A new academic year means new courses. And that inevitably requires all sorts of new skills: academic writing, searching for sources, setting up a research project... The Science Skills Platform is packed with useful information. This way, you can easily help your students on their way.

A group of eighty humanities students visited the European Commission and the Permanent Representation of the Netherlands to the EU. This work visit was organized by Career Service Humanities.

Indigenous philosophies have been ignored for too long. This prompted Osiris González Romero to study the wisdom of the Nahua in Mexico. Their philosophy has an important message for the consumption society: see the earth and nature as living beings and not just as resources. PhD defence 22 June.

This variation on Hamlet’s ‘to be or not to be’ is exercising the emotions of the academic world in the Netherlands. Leiden's Vice-Rector, professors and students explain their viewpoints in the alumni magazine Leidraad.

Amid the many traditions of Leiden’s 3 October Festival, a relative newcomer is beginning to take hold: the Science Market. At market stalls, the people of Leiden could explore or even participate in Leiden’s research – performing an ‘operation’ in the street, for example.

Since April 2017 the LUCDH team has received reinforcement in the shape of two brand-new Phd candidates. They will be working on existing projects set up by Victoria Nyst and Sjef Barbiers. I have the pleasure of introducing them here.

Patients with incurable cancer want their oncologist to be clear but to show empathy too. They find hard and vague communication harmful. These are the results of a study by psychologists from Leiden that has been published in the American journal Cancer.

The most important group of medieval manuscripts from the Special Collections of the University Libraries of Leiden (UBL), the Codices Vossiani Latini, is now available in open access via the Digital Collections. The 324 Latin manuscripts copied in medieval Europe, along with 48 post-medieval manuscripts,…

How do you engage students in times of corona? Sara Brandellero, co-chair of the study programmes for Latin American studies, created assignments that require a wide-ranging set of skills. And the results were beautiful.

During the ‘Hour of Remembrance’ on 4 May, the University community remembers its students and staff who were killed in the Second World War. It also looks at freedom and oppression today. Three questions for Sara Polak, chair of the Hour of Remembrance committee.

In the midterm elections in the United States on 6 November, the Democrats won the majority in the House of Representatives, thus regaining control of the House over the Republicans. But the Republicans expanded their majority in the Senate. Three of our researchers, experts on US politics, share their…

What is freedom worth in times of hunger? ‘Beleg’ is a modern interpretation of Lucretia van Merken’s 1774 play. With five performances in Leiden’s Schouwburg theatre, the play is a prominent part of the Relief of Leiden celebrations, and Leiden alumni are playing a big role. Take a look behind the…

Learning about the newest communication technology in China and solving a business case at telecom giant Huawei. Four Leiden science students get to know China's Silicon Valley.

Alumnus Rennie Roos lives and works in Indonesia. What took him there, what does he do there and what inspires him?

For a lot of students, the covid crisis means that a sense of community is hard to find during their studies. Lettie Dorst, university lecturer of translation studies and English linguistics, explains how she tries to create a 'community of learners’.

Since 2017 guest researcher Gerrit de Wit has been working together with Congolese linguists and the Boa community to develop the oral Boa language into a written one. He tells us about 2 unique projects, which are steadily unearthing and describing the structure of a new language.

In the Netherlands, people probably grew up with De Fabeltjeskrant (a children’s show, ed.), but in France an introduction to fables plays a much more important role in a child's upbringing. PhD candidate Céline Zaepffel studied the role of fables in French education and teaching methods. It turns out…

How can chimpanzees, so closely related to humans, have almost no sense of rhythm? ‘The best students ever’ and behavioural biologist Michelle Spierings demonstrated that chimps can actually drum and move rhythmically—each following their own unique beat.

Everyone has heard arguments like this before as a child: ‘Whether you like it or not, you have to go to school!’ It seems as though you are presented with two options, but there is only one real outcome. Charlotte van der Voort of the MA Dutch Studies won the Leiden University Thesis Prize on her research…

Master student Encyclopedie en filosofie van het recht Marlotte Roldaan vertrok in januari 2024 voor vijf maanden naar de Verenigde Staten om daar in San Francisco te gaan studeren. Haar advies voor mensen die twijfelen: ‘Gooi jezelf in het diepe’.

Three enormous maps of China, created during the reign of three different emperors of the Qing dynasty, have now been made available in open access and are downloadable via Leiden University Libraries’ (UBL) Digital Collections. The rich maps are an early example of academic collaboration between the…

It was busy at the Bachelor's Open Day of Leiden University. Over 7,000 prospective students had come to take a look at Leiden. What did they expect of their chosen programme? Would they join a student association? Would they move out of home? Feedback from five prospective students.

The 10th edition of the World Congress of African Linguists (WOCAL), hosted by Leiden University, will be held online from 7 – 12 June. Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL) researchers give us an insight into how important and special this event actually is.

In the research for her upcoming book, Elizabeth Stuart: Queen of Hearts, author and academic Nadine Akkerman stumbled upon a little-known portrait of Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia and grandmother of King George I, which she believes would have been considered treasonous at the time it was pain…

Learning to cycle without a handbrake, saying sorry if you're late for a lecture and fathoming out the weird sounds of Dutch. Leiden's new international students get a crash course in Dutch culture during their introduction week.

Nadine Akkerman has received a subsidy of two million euros from the European Research Council (ERC) for research into 16th and 17th century English manuscripts. Akkerman: ‘Working with handwritten texts and unravelling their mysteries is one of my passions, and it’s especially rewarding when this work…

Historical linguist Lauren Fonteyn is awarded a substantial Digital Infrastructure grant as well as being selected as member of the prestigious Young Academy Leiden (YAL).

Leiden University and the Roosevelt Institute for American Studies (RIAS) in Middelburg, previously the Roosevelt Study Center, will sign an agreement on 16 December 2017 confirming a strategic partnership.

Joost van den Vondel is considered to be the greatest Dutch poet and playwright of his time, but he certainly wasn’t the most popular. The 17th- and 18th-century public preferred to watch ‘Spanish theatre’. University lecturer Olga van Marion has written a book about this, together with Frans Blom (University…

Researchers Karène Sanchez and Sary Zananiri tell us about their research project CrossRoads, which investigates Christian communities during British Mandate Palestine (1918-1948) through cultural and linguistic lenses. The project was awarded a VIDI grant by NWO in 2017.

The theme for this year’s Week of the Classics (19 to 27 March) is war in Classical Antiquity. Leiden Classics scholars are organising various activities, including the popular Know-Your-Classics Pub Quiz.

Sometimes student life merges rather smoothly into a working adult life. This is the case for Boris Kowalski. At International Studies, he chose Russian as his language and Eurasia as his region of specialisation, he obtained his Master’s degree at Oxford in Russian and Eurasian studies, ended up in…

Speakers from all over the world offered their interesting views on the relationship between humans and animals during the LUCAS Graduate Conference, based around the central theme ‘Animals: Theory, Practice, and Representation’.

Daniël Vredenberg did his master’s internship at the communications department of the Rijksvastgoedbedrijf. In this interview, he talks about his internship and the difference between actually working at an organisation, as he is currently doing, and doing an internship.

Four lecturers from Leiden University will receive a 50,000-euro Comenius Teaching Fellow grant. This will enable them and their team to realise an educational innovation within their own teaching.

'Consider languages in their shared context.' That is the message of Professor and Arabist Beatrice Gründler, who will receive an honorary doctorate from Leiden University on 8 February. ‘I would like people to learn that Arabic history has a close connection with Europe.’

The Netherlands and Morocco: relations between the two countries go back a long way. Assistant professor Nadia Bouras is researching these relations. Of Moroccan migrant workers, she says, 'In the seventies the predominant idea was that everyone had the right to their own culture and religion. That's…

Presentations, city tours, themed cafés and information fairs − there was plenty to discover on the Bachelor’s Open Day last Saturday. Around 6,000 prospective students and 4,000 parents visited faculties in Leiden and The Hague to soak up the atmosphere and imagine how it would be to study at Leiden…

With his dance routine and YouTube clips, he even manages to make grammar fun. His infectious enthusiasm and innovative teaching methods have won Thijs Porck, a lecturer in Old and Middle English, a nomination for the LUS Teaching Prize.

Assistant Professor Anna Dlabacova has been awarded a Starting Grant by the European Research Council. She will use this grant of around 1.5 million euros to conduct research on the Dutch vernacular ‘book of hours’.

In many Central and Eastern European countries, a period of greater openness emerged in the late 1980s. How did this affect the future perspective of residents? And can we learn anything from this period for our current times? University lecturer Dorine Schellens delves into the literature to investigate…

Mayor Peter Heijkoop is busy getting to know his city better. On Monday 7 July, he visited the Faculty of Humanities. ‘A few hours and you can see how important this is.’

Professor of Sociohistorical Linguistics Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade was appointed Knight in the Order of the Lion of the Netherlands on 11 September in her home city of The Hague. Deputy Mayor Bert van Alphen presented her with the decoration.

Every year diplomatic representatives of Latin American countries, researchers and students come together during a conference of the GRULAC region group. This year different researchers talked about their work during a visit to the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs in The Hague.

After a long night of partying, hundreds of people head to Leiden’s Van der Werfpark early on 3 October for a good singsong. Lecturer in Dutch literature Olga van Marion helped compile the new songbook for the occasion. Which songs were left out and which new hits have taken their place?

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