Katarzyna Cwiertka, Leiden Professor of Modern Japan Studies, was already the recipient of a VENI and a VIDI grant. Now she has also been granted a VICI, worth 1.5 million euro, for her research project Garbage Matters: A Comparative History of Waste in East Asia. ‘I want to do something that hasn’t…

When we read a text, we think we know who wrote it, but in the early modern period, manuscript production was often a collaborative or ‘socialised’ enterprise involving secretaries and scribes who physically wrote what the author dictated.

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

Resilient Diversity: the Governance of Racial and Religious Plurality in the Dutch Empire, 1600-1800

Professor Beatrice de Graaf held the 53rd Huizinga Lecture on Thursday 12 December. In front of a a sold-out Stadsgehoorzaal, she spoke about how history can be used in times of crisis to give meaning to the situation.

For a long time, the painful history of colonial slavery received too little attention. People whose ancestors lived in slavery are now asking critical questions about how we should address that past. Leiden University researchers study the history of colonialism and slavery and their long-term impact…

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.

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.

Since the beginning of September, Emma van der Plas (20) is the new student ambassador for CADS. Emma is a third-year student and is currently following a minor in Sustainable Development in Leiden. Her goal? To eliminate the stigmas surrounding anthropology.

On Tuesday 30 April 2024 Jonny Russell successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

The BOCA project explores new forms of communicating academic knowledge as a way to strengthen the connection between the university and society.

The Persian language and its poetry are intertwined with the history of Central Asia. Although some mediaeval poets were later claimed by an individual state, their influence knew no frontiers. This is what Gabrielle van den Berg, Professor of Cultural History of Iran and Central Asia, argues in her…

'The World Upside Down. The Geographical Revolution in Humanist Commentaries on Pliny's Natural History and Mela's De situ orbis (140-1700)', in: Enenkel, K.A.E. & Nellen, H. (Eds.), Neo-Latin Commentaries and the Management of Knowledge in the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period (1400-1700).Humanistica…

This research aims to fully recall these lost sound aspects of the eighteenth century and is, therefore, a study that passionately advocates the diversity of musical experience in the context of historical performance practice.

The project ‘Between the Holy Land and the World’ proposes a connected history of the Christian communities in the Near East (1900-1948) by means of a study of unpublished Franciscan and Dominican photographic collections.

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

This PhD project investigates how Russian state-aligned media frame the war in Ukraine for international audiences and how these frames travel across borders, being adopted, adapted, or challenged by foreign media and political actors.

More than 40 years ago, a wrecked merchant ship was found in the Wadden Sea. PhD student Geke Burger looked at this archaeological find from a historical perspective.

In this dissertation, the life account is constructed of of the founder of Bon Religion, Shenrab Miwo.

Victorian Fairy Tales

Anyone who knows Aris Politopoulos will be aware of his passion for teaching. Almost winning the Leiden University Teaching Award in 2020, he is known for his use of digital tools to improve his classes. Now he has been accepted to the Leiden Teacher’s Academy. ‘Here I can meet people with innovative…

Managing Diversity: Supervising Functions in Managing Colonial Workplaces

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…

In the last two decades, there have been heated public and scholarly debates in France, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands on the violent end of empire. Nevertheless, the broader comparative investigations into colonial counterinsurgency tend to leave atrocities such as torture, execution, and…

In January 2014, the research project The Promise of Organization hosted a fruitful three-day conference:

In Voices on Birchbark Jos Schaeken explores the major role that writing on birchbark – an ephemeral, even ‘throw-away’ form of correspondence and administration – played in the vibrant medieval merchant city of Novgorod and other cities in the Russian Northwest.

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

Based on interviews with feminist Instagram users, this article studies emergent feminist visibilities on Instagram through the concept of filtering.

This project investigates the full ecosystem of Middle Dutch prayerbooks in order to answer questions about their role in – and impact on – religion, culture, and society in the late medieval Low Countries.

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

In this region researchers at LUCL have specific expertise in studying Austronesian and Papuan languages. China is another important region where Leiden linguists conduct research.

Cátia Antunes received the prestigious ERC Grant for her Research Project

Lecture, Seminar

This project will construct an inventory of possible conceptions of the resistance of the world to scientists’ claims and theories.