Ron Sela, Associate Professor of Central Asian History in the Department of Central Eurasian Studies at Indiana University – Bloomington, will be the Central Asia Visiting Professor from 19 until 25 May 2017. Ron Sela will deliver a guest lecture and a master class within the Central Asia Initiative…

After two years, it was great to be back in Brussels again. Many thanks to all alumni and students who were present during the academic discussion on the values and the future of the EU, followed by networking drinks.

In terms of the breadth of their vocabulary, many Dutch rappers can easily match leading authors. This is the surprising conclusion drawn by language researcher Alex Reuneker on the basis of comparative research. Rapper Brainpower and author Ilja Leonard Pfeiffer will debate this issue on 16 September…

How does language work and how do we learn a language? The more we know about language, the better we can understand how people interpret the world in words. Roberta D'Alessandro carries out research on the architecture of language. There is now a dossier about her work online.

What actually goes into the development of a massive open online course, a MOOC? University lecturer Tijmen Pronk developed the course 'Introduction to Comparative Linguistics of Indo-European Languages' independently. He talks about his motivation and experiences.

Dr Jenny Doetjes was appointed Professor of Semantics and Language Variation in February. During her professorship Dr. Doetjes wishes to focus on charting linguistic patterns between languages that, at first glance, seem to have little to do with each other.

Four projects led by the Faculty of Humanities have been awarded KIEM grants. The researchers will receive €10,000 to carry out their plans.

The next Conference on Multilingualism 2019 (COM2019) will be hosted by LUCL from September 1st until September 3rd 2019.

Professor Roberta D’Alessandro, Chair of Italian Language and Culture at the Leiden University, has been awarded one of Italy’s highest honors: she is now a Knight of the Order of the Star of Italy (Cavaliere dell'Ordine della Stella d'Italia). D’Alessandro was presented with the honor on June 2, the…

The MA Linguistic’s specialization in Translation has now been admitted to the prestigious European Masters in Translation (EMT) Network.

The concepts of good and evil are expressed, from a lexical point of view, in different ways in different Germanic languages and at the same time they are declined in different forms depending on linguistic and literary traditions. Moving from theoretical backgrounds, we encourage…

Jiang Wu receives an NWO scholarship for his PhD project

‘A Muslim and a Jew in the house of God.’ This is how historian Nadia Bouras introduced her recent conversation with colleague Sara Polak in Leiden’s Hooglandse Kerk. They discussed the rising tensions since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war. ‘Dare to ask each other questions.’

Bert Koenders, Professor Peace, Justice and Security at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs (ISGA) appeared live on the ‘BNR de Wereld’ special broadcast ‘De Grote Vredesshow’ (The Great Peace Show). The radio show was hosted live from Wijnhaven in collaboration with the Faculty Governance…

The Board of Governors of Leiden University has confirmed the appointment of Professor André Gerrits (Institute for History, currently in the field of Russian Politics and History) to the field of International Studies and Global Politics, commencing October 1st 2015.

Friday 25 September, 2015 marks the official launch of Leiden University's Central and East European Studies (CEES) Center.

Our courses September courses start soon, be sure to apply in time

According to research conducted by regional Dutch newspaper ‘BN DeStem’, emigration to Russia certainly isn’t off the cards for some Dutch people. Information sessions are being held for anyone interested in emigrating to these countries. Is it acceptable for civil servants to get involved in these…

The Joint Investigation Team (JIT) which is carrying out the investigation into the MH17 disaster has identified four suspects who have been brought in connection with bringing down the aircraft. The four are to be prosecuted and as a result have been placed on international wanted lists.

Willemijn Aerdts, lecturer at ISGA discusses the warning issued by the MIVD (Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service) to put away your phone when discussing sensitive or private matters.

Viktorija Kostadinova, from Macedonia and currently a second-year PhD student at the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics, has just returned after two and a half months at the University of Michigan: ‘It was a truly rewarding experience.’

Whispp, a Leiden-based speech technology start-up, is developing an app to help people who stutter express themselves more freely. Among those working together with Joris Castermans and his team at Whispp, are researchers and students from the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL).

A ‘world class institute’ with a ‘vibrant atmosphere’, doing research on a continent that is ‘becoming increasingly important’. That is how Annetje Ottow, president of Leiden University’s Executive Board, described the African Studies Centre Leiden (ASCL) on its 75th anniversary celebration on 8 September…

Students from the Coornhert Lyceum from Haarlem visited the Babylab Leiden together with their teacher Roos Bannenberg. The 5-VWO students follow modules of 10 weeks for science orientation and they had difficulty imagining what research with babies looks like. The Babylab Leiden gave a solution.

Male scientists owe their position to their brilliance, women to their hard work. Or do they? The Equalista app helps staff and students at the Faculty of Humanities to become aware of gender equality.

Conference

Lecture

Alumnus Ben Smulders has worked for the European Commission for the past 33 years. ‘The discipline and depth that I experienced during my student days has helped me through various stages of my professional career.’

The European Union increasingly needs to respond to unforeseen events and developments. This is putting it to the test. What are the effects? Professor of Foundations and Practice of the European Union Luuk van Middelaar addressed this in his inaugural lecture on 23 September.

As a twelve-year-old girl, Nicky van de Beek became intrigued by the tomb chapels in Saqqara, Egypt. Now she is doing her PhD on them, just like another Leiden Egyptologist decades earlier. Herta Mohr persevered with her research during World War II. Now she is the namesake of the first Leiden building…

People can be easily mislead with graphs. But they don’t necessarily stay misled, the research shows.

Today Mikhail Khordorkovsky visits the Leiden University Campus of The Hague to debate with students about the future of Russia. It is the first time this critic of Putin and former captain of industry visits the Netherlands. This event has been organised by the organisation Raam op Rusland and the…

Alumni event

Alumni event

Alumni event

Alumni event

Turkish and Syrian students met Rector Magnificus Hester Bijl to discuss how the university can support students who have been affected by the earthquake.

At Leiden University College, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer urged Europe to show unity and strength in a world defined by fear, power politics, and uncertainty.

Fijs van Leeuwen, Professor of Radiology, Molecular Imaging and Image-Guided Therapy, advocates an open and respectful academic culture that always puts the patient first. He delivered his inaugural lecture on 13 November.

Professor Jenny Doetjes at Leiden University researches similarities and differences in languages, specifically in the area of numerals and quantifiers. Her research provides insight into language patterns, bu also in the working of the human brain. Inaugural lecture on 26 January.

Leiden is to have a new language museum in 2015, a public institute focusing on language in all its facets and where science and social developments come together for a broad public. It won't be in a building, but at different places in the city. Dynamic, contemporary, flexible and affordable. The details…

5 talented Leiden humanities scholars have received a Vidi research subsidy of 800.000 euros to set up or expand their own line of research.

The bachelor programmes German Language and Culture, Classics, Dutch Language and Culture, Ancient Near Eastern Studies, Religious studies and Linguistics have received the predicate top rated programme from the Keuzegids.

Translating ancient texts, filling in missing parts of clay tablets: articles are popping up more and more often about the possibilities offered by artificial intelligence for researching documents in the oldest scripts. Are we better off leaving the deciphering of ancient texts to computers from now…

Two Leiden University science communication projects have been awarded a WECOM grant through the Dutch Research Agenda (NWA). One project is a study of the history of the deaf community in the Netherlands and the other is of a condition that causes people to lose their way.

Yliana Rodríguez was in the middle of a second fieldtrip in the Falklands researching Spanish-English language contact, when global lockdown measures were announced. Sit back, relax and enjoy reading about Yliana's research into a unique speech community.

To properly understand how babies absorb a language we need to study the process from a number of different perspectives, linguist Claartje Levelt argues. She accepts her appointment as Professor of Language Acquisition on 27 March with an inaugural lecture entitled ‘Language in its infancy’.

During the next three years, 6 promising researchers from the Faculty of Humanities who have just been awarded their PhDs will be able to further develop their research ideas funded by a Veni grant from the NWO. A total of 147 Veni grants were awarded of which 14 went to researchers at Leiden Univer…

Novel language learning activates different neural processes than was previously thought. A Leiden research team has discovered parallel but separate contributions from the hippocampus and Broca's area, the learning centre in the left hemisphere. The right hemisphere of the brain also seems to play…

How do you write a job advertisement that appeals to both men and women? This question is particularly pressing in French, where every noun has a clearly visible grammatical gender. University researcher Benjamin Storme investigated how employers can best deal with this issue.