Are you thinking about studying Arts, Literature and Media? Learn more and watch the introduction video.

Historicising Art and Literature is one of the six research themes of the LUCAS Modern and Contemporary cluster.

Terms used by literary critics in characterizing the style of novels are often impressionistic (‘baroque’, ‘austere’, ‘vivid’, ‘cerebral’ etc.). Foundations for such evaluations are usually not provided. A scientific way of studying and explaining style is lacking in present day Dutch Studies. Suzanne…

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.

In October 1740, a tragedy unfolded in Batavia, the Asian headquarters of the Dutch East India Company on the island of Java. Faced with a spontaneous Chinese peasant uprising, Batavia’s vengeful inhabitants carried out a bloody massacre of their fellow Chinese within the city walls. The murderers marched…

Mechanical forces are known to play an important role in bacterial colonies. In this dissertation, we study the self-organization at various stages of growing bacterial colonies, and focus on the mechanical effects of cell growth.

On 17 August 1945, two days after the Japanese surrender that also brought an end to the Second World War in Asia, Indonesia declared its independence. The declaration was not recognized by the Netherlands, which resorted to force in its attempt to take control of the inevitable process of decolonization.…

From experimental essays to comfort reads, and from manga to court literature in verse: Japanese literature has it all.

On 1 September 2022 Afke van Ewijk successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

The one-year, English-taught master's programme in English Literature and Culture focuses on the interaction between literature and key political and social issues such as identity, migration, memory and the metropolis, but also between literature and the literary tradition, and literature and film.

This MA programme offers an excellent qualification in Italian literature and culture on an advanced level through lectures and seminars led by specialists in the field.

Develop your knowledge of French and Francophone literary works and genres with the Master’s programme in French Literature and Culture at Leiden University.

We will use Artificial Intelligence to make an intelligent, multilingual search engine for archaeological texts, which will enable new discoveries about the human past.

The master’s programme in German Literature and Culture at Leiden University offers the largest number of German-language master’s courses in the Netherlands and covers the fields of literary and cultural studies from the Middle Ages to the present.

El Chorro de Maita, Cuba

Carsten Stahn has just published Confronting Colonial Objects: Histories, Legalities and Access to Culture. The book is part of the OUP Cultural Heritage Law and Policy Series.

Dr. Cátia Antunes and prof. Jos Gommans both edited and contributed to this interesting book, that consists of articles that offers a new insight into the macro and micro worlds of the global Dutchman in Asia.

We are pleased to announce a call for papers for a conference focused on ethical practices in medical research and treatment in the colonial and postcolonial context.

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

In 'Dutch Atlantic Connections, 1680-1800', Gert Oostindie and Jessica V. Roitman, both of the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV) and also affiliated with the History Institute of Leiden University, assemble an internationally acclaimed selection of authors,…

On the 25th of October, Suze Anja Verkade successfully defended a doctoral thesis. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Suze Anja on this achievement!

Wim Klooster and Gert Oostindie present a fresh look at the Dutch Atlantic in the period following the imperial moment of the seventeenth century. This epoch (1680–1815), the authors argue, marked a distinct and significant era in which Dutch military power declined and Dutch colonies began to chart…

Due to the almost complete disappearance of the archive of the Old Dutch West India Company (WIC, 1621-1674) not much is known about the ships and crews of this company. In this project we start the reconstruction of this basic information making use of new digital humanities techniques to extract this…

The programme focuses on the medieval dynamics of intellectual life in the Rhineland and the Low countries, nowadays divided over five countries (Switzerland, France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands) but one cultural region in the later Middle Ages.

In Leiden University’s master’s programme Literature in Society. Europe and Beyond you will develop your knowledge of the interactive relationship between literature and society, focusing on key political and social issues from a transnational perspective.

Engin Kiliç defended his thesis on 11 june 2015

How was time understood during the colonial period by Tlaxcaltecan Naua communities? What is the relationship between time, spirituality and ritual in the present-day Naua community of Santa Catarina? What does this tell us about the strengths and values of Indigenous heritage and about the impact of…

How did free agents oppose the monopolies held by the VOC and WIC in court?

How can a CLIL approach, with a focus on disciplinary literacies, improve the teaching of the LLA programme’s literary component in senior bilingual education (TTO)?

African oral literatures, new media and technologies: challenges for research and documentation

How did the Dutch Empire compare with other imperial enterprises? And how was it experienced by the indigenous peoples who became part of this colonial power?

Explore the intersection of arts, literature, and media in this interdisciplinary research master’s programme. Whether you're interested in medieval manuscripts or modern digital culture, this programme offers the flexibility to tailor your studies to your interests.

Pursuing Whiteness in the Colonies offers a new comprehension of colonial history from below by taking remnants of individual agencies from a whiteness studies perspective. It highlights the experiences and perceptions of colonisers and how they portrayed and re-interpreted their identities in Afric…

Are you thinking about studying English Literature and Culture? Learn more and watch the introduction video.

Are you thinking about studying Italian Literature and Culture? Learn more and watch the introduction video.

Are you thinking about studying German Literature and Culture? Learn more and watch the introduction video.

Are you thinking about studying French Literature and Culture? Learn more and watch the introduction video.

Are you thinking about studying Cultural Analysis: Literature and Theory? Learn more and watch the introduction video.

How geographical and institutional openness in Dutch Guiana fostered a unique colonial economy. This publication is part of the Early American Places Series.

The ethics of ghosts, spectres, and mediums in postcolonial literature

This MA explores contemporary literature and culture—art, film, pop music—through critical and theoretical lenses, including feminist theory, phenomenology, and ecocriticism. Key themes include diversity, interculturality, popular culture, and the intersection of culture, politics, and justice.

The available tools for academic literature search return a list of ranked documents, which might not be ideal for some tasks. To facilitate these tasks, I am creating a visual representation of the academic search space where the user can browse academic topics.

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…

How did interests outside the scope of the Dutch chartered trading companies influence the career-paths of Dutch colonial governors?

On 2 Juni 2021, Maarten Manse defended his thesis 'Promise, Pretence and Pragmatism: Governance and Taxation in Colonial Indonesia, 1870-1940'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. R. Arendsen.

This project investigates how early print media covered distant but urgent geopolitical conflicts, using newspapers from the Low Countries, north and south.

Sex and power are closely linked, and this was certainly true in the former Dutch colonies. PhD student Sophie Rose investigated how sexual and love relationships influenced eighteenth-century power structures there. 'You can see that there was constant fighting over who stood where in the social hi…

ERC Starting Grant: The Van Manen Project. This five year project (2023-2028) is made possible with an ERC Starting Grant. It aims to (digitally) reunite all parts of the Van Manen Collection. This enables us to study it as a whole, helping us to understand the process of collection formation. More…

The remains of Dutch East India Company forts are scattered throughout littoral Asia and Africa. But how important were the specific characteristics of European bastion-trace fortifications to early modern European expansion?