Within the Global Ethnography specialisation, you can develop your own research project or make use of the research opportunities offered by our staff members listed below.

Prof. J. (Jos) Schaeken, Professor of Slavic and Baltic Languages and Cultural History, will be the interim Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Humanities from 1 March 2025. He will succeed the present Vice-Dean, Mirjam de Baar, who will complete her second term on that date.

This project investigates the globalization and cultural mediation of palliative care practices, policies and discourses.

Benjamín Maldonado, Orestes Kyrgiakis, Roos Capel and Iskra Cvitković are the new student members of the Programme Committee (OLC). The board advises the Executive Board and the Faculty Board about educational matters, such as the determination of the Course and Examination Regulations and the evaluation…

Court cases that get out of hand are enacted again and again, according to PhD candidate Tessa de Zeeuw. De Zeeuw: ‘Even if the court comes to the correct judgement, from a legal point of view, the issues that appear in a case such as that of Lucia de Berk continue to

In the civil war in Syria, the country's cultural heritage is also under threat. There have been further acts of vandalism in Palmyra and many of the city's museums have been looted. Leiden archaeologist Olivier Nieuwenhuijse's Focus Raqqa project aims to make a digital inventory of the plundered archaeology…

We are pleased to invite abstracts for a conference on ‘Advancing Social, Economic, and Cultural Rights in a Polarised, Digitalised, and Unequal World’ to be held at Leiden University on 4 and 5 September 2025, in collaboration with Netherlands Network for Human Rights Researh (NNHRR).

After an extensive content analysis of the coalition agreement, a sharp fall can be seen in the focus on education & culture, science & technology and defence. This is the conclusion of university public administration professors Gerard Breeman and Arco Timmermans. They compared the content with all…

The project

Mission Director: Dr. Carina van den Hoven

The Leiden Faculty of Archaeology is a world renowned academic centre for the study of the past. Our archaeologists and heritage experts are involved in innovative projects all over the world.

Mazatec chants and ancient Mesoamerican pictography

With the unique programme in Global Archaeology at Leiden University you will explore the archaeological past of Europe, the Mediterranean and West Asia, or the Americas. You address the impact of global developments on the area of your choice. The courses prepare you for a career as a regional archaeologist…

No matter how hard Chinese communists tried to control the economy, they could not stop the free market from flourishing. This was the message given by historian Frank Dikötter on 7 February during a lecture on the Cultural Revolution. He will be awarded an Honorary Doctorate on 8 February.

Anthropologist Sander Hölsgens explores how skateboarding philosophy can revolutionise education by embracing failure, fostering creativity, and building supportive learning communities. Read his research on The Conversation.

Leiden University 2016 thesis awards were awarded to Kaspar Pucek (History), Mariska Meijer (Bio Medical Sciences) and Paul Kozowyk (Archaeology).

Are there cross-cultural principles of law?

Prof. dr. Marcel Cobussen will take part in a research network project in London.

When are you (sexually) mature? A KNAW grant will enable associate professor Rafal Matuszewski to organise an interdisciplinary workshop on this question.

Conference

This project investigates properties of quantity expressions across languages from the perspective of how quantity is represented in the human brain.

The key subject of the Team Economic and Social History is Inequality (at local, national and global levels). We study this from an intersectional perspective: gender, class, ethnicity or race, religion, sexuality, age, ability/disability, citizenship and legal status. We study these categories of power…

Martijn Manders conducts research on the sunken VOC ship De Rooswijk. Tirzah Schnater from the Ministry of Education, Culure and Science produced this impressive report of the work of this underwater archaeologist.

Lecture, Book presentation

Intensive 5-day programme on the world-famous Antwerp-based printing and publishing house founded by Christopher Plantin in 1555. International experts will discuss how it developed the production and distribution of religious books and related illustrations and prints in the following centuries.

Chinese materia medica (CMM), comprising a diverse array of natural substances from plants, animals, and minerals, has been integral to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) throughout history. This study investigates the dynamic evolution of CMM, noting shifts in species for improved therapeutic effects…

MPs in the Netherlands are first and foremost motivated by their direct environment, i.e. the parliamentary and partisan institutions.

Cynthia van Vonno, political scientist at Leiden University, explains why individual MPs vote according to the party group line.

This PhD project mainly investigates in what way (i.e., serial or parallel mode or other mode) the parser processes the Mandarin Chinese. In addition, are there any specific linguistic features governing the decoding of Mandarin Chinese that are different from other languages? Are there any processing…

Education and Organisation Development

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

Investigating epistemic and ethical practices in medical experimentation on humans in the colonial period in Southeast Asia.

The organ in the Great Auditorium in the Academy Building has been played at walk-in concerts and University celebrations since 1998.

In the Spanish town of Guadalajara, there is a street named ‘Burgemeester Fluiterstraat’, named after a descendant of Leiden migrants who had done well in the South. He was not the only Guadalajara resident with Leiden roots: at the beginning of the eighteenth century, a stream of Dutch textile workers…

Arts and culture, LUCIS Middle East Culture Market

The way people view the world is shaped by much more than just language. Culture, religion, history, art, and philosophy also play a role. At Leiden University, you'll research societies from around the world - past and present. You'll explore current themes such as migration, identity, media, and heritage,…

The way people view the world is shaped by much more than just language. Culture, religion, history, art, and philosophy also play a role. At Leiden University, you'll research societies from around the world - past and present. You'll explore current themes such as migration, identity, media, and heritage,…

Examine and experience the material features and characteristic appearances of medieval manuscripts, annotated books, prints, drawings, photographic albums and much more, in various settings.

The Jordan Times has interviewed Peter Akkermans about the damage done to the Early Islamic archaeological site of Khirbet Al Umari, Jordan.

The past decade, against the backdrop of a fragmented political landscape, has witnessed the greatest changes to the Netherlands since the aftermath of the Second World War. The labour market, the housing market, the energy market, the bank system, the pension system, the healthcare system, to name…

Silk Road Virtual Museum - A virtual museum of the art and culture of the regions that lay on the trade routes between Europe and Asia, popularly known as the ‘Silk Road’.

Leiden heritage expert Sjoerd van der Linde is carrying out research on the heritage of the Caribbean region. This research forms part of the international Nexus 1492 project on the consequences of colonisation for the Americas. ‘We first have to find out what the local population wants.'

Lecture

Cultural Anthropologist Erik de Maaker published, together with Monica Janoswki (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London), Stories across Borders: Myths of Origin and Their Contestation in the Borderlands of South and Southeast Asia in Southeast Asian Studies (SEAS).