The pre-master's is a bridging programme for students who have applied for the MA Philosophy but who, according to the Board of Admissions, still have deficiencies in their educational background. Once you have completed the pre-master’s programme, you will be admitted to the relevant specialization…

Open up a world of opportunities with your master's degree in Archaeology from Leiden University!

When you apply for admission, you’ll be asked to submit several documents.

Explore the MSc Democracy and Representation at Leiden University: examine challenges facing modern democracies—populism, representation, media influence—and enhance your analytical skills.

During your stay at Leiden University it's a great idea to join a student or sports association. It's the perfect way to get to know people quickly and build a network, whilst also being a whole lot of fun.

Open up a world of opportunities with your master's degree in Archaeology from Leiden University!

The pre-master's is a bridging programme for students who have applied for the MA Media Studies, but who, according to the Board of Admissions, still have deficiencies in their educational background. Once you have completed the pre-master’s programme, you will be admitted to the relevant specialization…

The Museums, Collections & Society research programme is led by the Faculty of Humanities and the Faculty of Archaeology and aims to promote collection-based research, stimulate Leiden education in this field, and raise ethical questions regarding the collections’ origins.

Online cursus The Importance and Power of Music in our Society

Associates of Leiden University Center for Intercultural Philosophy

Silk Road Virtual Museum - A virtual museum of the art and culture of the regions that lay on the trade routes between Europe and Asia, popularly known as the ‘Silk Road’.

At Leiden University College (LUC), engagement with society is a core part of our research and teaching.

Leiden University offers ambitious students a world-class environment in which to reach their potential.

The master’s in East Asian Studies, a specialisation within the master's of Asian Studies, combines an exceptional range of courses with advanced language training and outstanding resources and expertise.

Tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians have died as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and the continuing armed conflict. Many forms of critical infrastructure have been destroyed. Much of this devastation has been caused by weapons that utilise forms of artificial intelligence…

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How can saxophone without mouthpiece techniques be accurately and consistently comprehended and explained?

Imagining Urban Complexity introduces passionate and critical perspectives on the link between the humanities and urban studies.

How do documentary moving images and fictional narratives involve and evolve each other?

How did institutions and structures operate throughout the Muslim world from the earliest history of Islam into the early modern period?

Does the sitter have agency in the making of a photographic portrait? And if so how?

Rembrandt painted this Flora, the Roman goddess of spring, in 1635. She is on display above the archway leading from the Academy Building to the lush flora of the University’s Hortus Botanicus. Rembrandt, who had his own cabinet of curiosities, almost certainly knew this botanical garden, the oldest…

How did learned natural historical inquiries into the underwater world develop in eighteenth-century Europe?

This research revolves around the philosophical and linguistic elements that naturally belong to the process of learning music scores, including complex contemporary repertoire distinguished by physically decoupled notations or physical polyphonic notations.

The car we buy is made out of thousands of components, which are produced using different types of materials. These materials need to be sourced from different places, sent to production facilities and assembled. Once the car is dismissed, the components need to be taken care of by either reusing, recycling…

How can the combination of sound composition, astrochemistry, and epistemological analysis provide new and unexpected insights into interstellar chemical reactivity?

In this penetrating self-portrait dating from around 1629, Rembrandt presents himself as an aristocratic young man. He enrolled in Leiden University as a student of the arts in 1620, but whether he actually attended lectures is unknown. In his paintings and prints, he incorporated many topics that are…

This research project analyses the use of different, often competing, stereotypical images of Rome in Humanist Latin Poetry, by considering it as strategic appropriation of the classical heritage.

Through language and culture, history, anthropology, and sociology, we delve into the countries, populations, and societies of South and Southeast Asia. From this perspective, we address global issues such as migration, heritage, and colonialism.

Pressing Matter: Ownership, Value and the Question of Colonial Heritage in Museums is a large-scale research project funded through the Dutch National Research Agenda, and led by Wayne Modest and Susan Legêne (Vrije Universiteit). Work Package 3 on “Value” phrases its main research question as follows:…

Leiden University opened its doors in 1575 – the very first university in the Netherlands. The law faculty was involved from the start and so this year we, too, are celebrating our 450th anniversary. In the course of these 450 years, generations of students and legal scholars have sought to gain knowledge,…

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 both Dutch and international students, a Humanities degree provides a strong foundation for a career that crosses borders.

Graduates in Humanities possess talents that are highly valued in the job market.

The emergence of the Köprülü household that imprinted its stamp on the latter half of the seventeenth century in the Ottoman Empire. What is the power struggle they carried out against Ottoman dynastic power?

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…

In this sub-project a selected number of narrative texts will be examined written in the Eurasian realm in the period 1300-1800, focusing on representations of kingship and royal authority.

The Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL) is an internationally oriented institute for research and education in biology. We are part of the Faculty of Science at Leiden University.

By analysing neglected (continental) spy centres and integrating these groups of female intelligencers into the traditional, male-orientated historical narratives, this project will proceed towards a gendered history of early modern espionage.

The renovation of the Aleida Nijland building (previously Matthias de Vrieshof) is the fourth project in the development of the Humanities Campus. Renovating these buildings will enable the university to provide a sustainable Campus with modern facilities and an attractive educational environment that…

How did dynastic organization – that it, the employment of non-ruling family members and the development of dynastic traditions and concepts – influence state formation in both Catholic Europe and Muslim West-Asia?

We live in a data-drenched society awash with numbers. An inhabitant of the democratic polis of Athens (5th and 4th centuries B.C.E.) increasingly found himself surrounded by numerical data. This project aims to analyze the communicative functions and the political meaning(s) ascribed to these public…

Sharing Collections and Connecting Histories

What categories exist in the languages of pastoralists? Do these semantic concepts reflect universal or languagespecific tendencies? What (environment? culture?) governs the similarities (or the differences) attested crosslinguistically in cattle colour systems?

Alumni play an important part in building bridges between the University and society. Leiden University therefore works to maintain and strengthen the links with its graduates and to develop an informed and committed network of alumni.

Playing the piano with your forearm, plucking the strings, sawing through the piano: pianist Luk Vaes's doctoral dissertation covers all the techniques of play for which a piano is NOT designed. His defence ceremony will consist of three concerts and a public defence. 'Musicians were using the interior…

Since the Middle Passage is in the North Atlantic, and the North Atlantic has a relationship with the arctic, what relationship does the Arctic have with the Middle Passage? How can this relationship be used to provide a space of healing by uncovering Afro/diasporic counter narratives?