Catia Antunes is one of the main partners in the ‘ForSeaDiscovery – Forest Resources for Iberian Empires: Ecology and Globalization in the Age of Discovery’ project that has been awarded the prestigious Marie Curie – ITN grant for Academic/Civil Society training, cooperation and outreach.

Muhammad Adlin Sila examines the range of ways Bima Muslims constitute their Islamic identities and agencies through rituals and festivals. In response to their surroundings, what it means to be a Muslim is constantly being negotiated.

The Institute for History of Leiden University, in collaboration with the N.W. Posthumus Institute, is organising a Masterclass by Dr. Arthur Weststeijn on Friday 13 November 2015.

Cambridge History of South Africa, volume 1: From early times to 1885 (edited by Carolyn Hamilton, Bernard K. Mbenga, and Robert Ross) made Choice magazine's list of Outstanding Academic Titles for 2010.

Who is welcome as a refugee, and who is not? And how is that decided? What role do humanitarian organisations play in the debate surrounding refugees? Doctoral candidate Teuntje Vosters is investigating the influence Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) exert on European policy on migration and ref…

Provenance and distribution of raw materials

Democracy in Action is a Horizon Europe-funded initiative exploring how grassroots movements, cultural spaces, and digital innovations can strengthen democratic participation. With a special focus on youth, women, ethnic minorities and night culture, we bring together researchers, grassroots movements,…

Piercing through the skull with an ice pick, administering electric shocks without an anaesthetic, or applying leeches to the uterus: these may seem like medieval methods of torture, but they are in fact therapies used in medicine. Willem van der Does writes about all of them in his new book. ‘Physicians…

Ever since Nadine Akkerman, Professor of Early Modern Literature & Culture, came across a woman spy in her research, secret agents have kept cropping up in her work. Now there’s Spycraft, a popular history book exploring the espionage techniques used by early modern spies, which she has co-written with…

Curiosities from the anatomical theatre, swords from the fencing school and 17th-century portraits of the University's founders. The new University Room in Museum De Lakenhal portrays the turbulent first hundred years of Leiden University.

The Department of History of Art in Oxford has appointed Leiden University professor Caroline van Eck as Slade Professor of Fine Art for the second semester of academic year 2016-2017. As Slade Professor Van Eck will spend a semester in office at Oxford University and deliver eight public lectures and…

Jessica den Oudsten won this year’s Uitgeverij Verloren/Johan de Witt thesis award for history with her master’s thesis, entitled

The hinterland of important centres like Petra (Southern Jordan) can provide essential information that contribute to the understanding of their rise, expansion and decline.

The stadtholder’s court in the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands has long been underestimated. Real courts and the associated court culture were to be found elsewhere in Europe. PhD candidate Quinten Somsen is trying to reverse this image. ‘The stadtholder’s court was actually very lively.’

On 3 December 2019 Hanna Bosdriesz defended her dissertation on the fight against impunity for grave human rights violations in Latin America.

Louis Sicking's Maritime Conflict Management in Atlantic Europe was awarded an 'Internationalisation in the Humanities' grant from NWO. What can we learn from how maritime conflicts were managed in the past?

Rachel Schats has been a familiar face at the Faculty of Archaeology since she started her bachelor’s in Archaeology in 2005. Now she is an assistant professor, working on her Veni project on malaria in the Middle Ages. ‘I have included in this project so many skeletal collections that no one has ever…

On Tuesday November 25, 2025, Prof. dr. Sarah Cramsey traveled with students from her masters seminar on “New Approached to the Holocaust in Central and Eastern Europe” taught at the History Institute to Amsterdam for a unique opportunity. There, Ms. Lotte Sophie Groenendijk, an alum of the History…

The role of religion in the identity construction of LGBTQIA+ folks

The Department of Company Law and Financial Law provides education and conducts research in areas including the law of legal entities and corporations, financial contract- and liability law, corporate governance, sustainability, Dutch and EU financial regulatory law, mergers and acquisitions, insolvency…

The ‘Locke drawings’ collection and the representation of Brazilian native peoples in global perspective

The Research MA Classics and Ancient Civilizations covers two years and can be studied in four tracks: Classics is one of them. While diving into the literary, cultural and intellectual worlds of Greece and Rome, you will be involved in current research, and stimulated to reflect on the significance…

Dynamics of material, social and ideological relationships in the pre-Columbian insular Caribbean

Your time at Leiden is about more than just studying. Some of your best experiences will stem from being a part of our lively and diverse student community, as well as from life in the beautiful city of Leiden.

Leiden University offers ambitious students a world-class environment in which to reach their full potential.

Your time at Leiden is about more than just studying. Some of your best experiences will stem from being a part of our lively and diverse student community, as well as from life in the beautiful city of Leiden.

We are convinced that you’ll have a wonderful time at Leiden University, but you don’t have to take our word for it. If you’re looking for objective opinions of what it’s like to study here, listen to what current students and alumni have said about it!

Leiden University offers ambitious students a world-class environment in which to reach their full potential.

Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) is one of the three priority areas of Leiden University, which was established by its Executive Board in 2014. The objective is to set up a comprehensive strategy.

Lecture, Blue History Network Graduate Forum

On Tuesday November 25, 2025, Sarah Cramsey travelled with students from her masters seminar on 'New Approached to the Holocaust in Central and Eastern Europe' taught at the History Institute to Amsterdam for a unique opportunity. There, Lotte Sophie Groenendijk, an alumna of the History Research Masters…

On the occasion of the retirement of Robert Ross, Professor in African History at Leiden University, his successor and former student Jan-Bart Gewald wrote a valedictory note.

Is it possible to formulate a new conceptual foundation for attributing an evaluative role to historiography of science, without relinquishing the historiographic sensitivity of recent work in the discipline?

In what ways and to what ends did Parisian buildings overwhelm the early modern public? This study is concerned with the experience of the sublime in architecture in seventeenth-century Paris.

On 18 June, 2015, Erik Kwakkel was elected to the Comité International de Paléographie Latine (CIPL), a scholarly committee that specialises in the study of the medieval book.

PhD defence

In an age before GoogleDocs and LinkedIn, 19th-century scholars relied on letter-writing for collaboration, peer-feedback and the building and sustaining of academic networks. Letters were a quick, efficient way to share insights, data and discoveries. Scholarly correspondence thus allows a vital behind-the-scenes…

On April 26th, Kate Bellamy succesfully defended her doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Kate on this great result.