Remembrance Day on 4 May may be different this year, but it will make no less of an impression. Ethan Mark, who specialises in modern Japanese history, will give an online lecture about forgotten stories from the Second World War. Via Open Jewish Homes, moving stories can be heard online of Jewish alumni.…

Josephus Justus Scaliger was one of the most famous scholars of his time and yet today his name is likely to be met with blank looks. His correspondence shows that this Leiden professor was also irritable to say the least. Kasper van Ommen will defend his PhD thesis on Scaliger’s legacy on 2 July. Find…

Lecture, Special Topics in Dialectology (2023)

On 19 July Erik-Jan Zürcher, professor of Turkish languages and cultures, made a TV appearance in Nieuwsuur to talk about the actions Erdogan took after the failed coup.

On 10 May 1940, the Netherlands was taken completely by surprise by the attack of the German army. Wasn’t it? In his dissertation, Wouter Linmans debunks the idea that the Second World War took the Netherlands by surprise. ‘From 1935 onwards, all major political parties wanted to invest in the military.’…

In the 18th century, the French colonial empire teemed with protectionist laws. Nevertheless, businessmen from the Republic played an important role in the French economy, and thus in the colonial system. PhD student Tessa de Boer explored how this came about.

Leonard Blussé, emeritus Professor in the History of European and Asian relations, will receive the prestigious Japanese Academic Fukuoka Prize. Blussé receives the prize for creating a new academic field: 'The Maritime History of early modern East/Southeast Asia'. He will receive the Prize in September…

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…

The Dutch universities are shocked by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and empathise with all those affected by this act of aggression. Leiden University also calls for solidarity with and support for all those affected by the war.

From BBC film shootings to a video of snowy Leiden and from bikes in the canal to our birthday, the Dies Natalis. This was our year in 12 Facebook posts!

Pavel Durov, CEO of chat and messaging app Telegram, was arrested in France last week. The Russian tech billionaire flew into Paris by private jet and was arrested on suspicion of cybercrimes. Telegram allegedly facilitates criminal activities such as money laundering. This raises the question of how…

Using enslaved people as servants, becoming an administrator in the Dutch West India Company or making uniforms for the colonial army. Many people from Leiden played a role in colonialism and slavery. Historians are conducting preliminary research and finding striking examples.

Curiosities from the anatomical theatre, swords from the fencing school and 17th-century portraits of the University's founders. The new University Room in Museum De Lakenhal portrays the turbulent first hundred years of Leiden University.

Before founding their American colony, the Pilgrim Fathers first lived in Leiden in the early 17th century. This group has no fewer than nine American presidents among its descendants. The University played an important role in the Pilgrims’ life in Leiden.

Professor of Korean Studies Remco Breuker has been awarded a subsidy from the European Research Council to study the dispute between both Koreas and China on the history of Manchuria.

Promovendus Tristan Mostert onderzocht de ‘kruidnageljacht’ op de Ambonse eilanden en ontdekte dat VOC-gouverneurs extreme tactieken gebruikten.

Dr. Henk Schulte Nordholt, working at KITLV and LIAS, has been appointed extraordinary professor of Indonesian history for a five-year period.

It all started with demonstrations protesting about the death of George Floyd from police brutality in Minneapolis, but the Black Lives Matter protest is spreading like wildfire across the whole of the US. Every day, thousands of people are taking to the streets. We asked American Studies expert Sara…

Leiden Professor of Maths Frans van Schooten Jnr. (1615-1660) and his wife Margrieta were painted by Rembrandt. This is the claim made by mathematician and art historian Johan Zwakenberg in his recently published article in the 2018 Leiden Yearbook. Leiden art historians are not completely convinced…

Meike de Goede has received a research grant of €14,600 from the Gerda Henkel Foundation for her research on the post-colonial silencing of anti-colonial resistance in Congo-Brazzaville.

Spying in the seventeenth century was a man’s job. That had been the prevailing impression, until the Veni research by Nadine Akkerman from Leiden University...

Charles Darwin received an Honorary Doctorate from Leiden University on 9 February 1875. What traces did he leave behind in Leiden?

On Saturday 25 June, the Europa Institute of Leiden University hosted the 61st Leiden-London Meeting, an annual event organized jointly by the Europa Institute and the British Institute of International and Comparative Law (BIICL). This year’s meeting had “Interdependence, cooperation and strategic…

Prof. André Gerrits and dr. Max Bader have been awarded a grant by the WOTRO Science for Global Development of NWO for their project 'Human Security and Conflict in Ukraine: Local Approaches and Transnational Dimensions'.

At the age of 16, Alisa Lavrenchenko fled to the Netherlands with her mother. She is now taking a Master’s in Russian and Eurasian Studies at Leiden University. For her support of Ukrainian refugees, she has earned a nomination for the UAF Award for refugees and their professional and academic achie…

These are trying times for Ukraine. The armed conflicts with Russia in Donbass and Crimea have still not come to an end after starting in 2014. Ukranian minister of Foreign Affairs Pavlo Klymkin came to The Hague on February 2nd to discuss these current issues with Leiden students. ‘Ukranians will always…

Interested in Area Studies? Then Leiden is the place to be! Join our Online Area Studies Week from 2-5 June to find out more. From Africa to Brasil and from Korea to Russia, Leiden covers all areas and fields, both in language, literature, history, politics and socio-economics. Join our live Q&As!

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán addressed the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Texas last week. University lecturer Andrew Gawthorpe explains in an interview with ABC Radio what the embrace of 'Orbánism' means for the American right, and democracy more broadly.

It is undeniable that the public is central to the practice and study of public diplomacy. Indeed, this field is known as *public* diplomacy.

Lecture, Lectures in Historical Linguistics and Philology

The decolonisation war in Indonesia was violent partly because the Dutch military operated on the conviction that ‘an uprising had to be forcibly suppressed.’ This what historian Christiaan Harinck from the KITLV discovered in his PhD research.

For too long the Dutch collective memory has judged the Jewish Council too harshly. This perspective needs to be adjusted, Bart van der Boom argues in his new book ‘De politiek van het kleinste kwaad’ (lit. ‘The Politics of the Lesser Evil’).

Fourteen women professors are to be given a place in the classic portrait gallery in Leiden University’s Senate Chamber. The portraits will be unveiled on 8 March – International Women’s Day – by former Minister of Education, Culture and Science Jet Bussemaker and Rector Magnificus Carel Stolker.

Lecture, INVISIHIST Masterclass

In the summer of 2015 the former Finnish foreign minister Erkki Tuomioja, together with a group of Finnish historians, took an important initiative and established the organization Historians Without Borders (HWB).

Geert-Jan Janse has always been fascinated by the way objects can bring the past closer. On 16 November, he will present a Museum Talk about his work as the director of the Vereniging Rembrandt (Rembrandt Association).

During the week of 27 June - 2 July, the Institute of History was host to the first SHAFR Graduate Summer Institute held outside of the United States. The theme of the Institute was Culture, Propaganda and Intelligence in Cold War History.

Lecture, Workshop

Conference