On 4 December Professor Emile van Rouveroy van Nieuwaal passed away. Van Rouveroy van Nieuwaal worked at the African Studies Centre from 1967 to 2002, when the ASC was not part of Leiden University yet. He became professor by special appointment at Leiden University on behalf of Leiden Law School in…

Joris Larik was interviewed by BBC World Service radio on the state of Brexit negotiations, the Irish border issue and ongoing Dutch preparation.

America’s dominance of the world stage is coming to an end. These were the words of Professor Amitav Acharya in his guest lecture in The Hague on 5 February. ‘But the world really won’t be plunged into immediate chaos.’

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What can we learn from how maritime conflicts were managed in the past? What significance did Maritime Conflict Management have in shaping the standards of diplomacy and international law in pre-modern Atlantic Europe (1200-1600)?

Associate Professor Lettie Dorst has received a Vidi grant to research how machine translation programmes such as Google Translate and ChatGPT translate words and expressions used metaphorically. This still regularly goes wrong, resulting in far too literal, incorrect and sometimes incomprehensible…

It is exactly one year ago that the university had to close, bang in the middle of the academic year. Suddenly, on that third Monday in March, we found ourselves at home, working and studying online – many of us from that cramped attic or student room. The momentous coronavirus year in pictures.

ENVIRHUS (Environmental and Rural History of Urbanized Societies) organiseert op 17 februari 2023 (14u-17u) de workshop ‘The Natural World‘.

At Orientation Week Leiden, a record 1,378 new international students got to know the city and one another. From a cracking karaoke party to fishing plastic out of the canals – see what they got up to in the photos!

2020 was an eventful year. You can see that in our photos: one and a half metres distance, an empty university, attending ceremonies online and working from home. The image editors have selected the twelve most eye-catching photos of the past year..

What workflow of non-destructive techniques provides accurate, valuable data to improve our understanding of Caribbean archaeological landscapes? How were Amerindian settlements configured?

The Erasmus+ programme supports both incoming and outgoing staff mobilities within Europe, either for training or for teaching. On this webpage some participants of the programme share their experiences.

On August 27 – 31 2019, PhD candidate Maria Vasile participated in the IUAES 2019 Inter- congress in Poznan, Poland entitled "World Solidarities" and shares some of the insights from presentations she attended and found particularly relevant to the Food Citizens project.

World wide press attention for the article and specifically the image of the 30 micrometer long micro boat 3DBenchy by Rachel Doherty, Daniela Kraft and other Leiden physicists.

Bio-Pharmaceutical Sciences has done very well in the QS World University Rankings, being allocated a very impressive ninth position.

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.

Archaic and Classical architectural terracottas constituted an integral part of the architecture of monumental buildings at Akragas. These objects therefore provide unique insights into the built environment of sanctuaries at this important Greek colony in Sicily. This research's multi-disciplinary…

Migration is the talk of the town. On the whole, however, the current situation is seen as resulting from unique political upheavals. Such a-historical interpretations ignore the fact that migration is a fundamental phenomenon in human societies from the beginning and plays a crucial role in the cultural,…

What are best practices for teaching students to engage with 'wicked' problems?

Conference

The main question addressed in this thesis is how we can best conceive the contrast between a priori and empirical truths.

On 9 June 2020, Maral Darouei defended her thesis 'Managing a sustainable career in the contemporary world of work: Personal choices and contextual challenges'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. J.I. van der Rest.

Archives were a common target during the Second World War, and hundreds suffered damages. Among these archival losses, the losses to medieval manuscript collections stand out.

Was the progressive colonial civil servant the precursor of the postcolonial development-aid worker?

While phenomenology and Yogacara Buddhism are both known for their investigations of consciousness, there exists a core tension between them: phenomenology affirms the existence of essence, whereas Yogacara Buddhism argues that everything is empty of essence (svabhava). How is constructive cultural…

This 25th volume in the series 'Islam in Africa', edited by Annachiara Raia, is a pioneering collection of poetry by the outstanding Kenyan poet, intellectual and imam Ustadh Mahmmoud Mau (born 1952) from Lamu island, once an Indian Ocean hub, now on the edge of the nation state.

This dissertation studies the construction of Franklin Delano Roosevelt as a cultural icon in American memory, particularly by FDR himself.

In this thesis it is posed that the central object of preference discovery is a co-creative process in which the Other can be represented by a machine. It explores efficient methods to enhance introverted intuition using extraverted intuition's communication lines.

This book reveals how one publishing firm's editorial strategy helped to legitimate European colonialism in the early modern era.

Hot rocky exoplanets are planets that orbit so close to their host star that they possess a molten surface.

Promotor: Carel J. ten Cate, Co-Promotor: Hans W. Slabbekoorn

PhD defence

On Wednesday 3 September 2025 Yu Ai successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

The edited volume 'Arabic in context: celebrating 400 years of Arabic at Leiden University' edited by Ahmad Al-Jallad is out. The volume contains the contributions to the 2013 conference with the same title, held at Leiden University and was published as part of Brill's the Studies in Semitics Language…

This research combines archaeological, archaeometric and ethnohistorical research to study the organisation of settlement space and residence rules among the Taino Indians during the Late Ceramic Age (AD 1000-1492).

Each year, the Leiden University Student Platform (LUS) presents the Leiden Education Prize.

Indonesian translation of the book Recollecting Resonances from authors Bart Barendregt and Els Bogaerts.

The Supramolecular & Biomaterials Chemistry group comprises the PIs Alexander Kros, Roxanne Kieltyka, Gregory Schneider and Sander Wezenberg, and is active in the field of self-assembly of amphiphilic peptides and applying them in supramolecular chemistry.

This dissertation explores various perspectives on the term immersion, and its relation with, and transformation through, a composer’s practice.

Lecture | Leiden Lectures on Arabic Language & Culture