On the 16th of February, Yunus Sulistyono successfully defended a doctoral thesis. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Yunus on this achievement!

In Leiden University's video series on Leiden and The Hague as student cities, students interview each other at their favorite spots. In the fifth video of this series, archaeology student Julia spoke with Anthropology student Daria in Trianon, on Leiden's cinemas.

University lecturer Tazuko van Berkel has obtained a Vidi grant of 800,000 euros. This will enable her to research the image of man that emerges from economic texts from ancient Greece.

The Colonial and Global History (research) programme at Leiden University offers the most in-depth and comprehensive programme of European expansion and globalisation currently available in Europe.

Confucianism has been a major force in the cultural history of China, Japan, Korea and Vietnam for thousands of years, affecting the art, literature, science and politics of all these countries.

The combination of global questions and a wide range of local sources characterizes the Leiden University Institute for History.

Due to the fact that the Frisian lands lacked major political centers in the Middle Ages and also because most of its monasteries suffered complete destruction in the second half of the 16th century, relatively few written documents concerning medieval Frisian history have survived. To analyze them…

This seminal volume covers the entire global history of urbanization since the rise of cities in Mesopotamia in the 6th millennium BC. Leiden historians Wim Blockmans, Leonard Blussé, Luuk de Ligt and Leo Lucassen contributed survey and thematic chapters.

Festival, Graduation Ceremony

Studying change in the course of human history, in different places, through the lens of a diverse set of core themes; World History for International Studies offers readers a set of windows into different debates historians have been conducting.

What are the social, cultural, and/or educational consequences and challenges linked to the introduction of the international bachelor's programme in Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology?

Why does the past elicit this intense activity in the present? What does the past mean for the present, and what does it do to it? A WAR OF WORDS will engage this complex of Chinese claims to Manchu-Korean ancient history, South Korean reactions, public discourse and cultural expression in both states,…

The research master in History at Leiden University offers five specialisations in which you will focus on historical processes, historical research, historiography and methodology.

Are you thinking about studying Ancient History? Learn more and watch the introduction video.

Leiden’s Institute for History has an exceptionally strong expertise in premodern European history in its global context, with specialists whose interests cover virtually the whole continent. We have a strong track record in leading larger research teams and work together with colleagues across Europe…

A lively discussion on impact and society

A lively discussion on impact and society.

This book rovides an economic history of Portugal over the course of eight centuries, from 1143 through to 2010 and situates Portugal's economic growth within the context of European development. It also responds to fundamental questions about when, how and why the economy expanded, stagnated or co…

Do you want to know more about Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology and what it is like to study in Leiden? Come to our online or on campus information events.

The master’s programme in Arts and Culture at Leiden University is uniquely positioned at the intersection of Art History and Museum Studies. Informed by leading interdisciplinary research, this degree provides you with a strong academic foundation for a variety of careers in museums, galleries and…

The civilizations of ancient China and Mesoamerica, although not historically related and obviously different in many specific aspects (such as language and writing), show many interesting commonalities and similar tendencies in their cultural manifestations.

When people migrate, they leave an old environment behind and move to a new one. What exactly happens? How do the migrants feel? How does the host society respond to them?

Leiden University was the first university to be established in the Netherlands. William of Orange gave Leiden Academia Lugduno Batava in 1575, it is said in recognition of the city’s courageous resistance against the seige by the Spanish invaders.

Investigation of 1.) The whereabouts of the epistemological dissonances in art criticisms on Post-war contemporary art from Japan between two different language realms, in this case in English and Japanese; and 2.) What the dissonances disclose, disturb, and contribute in the process of the establishment…

This project sets out to map, document and analyze instances of squatting in Leiden from 1970 to 1990, in order to set up an online Digital Archive of Squatting in Leiden. This archive will function as an online resource for academic research, as well as a starting point for public activities such as…

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…

The Colonial and Global History Research Programme of the Leiden University Institute for History combines a deep curiosity of transcultural processes such as imperialism, (de)colonization, and globalization with critical historical research on regional societies in Africa, Asia, and the Americas.

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.

Ethnography and Photography in a Moroccan Berber Village

Are you thinking about studying Colonial and Global History? Learn more and watch the introduction video.

About the history of ProParte and its predecessors.

The Leiden University Institute for History is responsible for the main part of the historical research carried out at Leiden University. The institute has a wide-ranging academic scope.

What are the humanities? As the cluster of disciplines historically grouped together as “humanities” has grown and diversified to include media studies and digital studies alongside philosophy, art history and musicology to name a few, the need to clearly define the field is pertinent.

How to related figures of savages to conceptions of history?

This paper explores the long-term endurance of “breath” as a schema of personhood in the Austronesian-speaking world, from a comparative-ethnographic approach to the “Man with No Breath” figure featured in Philippine epics. This is one of two contributions from Myfel D. Paluga and Andrea Malaya M.…

In this paper, Andrea Malaya M. Ragragio and Myfel D. Paluga recast new light on the historical tattooing of the “Pintados,” or the the name by which the inhabitants of the Visayas Islands (in the central Philippines) were called by Spanish documenters in the sixteenth century. This is one of their…

This ethnographic exploration of anticipation published in the Journal of the Royal Anthropology Institute draws on fieldwork among people with dementia and their families in the Netherlands.

To maximise your personal development, we ensure tutorials are small-scale and staff members extremely accessible. In year one, you’ll have an average of 12 contact hours, half of which comprise lectures (in English) and the remainder tutorials (optionally Dutch or English).

The Flentrop Organ is the third organ to have been built for the Great Auditorium in the Academy Building in Leiden.

This subproject of 'From Homo Economicus to Political Animal' will be on ancient analogues for modern-day “ersatz economics”, the economics of the “man in the street”.

For thousands of years, societies have fallen under the reign of a single leader, ruling as chief, king, or emperor. In this fascinating global history of medieval and early modern dynastic power, Jeroen Duindam charts the rise and fall of dynasties, the rituals of rulership, and the contested presence…

Leiden University's master’s programme in Ancient History is your opportunity to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the history of the Greek and Roman periods, with a focus on the mentality and social and economic history of the period between 400 B.C. and 400 A.D.