North Korea may seem like an isolated country but it has strong ties with African regimes. This alliance, which trades in arms despite international sanctions, is increasingly operating out of the liberal world order’s sight, PhD candidate Tycho van der Hoog warns.

The ASA Board of Directors notes that, serving for almost a decade, the editors transformed History in Africa “into a peer-reviewed journal that not only engages a broad range of historical issues but commands respect throughout the field.” The award will be presented during the African Studies Association…

Common challenge: unique circumstances

The main question I want to answer is about the mutual influence between the cultural and settlements changes that occurred between the Bronze and the Early Iron Age in Margiana and the management of water resources.

Salvador Santino Regilme received Honorable Mention for the 2022 Best Scholarly Article Award from the Sociology of Human Rights Section of the American Sociological Association (ASA). He won for his paper “Visions of Peace Amidst a Human Rights Crisis: War on Drugs in Colombia and the Philippines,”…

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…

All over Europe you will find ethnographic museums with large collections of indigenous objects from Latin America. These collections shaped the image of native populations in the European mind. An ERC Starting Grant allows Dr Martin Berger to look at the bigger picture, contextualizing individual collections…

According to New York Magazine, the massive open online course (MOOC) ‘The Rooseveltian Century’ by Professor by Special Appointment Giles Scott-Smith is one of the best online courses. We asked him why you should take the course and how it came about.

The Hague Journal of Diplomacy regularly publishes reviews of recent books within the field of diplomacy and global affairs, written in English, Spanish, French, or German.

Should we ban snack bars from neighbourhoods where residents are overweight or have diabetes? At the Common Sense about Health knowledge festival, scientists, civil servants and other professionals discussed how South Holland can become healthier. The Healthy Society Map makes it clear where there are…

Professor Felix Ameka and university lecturer Maria del Carmen Parafita Couta have received an NWO Open Competition grant together with Enoch Aboh (University of Amsterdam) to do research on ‘code-switching’: switching languages by multilinguals.

The project’s overall goal is to improve Indonesia’s environmental legal framework and its implementation by strengthening the regulatory capacity of the government, and by enhancing the capacity of CSOs and scholars to hold the government accountable for its regulatory performance.

Grammatical gender is famously the most puzzling of the grammatical categories. We have a solid typology of gender systems, yet exciting and unexpected patterns keep turning up which defy easy classification and straightforward analysis. Some of these question, stretch or threaten to cross the outer…

Update : March 2020 Directors: Dr. Lara Weiss and Dr. Christian Greco Deputy directors: Dr. Daniel Soliman and Dr. Paolo Del Vesco

At our regular panel discussions we bring together scholars and other experts to discuss a current topic that captures the interest of the general public as well as academics.

At the recent Historical Keyboard Society of North America Conference which took place from 22-26 June in Hunter New York, Kathryn Cok, Phd was nominated and elected to the position of Vice-President from July 1st by distinguished American and international colleagues.

Students came from far and wide to the Master’s Open Day to make sure that a Master’s in the Humanities at Leiden University is the best option for them.

The VVI seeks to advance knowledge of the formation and functioning of legal systems in their social contexts, the impact of these systems on society and vice versa, their effectiveness in governance, and their contribution to development.

GLOBOX is a spatially differentiated multimedia fate, exposure and effect model. It is used for the calculation of spatially differentiated LCA characterisation factors on a global scale.

Mexico is currently facing an unprecedented social and political crisis, with expanding criminal and political violence, rampant impunity and crumbling political institutions. Next to the daily report of anonymous victims of violence, last summer in Central Mexico at least 15 citizens were executed…

The artefacts that still remain from the traditional culture of the indigenous Yukon, Canada, are spread over dozens of museums throughout the world. Yukon Indian Ukjese van Kampen carried out research to bring this culture to light. This is the subject of his dissertation entitled ‘The history of Yukon…

American anthropologist Rosemary Joyce will be awarded an honorary doctorate from Leiden University on its Dies Natalis on 8 February. Joyce has delivered important new insights into the ancient Mayan cultures of Central America.

Below you can find lists of Leiden-based and international organizations working on Central Asia, and an overview of useful resources on Central Asia.

Political games have existed throughout history, but what is the role of 'play' in the way the American political world has developed? University lecturer Sara Polak has received an ERC Starting Grant to investigate this.

The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics has been badly affected by the corona crisis: the research in the four labs and the fieldwork has come to a standstill. What are the implications?

During the 80th session of the Geneva-based Institut de Droit International, Aleydis Nissen was awarded the Andrés Bello Prize. The competition was established by James Brown Scott in 1931 and is carried out under the auspices of the Institut.

Leiden University Academy of Creative and Performing Arts (ACPA) launches the open online course Music & Society on Coursera to advance worldwide access to high-quality education. The course starts on January 9, 2017 and will be taught by Prof. dr. Marcel Cobussen and drs. Hafez Ismaili M’hamdi.

Studying one another’s languages and cultures fosters understanding between groups of people, which leads to more equality, along with increased economic, administrative, and cultural cooperation.

On Friday, April 5, the Ecuadorian police stormed the Mexican Embassy in Quito to arrest former Ecuadorian vice president Jorge Glas Espinel.

Internationalisation is an important part of the mission and vision of Leiden University. The Erasmus+ programme, an initiative of the European Commission, makes a substantial contribution to this goal. Erasmus+ provides grants for educational projects with partners within and outside Europe, and facilitates…

Together with four European partner universities heritage specialist Dr Monique van den Dries has been granted an Erasmus+ project (EU-CUL) by the European Commission. This project sets up a unique cooperation between educational scientists and academic heritage specialists. It will study how universities…

How can the people of Leiden age as well as possible? And what is needed to reduce health disparities? That is the mission of Leiden Healthy Society Center, a new partnership between the Municipality of Leiden, Leiden University and many other partners in the city.

Amerindian settlement patterns and early colonial cartography in Northern Hispaniola

Back after pandemic interruptions, the Dutch Network Science Society Symposium took place on May 19th, 2022. The event brought together researchers from around The Netherlands studying complex networks and representing various disciplines, including mathematics, physics, neuroscience, computer science,…

Dirk Huyge (Director) & Wouter Claes (Vice-Director)

On March 11, a travelling photo exposition on the Mayan archaeological site El Mirador, in Guatemala, saw its festive opening at the Van Steenis building. For the occasion a special Faculty Lecture was organised, entitled 'Water Legacy: Mayan World Meets the Netherlands'. We were honored to receive…

Dr Alex Geurds was elected as a Fellow for the Society of Antiquaries, a prestigious and old educational charity based in London. Established in 1707, the society aims at the encouragement and advancement of the study and knowledge of the antiquities.