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Many dangerous diseases such as COVID-19, Ebola and Q fever have jumped from animals to humans. But it is not only because of these diseases that we should include animals in our health policy, but also because of their right to health.

The Department of Archaeological Heritage and Society focuses on the relationships between past and present, the role of heritage in society, and how heritage can contribute to the improving quality of life and our (future) environment.

This book underscores the interplay between religion and politics (local and global) in the production, escalation, management, mitigation, and resolution of conflict.

Pablo Pandocchi succeeds Thirza van ‘t Rood as the student member of the Institute Board for the next academic year. The Institute Board is responsible for all matters concerning the Institute, from education to research in the field of anthropology and sociology. Pablo and Thirza interviewed each other…

COVID-19 has shaken the world. 170 academics of eight different Dutch universities believe the time is right for a positive and meaningful vision. They signed a manifesto with a list of five policy proposals for a post-COVID 19 development model to cope with this pandemic and other social and environmental…

A linguistic reconstruction of the migration of the Tocharians from Europe to China

A group of confidants including a former student of Meijers managed to avert his deportation to a death camp. In her lecture on 27 November, Cleveringa Professor Marjan Schwegman revealed the history of the persecution of the Jewish Professor Eduard Meijers.

Audrey Heijns explored the mindset of alumnus Henri Borel. From 1894 to 1916 he was an interpreter of Chinese and later a government officer for Chinese affairs in the Dutch East Indies. Borel's way of 'translating' Chinese was both unique and inimitable. PhD defence on 28 June.

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!

The writings of Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) are famously and purposely marked by fragmentariness. Paradoxically, a central aim of his work was to connect: all his life he sought to further the integration of scholarship in the humanities which, he believed, had too long suffered from the prevalence…

In 2023, many of our students and staff won great prizes and secured important research grants.

The Bloomsbury Handbook of Sonic Methodologies is now available. This more than 850-page book offers methods how to study sound as well as how through sound and listening (new) knowledge can be gained.

JUSTREMIT is an ERC-funded project that brings together political theory, ethnography, and security studies in an interdisciplinary study of remittances and global justice.

Learn how to conduct policy-oriented research, join one of our field schools and gain relevant working experience.

The field and the classroom invites ethnographers to engage with critical and engaged pedagogies. Breaking down the barriers between fieldsite and lecture hall, this research cluster aims to interrogate the structures and values that shape anthropological and sociological education today.

On the 19th of November, Tingting Zheng successfully defended a doctoral thesis. Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Tingting on this achievement!

As part of Nexus 1492 Subproject 4: A Future for Diverse Caribbean Heritages, which seeks to shed light on how local communities interpret and engage with heritage in the present day, this doctoral study aims to gain insight into how indigenous heritage is represented in the school curriculum for social…

From ca. 1540 to 1600, thousands fled the war-stricken Southern Low Countries to the British Isles, Germany, and the Northern Low Countries. Research on this displacement crisis, central to the formation of the Netherlands and Belgium, reflects 21st-century debates on migration and language: language…

How the systematic destruction of valuables created value in Bronze Age Europe, c. 2300-500 BC

In January 2020, Marja Spierenburg joined the FSW as the new Professor of Anthropology of Sustainability and Livelihoods. Let’s get to know her. ‘All my research is basically about nature conservation. I look at areas like national parks, but also at measures aimed at increasing the sustainability of…

Archaeologist Hayley Mickleburgh studies how bodies decompose. This helps with the reconstruction of changes in the burial rituals of Caribbean Indians.

The new Asian Library in the centre of Leiden accommodates the dispersed Asian collection of Leiden University. The festive opening of the Asian Library was marked by the Tour of Asia, an exciting knowledge festival, with workshops, talks and film screenings. Leiden anthropologists that work on Asia…

How and to what extent the historic house (re-)constructs identity through image-making in China.

This book provides an overview of critical scholarly reflections on the history of Dutch slavery and colonization, as well as how this translates into critical cultural practices.

How did nineteenth-century non-Anglophone translators and authors creatively engage with the poem Beowulf?

The NWO-funded Vidi project “American foreign policy and liberalism” challenges the idea that the United States has created and sustained a “liberal international order” since World War II. It instead explores the ways in which illiberal ideologies – such as those underpinning racial hierarchy at home…

The second and final volume of this co-authored study has just been published by J.B. Metzler. This second monograph explores the history of the concept of barbarism in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

As one of the most influential ideas in modern European history, democracy has fundamentally reshaped not only the landscape of governance, but also social and political thought throughout the world.

The dental remains of 25 enslaved Africans from the site of Newton's Plantation, on Barbados, were subjected to isotope analysis. Previous research had pointed out that the locally born individuals were subjected to high concentrations of lead poisoning. A new study, done by Dr Jason Laffoon among others…

On this page you will find resources developed by the project team, such as bibliographies, reading lists, template case-studies as well as the team's training and seminar activities.

Teachers of English as a foreign language in China and the Netherlands have different notions of themselves as teachers in relation to cultures associated with the English language. This is stated in the doctoral thesis of Dadi Chen, who graduates from the Leiden University Graduate School of Teaching…

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…

With cultural anthropology alumnus Jeroen Windmeijer, Leiden has added another writer to the fold. Following the success of his religious-historical thrillers, he has been able to call himself a full-time writer since 1 January 2019. ‘Not a true story but still true.’