Arts and culture, Talk + Gaming Workshop

In early modern England, courts of law were working overtime. University lecturer Lotte Fikkers delved into the records of centuries-old court cases involving women. In Early Modern Women's Life-Writing and English Law, she reconstructs how the story they told in court differs from the one they wrote…

On 2 December, the Municipality of Leiden will apologise for the role previous administrations played in colonialism and slavery. A further study will be carried out.

Researchers have used AI to reconstruct the rules of a board game carved into a stone found in the Dutch city of Heerlen. The team concludes that this type of game was played several centuries earlier than previously assumed.

The Executive Board of Leiden University has appointed Dr Alicia Schrikker as Professor History of The Netherlands in the world, effective 1 January 2026. The chair is based at the Institute for History at the Faculty of Humanities.

Synthesis and application of chemical biology tools to study immunomodulatory signaling lipids.

The research described in this thesis centered on retaining exo-β-glucosidases implicated in health and disease, in particular the human inherited lysosomal storage disorder, Gaucher disease (GD).

This dissertation combines the use of defined microenvironments, high-resolution fluorescence microscopy, and time-resolved analysis, to study intracellular and cellular motility.

The ideas underlying this thesis are that lipidomics may improve the diagnosis of liver metabolic diseases, and can provide further insights into the underlying pathophysiology of these diseases.

AI has huge societal and economic potential and is widely used. But it also brings challenges: how do we combine human values with AI, how do we make AI more transparent and understandable, and what can AI and human cognition learn from each other, for example about language learning?

The LUCDH foster the development of new digital research by awarding a number of Small Grants each year. COIn Grants support Infrastructure development. We congratulate our four successful awardees for 2026.

Lecture

At a time when statues of figures from history have an uncertain future Valika Smeulders has just become Head of History at Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum. What changes does she want to make? And how does she look back on her Languages and Cultures of Latin America degree programme in Leiden?

An exhibition at Oude UB takes visitors to the historical Silk Road. Old maps, clothes and jewellery reflect the rich heritage of the cities of Central Asia and their inhabitants.

Starting April 2026, Niels van Willigen will join the Institute of Political Science at Leiden University’s Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences as Professor by Special Appointment in Strategic Studies. This appointment was made possible by the Atlantische Commissie, which established this chair…

As Lila Abu Lughod pointed out in 1989, North Africa has been one of the geographical ‘zones of prestige’ for the development of canonical approaches and crucial theoretical debates regarding the comparative study of Islam.

The Laboratory for Human Osteoarchaeology specialises in the macroscopic and microscopic analysis of human remains. We use cutting edge scientific approaches to address archaeological, historical, and anthropological research questions. In addition to paleopathological, histological, and 3D scanning…

Perception of material culture, design and digital knowledge applications

This thesis surveys the intersection of computed tomography (CT) and machine learning (ML), treating CT as an ill-posed inverse problem shaped by object properties, imaging physics, and data limitations.

Museum Temporalities analyzes how museums relate to time. It explores the hidden temporal assumptions and practices that define museums. How might these assumptions help us to better understand and address museums’ often problematic and painful relationship to the colonial past?

The unique geographic and temporal breadth of research at Leiden allows us to stimulate a shift from the classical Weberian mode of scholarly production that views historical development and modernization as emanating from Europe and the West to a multi-polar perspective that allows for more nuanced,…

The excavation of three Bronze Age barrows and surrounding landscape at Apeldoorn-Wieselseweg

Essays dedicated to Frans Wiggermann

This research examines how right-wing extremist parents perceive and discuss their role in the ideological socialisation of their children.

The research aims to understand how did Cuban and Dominican landscape encapsulate historical conceptual transformations about human –nature spiritual interaction after the Spanish conquest? More specifically, what are the present day cultural associations with Cuban and Dominican natural landscape?…

Maps play a crucial role in our view of the past, yet few historians are sufficiently skilled in cartography to genuinely integrate maps into their research. This project breaks down the long-standing barriers between history and cartography by inviting emerging scholars (ResMA) to reflect on maps as…

Examine and experience the material features and characteristic appearances of medieval manuscripts, annotated books, prints, drawings, photographic albums and much more, in various settings.

The research provides insight into disease behavior in both rural and semi-urban areas in Serengeti in Tanzania.

This proposal aims at the construction of a comprehensive and authoritative scientific grammar for Dutch and Frisian in the form of a virtual language institute: het Taalportaal/the Language Portal.

The Leiden University Graduate School of Archaeology (GSA) coordinates the admission and registration procedures of all PhD candidates with a PhD graduation planned at the Faculty of Archaeology. The GSA monitors the whole PhD track, from admission to graduation, supports (financially) both PhD ‘bottom…

Proceedings of the XVII UISPP World Congress (1–7 September, Burgos, Spain). Volume 7/Sessions A4b and A12

The focus of this programme is the inter-community social relationships and transformations of island networks in the Lesser Antilles across the historical divide.

As a former (PhD) student of the Faculty of Archaeology, your relationship with the Faculty doesn’t end when you graduate. You will join an international community of Archaeology Alumni, working in a wide range of careers including academia, commercial archaeology, heritage policy, museums, the media,…

This book presents an in-depth grammatical description of Kumzari, a mixed language spoken in remote villages on the Musandam Peninsula in northern Oman.

The 11th edition of Leiden Museum Night will take place on Saturday 18 May 2019. Nine museums will once again be opening their doors. As it is Leiden University’s 444th anniversary this year, we will be celebrating in style at the Academic Historical Museum.

For three millennia, carved sculptures were ubiquitous among ancient peoples in the Americas. Sculpted in stone, metal or wood, they developed into the well-known totem poles, colossal Olmec heads, royal Maya stelae and golden Inca statues.

Practical applications for the reconstruction of the past

Since the emergence of humankind people have maintained social contacts and traveled widely, establishing interaction networks in which goods are traded and ideas are transmitted, increasingly on a global scale.