What are the rights of migrants in Morocco and how do this receiving state and migrants deal with them in practice?

LIAS welcomes Visiting PhD Candidates and Visiting Researchers (post-PhD) from around the world who are interested in working with LIAS scholars and/or making use of the Leiden University Library’s holdings in Middle Eastern and Asian Studies for their research. Information about the application procedure…

The Leiden University Centre for the Study of Islam and Society (LUCIS) and the Abdulaziz Saud Al-Babtain Cultural Foundation will join hands in promoting the understanding of Arabic culture. Generous support from Mr. Abdulaziz Saud Al-Babtain enables LUCIS to invite a visiting professor in Arabic culture…

In the last week of March, twenty Leiden students of Turkish and Middle Eastern Studies left for a seven-day trip to Istanbul. Their goal: to follow lectures and immediately see the theory in practice, on a city walk.

The Persian language and its poetry are intertwined with the history of Central Asia. Although some mediaeval poets were later claimed by an individual state, their influence knew no frontiers. This is what Gabrielle van den Berg, Professor of Cultural History of Iran and Central Asia, argues in her…

Research on papyri has provided new insights into the history of the origins of Islam. Petra Sijpesteijns’s book,'Shaping a Muslim State', is based on these ancient Arabic letters and documents. Her new research on a Viennese collection of untranslated papyri is expected to produce more discoveries.

In its session of 15 April 2024, the Austrian Academy of Sciences elected professor Petra Sijpesteijn as one of its new Corresponding Members.

The purpose of this programme is to join knowledge and insights from linguistics, literary analysis, and rhetoric, for the purpose of developing a set of methods for the stylistic investigation of any type of text in Dutch.

Learn the newest insights from established researchers.

Andrea Cortellari, a 2020 graduate of the MA program in Middle Eastern Studies at the Leiden Institute for Area Studies, wins the best MA thesis prize by the Society for Turkic, Ottoman, and Turkish Studies.

On February 1st 2016 the first Rabat semester at the Netherlands Institute in Morocco (NIMAR) has started. During the semester, organised for students of Arabic (Middle-Eastern Studies), participants will study Modern Standard Arabic, Moroccan Arabic, Moroccan culture and society, Berber languages and…

On Things That Talk, a website founded and developed by Fresco Sam-Sin, students and researchers describe objects from today and from long ago. By now, more than a hundred objects have been covered. Willemijn Waal, Emma Verweij and Frank van den Boom contributed to the content.

The book on Turkey. A Modern History written by Professor Erik-Jan Zürcher, Professor of Turkish Studies, is now available in nine different languages. Arabic and Polish versions have now been published.

Hanan Hammad and Eftychia Mylona give a master class focusing on conceptual and methodological challenges in writing histories of marginalized social groups.

In both the autumn and the spring semesters, full bachelor’s programmes worth 30 ECTS are offered. Besides these study programmes, NIMAR provides an honours track for bachelor’s students from various disciplinary backgrounds and contributes to study trips to Rabat.

This fall, LUCIS will have the pleasure of welcoming Professor Wadad Kadi, of the University of Chicago, to Leiden. She is the first Abdulaziz Saud Al-Babtain Cultural Foundation Visiting Professor in Arabic Culture at Leiden University.

As from Wednesday 13 May, the Faculty Office has moved to the Herta Mohr Building.

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

The pre-master's is a bridging programme for students who have applied for the MA Literary Studies but who, according to the Board of Admissions, still have deficiencies in their educational background. Once you have completed the pre-master’s programme, you will be admitted to the relevant specialization…

How can we explain the popularity of the Spanish comedia nueva in the seventeenth-century theatre scene of the Low Countries?

Late Antiquity is characterized by migration movements, political unrest and religious strife. The way we assess these religious conflicts is often coloured by a post-Reformation understanding of ‘religion’. In my research, I show that late ancient authors understood religion in a way that differs much…

The Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities (KHMW) has appointed four Leiden professors as members. Petra Sijpesteijn, Vanessa Mak, Mariska Kret and Miranda van Eck have recently joined the KHMW.

In the master’s programme in Dutch Discourse Studies at Leiden University you will study rhetoric and argumentation, and you will specifically focus on research into pragmatics, stylistics, genre research and persuasion.

Between 1993 and 2000 the Faculty of Archaeology had a formal cooperation with the Service Régional de l’Archéologie de la Guadeloupe, Direction Regional des Affaires Culturelles (DRAC) and the then director André Delpuech. During that period surveys and excavations were carried out at a number of s…

This project aims to answer the following questions: how did the landscape and geography of the local surroundings of Chalcis impact medieval to early modern productivity, habitation, mobility and interaction in a wider sense? And where are such changes and continuations still visible in the landsca…

This study delivers a comprehensive picture of the causes of radicalization in the Eastern and Southeastern regions of Turkey. It demonstrates how regionally specific factors enable ideologically disparate terrorist groups to recruit and radicalize from the same population.

On the 2nd of July, Axel Palmér successfully defended a doctoral thesis. Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Axel on this achievement!

On the 17th of September, Jermy Balukh successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Jermy on this achievement!

Together with Knud Andresen, Bart van der Steen recently published a volume titled A European Youth Revolt. European Perspectives on Youth Protest and Social Movements in the 1980s.

On December 5th, Matthias Pache succesfully defended his doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Matthias on this great result.

This book examines how gender relations were regulated in ancient Near Eastern and biblical law. The textual corpus examined includes the various pertinent law collections, royal decrees and instructions from Mesopotamia and Hatti, and the three biblical legal collections. The book explores issues beginning…

Tracking early human behaviour through plant processing and -exploitation.

New Approaches to Understanding the Eastern Mediterranean during Byzantine and Ottoman Times

Three programmes at the Faculty of Humanities have been awarded medals by EW and ResearchNed. The bachelor’s in German Language and Culture took gold, and the bachelor's in Ancient Near Eastern Studies and the master's in Middle Eastern Studies each earned a bronze medal.

Who doesn't love to turn on a horror film on a rainy evening? Fortunately, it is only fiction - or is it? According to university lecturer Evert Jan van Leeuwen, modern horror says more about our society than we think. He has been nominated for the Klokhuis Science Prize for his research into addiction…

Leiden University offers students a rich environment in which to reach their potential.

This research cluster centres on regional, national, and global intersections and interactions between a variety of artistic expressions and society. It focuses not only on objects (artistic, literary, cinematic, and medial), but also on practices (aesthetic, political, and cultural).

This project investigates which metaphors are problematic in machine translation, when, why, and for whom.

This project investigates the multilingual networks of Dutch lyrical texts, manuscripts and early prints, examining their transmission, dissemination, and reception during the 15th and 16th century.

Professor Joanita Vroom, together with the Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome (KNIR) offered the course Byzantine Rome in September 2023. The course, co-taught by Vroom, Letty ten Harkel and various guest lecturers, investigated the transition of the city of Rome from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages,…

Two open letters are currently circulating among civil servants in the Netherlands calling for the Dutch government to take a different stance towards Israel. Wim Voermans, Professor of Constitutional and Administrative Law in Leiden, says in a national radio broadcast that this is an unusual and unique…

Two researchers at the Faculty of Archaeology have received a Veni award from the Netherlands Organisation for Academic Research (NWO). This award offers promising young researchers the opportunity to further develop their ideas for a period of three years.

For my Policy in Practice research project, Elise van Dansik engaged with a problem that Leiden ‘Social Domain’ policy officers saw themselves confronted with, which was why migrant organizations of Slaaghwijk (a socio-economically disadvantaged neighborhood in Leiden’s north) do not cooperate with…

Rafaëlle Kwakkel is currently studying Literary Studies: Literature in Society. In addition to her studies, she works at Studium Generale and enjoys being creative.