What are the humanities? As the cluster of disciplines historically grouped together as “humanities” has grown and diversified to include media studies and digital studies alongside philosophy, art history and musicology to name a few, the need to clearly define the field is pertinent.

State Building Through Life Stories: Incorporating Local Perspectives

Kazimierz Twardowski (1866-1938) is the founder of the Lvov-Warsaw School with its strong tradition in logic and its scientific approach to philosophy. Twardowski’s unique way of doing philosophy, his method, is of central importance for understanding his impact as a teacher.

Multilingualism and Wellbeing is an innovative text that combines sociolinguistic, psychological and philosophical approaches to explore multilingualism as a source of wellbeing. It challenges the “monolingual bias” and the common assumption that multilingualism is solely driven by utilitarian, formal,…

PhD defence

Conference

Animal Sciences’ contributions to the Development & Disease research theme include the mechanisms and evolution of embryonic development, the development of cognitive mechanisms, and animal models for understanding mechanisms of human disease.

Book launch

The Summer of Islamic Humanities was founded in 2025.

This page features an overview of relevant lectures, publications and conference papers.

The scientific interest in stone sculpture has been present in the archaeological investigation of Nicaragua from the mid 19th century onward.

Leiden University and the Netherlands National Museum of Antiquities (Rijksmuseum van Oudheden) are jointly involved in the intensive archaeological exploration of Northern Syria, by means of field surveys and large-scale excavations at a number of archaeological sites in the Balikh basin: the Tell…

Learn more about the former members of the Young Academy Leiden who contributed to a better position for young academics.

An overview of awards and prizes granted to our staff and students in 2020, as well as special appointments at Leiden University and other institutions.

Speech Prosody 2024 includes seven special sessions. When making a submission, authors are asked to indicate whether they want their paper to be considered for a special session. You can find descriptions of each below.

You may find the answer to your question on this page.

CERQ is a questionnaire measuring cognitive coping strategies developed by Dr. Nadia Garnefski and Dr. Vivian Kraaij.

PhD Research Projects:

The European Homicide Monitor (EHM) offers a standardized framework for countries and regions to compare homicide characteristics, patterns and trends.

The core curriculum equips students with the conceptual approaches and qualitative empirical research methods necessary to analyze law in context. Specialized electives enable students to dive deeper and focus on particular areas of legal practice—from legal mobilization to regulation and compliance…

Alexander Kros studies supramolecular systems in a biological environment. The unifying theme between the projects in my lab is specific molecular recognition, i.e. the intermolecular interaction between complementary molecules with high affinity and selectivity. Studying, imitating and dissecting processes…

How do insurance products transform intimate and personal relations? What are the consequences of the classifications that insurance companies use and how do these affect solidarity, morality and inequality?

The dissertation’s general aim is to investigate how a peer educator intervention can promote social acceptance of LGBT in pre-vocational education and whether the activities in this intervention ensure that students learn to respectfully deal with LGBT people in school.

Despite the field’s general agreement that pyrotechnology had a significant impact on the cultural evolution of humankind, our understanding of the origins and development of fire use and its role in humankind’s cultural evolution is very limited, blurred by strong disagreements over its chronology…

This project is situated within the context of an innovation of the biology curriculum in Dutch secondary schools. The main purposes are (1) to clarify the relation between teachers’ practical knowledge and the decisions they make when planning and implementing their lessons and (2) to develop a professional…

This research deals with the royal houses of the Vijayanagara Empire and four of its successor states: Ikkeri, Tanjavur (under both the Nayaka and Bhonsle rulers), Madurai, and Ramnad. This study is thus concerned with dynastic politics and imperial legacies in south India between the 14th and 18th…

In December 2014, Leiden University’s Institute of Security and Global Affairs with the Australian National University’s Asia-Pacific College of Diplomacy and the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, commenced a research project to assess how (temporary) military interventions can best prepare…

To be eligible for Japanese Studies (120 EC) at Leiden University, you must meet the following admission requirements.

Colonialism Inside Out: Everyday Experience and Plural Practice in Dutch Institutions in Sri Lanka (c. 1700-1800)

The Arts, Media and Society specialisation will let you explore some of the most pressing issues in today’s society, as seen from the many perspectives offered by art, artists, and (digital) media.

This three-year programme offers you a unique chance to gain a specialised qualification in a rich, valuable area of knowledge, plus the freedom to tailor the programme to your own ambitions. And what better place to study than in Leiden, the international centre of Dutch studies?

Carina van den Hoven defended her thesis on 16 February 2017.

The programme is structured to guide you from a broad introduction in the first year to thematic specialisation and independent research in your final year. In the second year you will learn more about the four themes: the sustainable city, the safe city, the multicultural city and the healthy city.…

Language plays a central role in human life. We use it every day to communicate, learn and share ideas. But how do children acquire their first language? Why do languages differ from one another? And how do adults learn new ones? Linguistics is the scientific study of language and seeks to answer these…