Promotor: G.J. Kramer Co-Promotor: E.G.M. Kleijn

Highland Bhutan is facing unprecedented challenges from a combination of climate change, new economic opportunities, and changing cultural aspirations of its residents. Today, what does highland heritage constitute, to who, and how does it matter?

Both on a personal and institutional level, the staff of Leiden CADS collaborates with:

The volume, Heritage Destruction, Human Rights and International Law, co-edited by Grotius Centre, Associate Professor Joe Powderly, and Dr Amy Strecker (Associate Professor, UCD), has been published by Brill/Nijhoff.

On 16 December 2019, Jan-Harm de Villiers defended his thesis 'The Anthropomorphic Hegemony of Subjectivity: Critical Reflections on Law and the Question of the Animal'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. P. Cliteur.

Dr Gül Aktürk Hauser (Assistant Professor, Department of Heritage and Society, Faculty of Archaeology) and Dr Sophie Starrenburg (Assistant Professor, Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies, Leiden Law School) organised a workshop titled ‘An Interdisciplinary Perspective on Heritage Reparations:…

This research proposal focuses on historically informed performance (HIP) and adaptive performance practices within the late 18th-century German musical context.

This programma, an initiative of the Institute for History in partnership with Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) in Yogyakarta. Aims to study more than 20 kilometers of Dutch archival materials in The Netherlands, Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka and South Africa.

Yannis Kyriakides, PhD student at Academy of Creative and Performing Arts , has received the prestigious International Rostrum for Composers award, in the category over 30 years, for his cello, video and electronics piece: Words and Song Without Words.

We are pleased to invite submissions for a conference exploring how heritage and memory practices, alongside the legacies of climate coloniality, shape contemporary understandings and mobilisations of reparations. This event will examine how historical and political dynamics influence reparative justice…

University lecturer Gerlov van Engelenhoven was to be a guest in one podcast by culture maker and anthropologist Yanise Zijlstra on intangible heritage. The collaboration went so well that they are now making a short film together for young people.

Indonesian translation of the book Recollecting Resonances from authors Bart Barendregt and Els Bogaerts.

There is no heritage without emotional sharing and clashing. This article explores the involvement of divergent emotions in heritage making by discussing the debate series of Imagine IC and the Reinwardt Academy and zooming in on the commemoration of slavery and imagery of ‘Black Pete’ in the Netherlands.…

In a significant step toward restoring cultural heritage, PhD candidate Marie Kolbenstetter has played a pivotal role in repatriating a collection of 133 archaeological artefacts from the prestigious Musée du quai Branly in Paris back to their place of origin in southern Honduras. Her efforts underscore…

The master’s specialisation in Applied Archaeology offers you the best start to your professional career in archaeology. This unique specialisation is a collaboration of Leiden University and Saxion University of Applied Sciences.

The Centre for Digital Scholarship of Leiden University Libraries (UBL) and the Leiden Centre for Digital Humanities would like to invite you to the symposium on Tools Criticism on Thursday 21 November, from 10.00-18.00. The symposium will be held in the Vossius room of the University Library at Witte…

On 3 September 2025, more than 30 archaeological objects were returned to Peru, Panama and Costa Rica. The objects come from a private collection belonging to the descendants of physician and amateur archaeologist Dr Hans Feriz. In her will, his daughter stipulated that the objects collected by her…

Between 1600 and 1800 countless manuals appeared on the subject: the improvised bass part on the harpsichord, pianoforte or organ. Musician and researcher Kathryn Cok unravels the secrets of the Dutch basso continuo accompaniment for modern-day musicians.

The Department of Archaeological Heritage and Society focuses on the relationships between past and present, the role of heritage in society, and how heritage conceived broadly can contribute to improving quality of life.

As part of a cooperation agreement between the Stichting Nederlands Institute in Turkije (NIT Foundation) with Koç University in Istanbul, the institute is located within the premises of the Koç University ANAMED Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations, in the central Beyoğlu district of Istanbu…

Grassroots heritage initiatives and community engagement

Professor Ian Lilley, the Faculty of Archaeology’s Willem Willems Chair in Archaeological Heritage, was invited by Her Excellency Mrs. Marion Derckx, Ambassador of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Australia, to present the 2022 commemoration speech for Netherlands Memorial Day on May 4th at the Netherlands-Australia…

A Centre for Global Heritage will be set up at Leiden University, that integrates the unique global breadth and quality of academic expertise at the University and the Leiden Museums with the global infrastructure of practical consultancy expertise built up over the past years by the Centre for International…

HERLING (Research Lab for the Study of Heritage Languages of the Netherlands) is a new centre that aims to bridge the gap between scientific research and language communities.

Pakistani archaeologist Abdul Ghani Khan (MPhil) and Dr Marike van Aerde (Leiden University) have been awarded the Prince Claus Heritage Emergency Grant for the rescue and preservation of ancient rock art in the Karakorum mountain range of the Pakistani Himalayas. The project will run for a year, from…

Dean Prof. Willem J.H. Willems will be travelling to Mongolia in september 2010, as participant of the Mongolian International Heritage Team (MIHT). Prof. Willems is co-president and expert member of ICAHM, the ICOMOS International Committee of Archaeological Heritage Management and will serve as evaluator…

Below you can find lists of Leiden-based and international organizations working on Central Asia, and an overview of useful resources on Central Asia.

A team of Leiden researchers has won the Ammodo Science Award for innovative humanities research on perceptions of cultural heritage.

Nietzsche’s concept of the agon or Wettkampf, a measured and productive form of conflict inspired by ancient Greek culture, has attracted a good deal of interest in Nietzsche studies and beyond. This book, by a leading expert on the topic, brings together research conducted over 20 years with a focus…

This paper, like the seminar on which it is based, considers how the governance of transnational critical information infrastructure (CII) could be approached at the global level. It suggests that when one is thinking about the (potential) governance of CII, it is important to recognise that not all…

Former student of Leiden University professor Louis Andriessen at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague, Cyprus-born ACPA researcher Yannis Kyriakides, currently developing his PhD dissertation under the supervision of Professor Frans de Ruiter and docARTES PhD supervisor/ORCiM research fellow Dr. Bob…

Heritage protection is increasingly understood by nations and other actors as playing a critical intersectoral role in supporting wider development and diplomacy outcomes through soft power and cultural relations.

Play and Media is one of the six research themes of the LUCAS Modern and Contemporary cluster.

Violent conflicts all over the world pose a great threat. Not only to the region’s inhabitants, but also to the cultural heritage in the area. This is the subject of the Europe Lecture in The Hague on 13 June.

Amy Strecker assesses the institutional framework for landscape protection, analyses the interplay between landscape and human rights, and links the etymology and theory of landscape with its articulation in law.

Archaeologist Professor Jan Kolen has been appointed Director of the LDE Center for Global Heritage and Development (CGHD) with effect from 1 July 2013. This new inter-university heritage center is due to start in the autumn of 2013 within the framework of the strategic alliance between Leiden University,…

How has landscape and land use changed in these two case studies since independence? What has caused these changes, whether anthropogenic or natural? How do local communities in the areas of study perceive these changes? How can community knowledge be integrated with mapping tools (GIS) to contribute…

Combining cutting-edge quantitative approaches with more traditional book history approaches, this new book offers the first history of medieval manuscript destruction in England from the medieval period to the present.

Lecture, Book Presentation

This volume provides one of the most comprehensive overviews of the archaeology of a single Caribbean island yet published. Drawing together scholars from the Caribbean, north America and Europe, all working from a range of disciplines within the broader scope of archaeology, and drawing upon recent…