings and landscapes but also ‘formless’ heritage, some worried, could weaken social infrastructure and thus slow or undermine re…

In Poland the commemoration of acts of resistance is being misused to distort the history of the Holocaust. That is what Cleveringa Professor Jan Grabowski said in his inaugural lecture on 26 November. In her lecture, the second Cleveringa Professor, Barbara Engelking, pointed to the often indifferent…

Hans-Martien ten Napel recently published a volume with Routledge, Culture, Secularization, and Democracy; Lessons from Alexis de Tocqueville, co-edited with Prof. Sophie van Bijsterveld (Radboud University Nijmegen).

The Battle of Heiligerlee, on 23 May 450 years ago, is famous as an epic battle in Dutch history. But was it really so momentous? Professor of Early Modern History Judith Pollmann unravels the myths about ‘Heiligerlee’ and the Eighty Years' War.

For many centuries, news about catastrophic events has been disseminated via media such as pamphlets, chronicles, poems, and prints. This conference welcomes contributions that engage with the cultural dimensions of disasters and reflect on representations of catastrophes in different media.

The aim of this project is to foster a historiography that does justice both to the realization that scientific knowledge is constructed by local, contingent, and contextual processes, and the claims of science to objective validity.

Didi van Trijp started her PhD project at LUCAS in October 2015. Her PhD project is part of A New History of Fishes. A long-term approach to fishes in science and culture, 1550-1880, a project directed by prof. dr. Paul Smith.

Leiden University celebrated the annual prize ceremony of the World Cultural Council (WCC) on 8 November with lectures by leading scientists in a festively decorated Pieterskerk.

Did you know that Arabic was for centuries the lingua franca in an area stretching from the south of Spain to the Chinese border? And that the Middle East under Muslim rule was the world’s beating heart of trade, but also of science and scholarship? Want to learn more? Then sign up for the new MOOC…

Read more about the partner organizations of the Summerschool Global History in the 2020s.

Leiden students of cultural anthropology investigated the motivations and experiences of Tiny House residents in the Netherlands. Their findings highlight sustainability, minimalism and community building as core values in this alternative form of living.

How old is the phenomenon of states attempting to control migrations on external borders? What were the motives and outcomes of these policies? In his dissertation, Jovan Pešalj examines how migration control on the southern Habsburg border emerged, how they functioned, and what impact they had on migrations.…

Long into the 19th century, seascapes were considered an expression of patriotism. Artists who painted in a 17th century style were valued more. This tradition stifled innovation in the genre, Cécile Bosman has concluded. She will defend her PhD thesis on 13 October.