During the project, this page will be updated with news updates and events organised as part of the research project.

Better discussions and policy on migration, grounded in academic research and expertise.

One of LUCIR’s key objectives is to bring together scholars and students of International Relations. To this end, LUCIR regularly organises events such as conferences, roundtables, lectures and book launches.

How does the commodification and re-appreciation of the contiguous uplands of Northeast India, Bangladesh and Burma/Myanmar transform the relationship between these states and their upland citizens?

The Dutch East India Company (VOC) took healthcare seriously, albeit mainly for business reasons. Former GP Ton Zwaard’s PhD research reveals that although healthcare in Asia was well organised, the VOC faced persistent problems for two centuries.

Political scientist Kevin Köhler (Leiden University) has been awarded a Consolidator Grant by the European Research Council (ERC). This prestigious grant enables him to set up a research group in the coming five years. Köhler and his team will examine how elite conflict affects processes of regime change…

Why do some civil wars experience quagmire, a situation in which belligerents are trapped in fighting? To explain this puzzle, Jonah Schulhofer-Wohl (Leiden University Institute of Political Science) analyses the overlapping strategic interactions between foreign powers and the warring parties. Studying…

‘Three books published within a year – that happens only once in a lifetime!’ This was the reaction of Katarzyna Cwiertka, Professor of Modern Japan Studies at Leiden University, on the publication of Cuisine, Colonialism and Cold War, one of her three new books. The book sketches the colonisation of…

University Lecturer Andrew Gawthorpe commented on the BBC regarding Donald Trump’s plans to exclude South Africa from the G20.

On 3 September 2025, more than 30 archaeological objects were returned to Peru, Panama and Costa Rica. The objects come from a private collection belonging to the descendants of physician and amateur archaeologist Dr Hans Feriz. In her will, his daughter stipulated that the objects collected by her…

Which key factors contribute to effective land justice pathways for the protection of people’s land rights and prevention of conflict?

Professor Peter Bisschop has been awarded an ERC Advanced Grant. He will invest the 2.5 million euros in his research into puranas: ancient texts, commonly written in Sanskrit, that are up to fifteen hundred years old.

Jeffrey Kotyk defended his thesis on 7 September 2017

The unique geographic and temporal breadth of research at Leiden allows us to stimulate a shift from the classical Weberian mode of scholarly production that views historical development and modernization as emanating from Europe and the West to a multi-polar perspective that allows for more nuanced,…

Leiden’s Faculty of Humanities is one of the broadest of its kind, offering courses in no fewer than 80 different languages and a very broad spectrum of academic disciplines.

Get the most out of your studies at Leiden University by taking part in our extracurricular activities.

Leiden Journal of Pottery Studies 23, 2007

On Thursday 21 November 2024 Jake Benson successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

Get the most out of your studies at Leiden University by taking part in our extracurricular activities.

Chaider Bamualim defended his thesis on 9 September 2015

Get the most out of your studies at Leiden University by taking part in our extracurricular activities.

Get the most out of your studies at Leiden University by taking part in our extracurricular activities.

If you are interested in an academic programme, but do you not wish to complete the entire programme? Then, you can choose one of the many à la carte courses the Faculty of Humanities offers.

This programma, an initiative of the Institute for History in partnership with Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) in Yogyakarta. Aims to study more than 20 kilometers of Dutch archival materials in The Netherlands, Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka and South Africa.

Dr Jake Benson, who completed his PhD in Persian Studies at Leiden University in 2024, has been awarded a prestigious international prize for the best dissertation in manuscript studies.

This lecture will be hosted on Thursday, 23 April 2026 at 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm.

Anna Scott is a Canadian pianist-researcher interested in using the early twentieth century recordings of the Brahms circle of pianists to question persistent gaps between the loci of knowledge, ethics, and act in both modern mainstream and historically-informed performances of Brahms’s late piano w…

After the advent of Islam in the 7th century C.E., the strategic geographical position of Tarsus (its proximity to the sea and to the mountain pass leading to inland Anatolia) made this town the de facto capital of the thughur, a historical and geographical term created by Muslim geographers qualifying…

One of our LUCIS members, Karène Sanchez, has been granted the Internationalisation in the Humanities grant for her project 'Engaging Europe in the Arab World: European missionaries and humanitarianism in the Middle East (1850-1970)'. Sanchez is cooperating with researchers from IEG Mainz and IISMM…

This project applies a social-historical approach to examine and contrast various groups of African-American slave refugees who sought freedom within North America between 1800 and 1860. It innovatively distinguishes between different “spaces of freedom” for runaway slaves, namely sites of formal, semi-formal,…

This project investigates how the first generation of Dutch printed books (the incunabula, 1473-1501) affected late medieval spirituality, religious practice and visual culture in the Low Countries.

Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology at Leiden University studies the everyday practices of individuals and groups around the world in relation to the complex global challenges of diversity, sustainability, and digitalisation.

From the beginning of Galileo’s career, well before the publication of the Sidereus Nuncius, his contemporaries took pains to shape his reputation and fame. They were fully aware that their efforts would shape the course of his career; they also knew that they would profit from helping him.

The secular West is struggling with the rise of AI, but so too is Muslim Southeast Asia. What can we learn from each other?

Develop a tool to assess land tenure, access to land and, and land tenure conflict in Timor-Leste

This project looks at the Ancient Greek language from the perspective of the ordinary writer. A large corpus of more than 60.000 Greek texts on papyrus, from private letters to petitions and contracts, offers an excellent opportunity to study the Greek language as written by non-literary writers in…

The project focusses on how US views of the Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia influenced its strategic interpretations of the region.