Leiden University offers courses about papyri and papyrology for beginners and more advanced students (BA and MA), both based on texts in translation as well as in the original source languages, from Egyptian to Greek, Latin and Arabic.

With support of several publishers and private foundations, Leiden University Libraries (UBL) and the Scaliger Institute welcome around 15 to 20 Fellows and guests per year to consult and research materials from our Special Collections. The Scaliger Institute received applications this year from domestic…

Today’s performances of medieval polyphony have a lot in common with those of other ‘classical’ or ‘early’ music. Ensembles perform pieces written by known or lesser known composers, which the listener can revisit by listening to recordings or reading a score.

Every month a member of the Institute for History tells about a book that inspired him or her. Afterwards, the pen is passed on to another colleague. This month dr. Meike de Goede tells about the book 'Between Tides' by Valentin Mudimbe. The novel, little known beyond the circles of Africanists and…

The overlapping of intergovernmental organizations sharing Member States is one of the key challenges for achieving effective regional integration.

In collaboration with the The Hague Historical Museum and photographer Dagmar van Weeghel, Leiden University Libraries (UBL) is the first to present a retrospective exhibition of the photographic oeuvre of Alexine Tinne (1835 – 1869). New research into her life and work is the reason for a reappraisal…

‘The Survival of Pliny in Padua. The Botanical Renaissance and the Transformation of Classical Scholarship’ in: Transformations of the Classics via Early Modern Commentaries, ed. by K.A.E. Enenkel. Intersections 29 (Leiden/Boston: Brill, forthcoming autumn 2013), pp. 327-62.

The Animated Image addresses the entire range of contexts in which images were described by Roman authors as being animated, as well as the accounts that Roman writers produced to explain the animation of inanimate matter.

Bernini and Pallavicino, the artist and the Jesuit cardinal, are closely related figures at the papal courts of Urban VIII and Alexander VII, at which Bernini was the principal artist. The analysis of Pallavicino's writings offers a new perspective on Bernini's art and artistry and allow us to understand…

Op 2 juni verscheen ter gelegenheid van ‘900 jaar Utrechtse stadsrechten’ een stripboek van het Utrechtse stripcollectief "De Inktpot" over een paar eeuwen middeleeuwse Utrechtse (familie)geschiedenis. Als inhoudelijke adviseurs waren daarbij de mediëvisten Kaj van Vliet en Martine Meuwese betrokken…

This article examines how immigration from Central and Eastern Europe influences political support for Eurosceptic parties.

How De Haan is using language in general and his specific style of language in particular to provide truth, solidarity and justice for both the individual and the collective?

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.

De Pagus Renensis van de 4de tot de 8ste eeuw na Chr.: Een archeologische synthese

The Ancient Worlds Network brings together staff and graduate students in LIAS working on the ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern world.

How did people across Central and Eastern Europe imagine the future during the transitions of the 1980s and 1990s? The umbrella term ‘post-communism’ does not provide an answer to this question. This project explores how writers and cultural theorists saw the potential future of their societies during…

Utrecht University has a vacancy for a professor Middle Dutch literature and culture. Deadline for applications: 6 November 2021.

On the 21st of June, Marieke Meelen succesfully defended her PhD-thesis and graduated. LUCL congratulates Marieke on this great result.

This collection brings into conversation several kinds of scholarship on medieval authorship which have tended to remain separate over the last two to three decades, a period of steadily increasing scholarly interest in this topic.

Blood, Sweat and Tears: The Changing Concepts of Physiology from Antiquity into Early Modern Europe

One of our LUCIS members, Karène Sanchez, has been granted the Internationalisation in the Humanities grant for her project 'Engaging Europe in the Arab World: European missionaries and humanitarianism in the Middle East (1850-1970)'. Sanchez is cooperating with researchers from IEG Mainz and IISMM…

From 16 to 19 September 2021 a hybrid conference will take place on animation in the Middle Ages. This conference is a cooperation between the University of Bergen (Norway) and the A. Zelwerowicz National Academy of Dramatic Art in Warsaw, Branch Campus in Bialystok (Poland).

Although fighting the culture of top-down education and stimulating lecturers’ confidence to adapt courses to local context priorities is no easy job to complete in three years, the “SLEEI inheritance” already has three main components.

On an excavation site in Oegstgeest Leiden University archaeologists discovered a very rare silver bowl from the first half of the seventh century. The bowl is decorated with gold-plated representations of animals and plants and inlaid with semi-precious stones. The discovery suggests the existence…

This book concentrates on the regulation of political parties in the EU post-communist democracies, and on Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Romania, in particular.

The new Middle Eastern Library (MEL) will bring together the UBL's own Middle Eastern collections and the collections of the library of The Netherlands Institute for the Near East (NINO), which has been part of the Leiden University Libraries since 1st January 2018.

It is often claimed—in both scholarly and popular sources—that guide dogs for the blind are a modern innovation. But as this project demonstrates clearly, guide dogs also existed during the medieval period.

You can find an overview of events organized by the Platform for Post-Colonial Readings below.

Over a decade ago the then foreign minister Abdullah Gül awarded me the “Medal of High Distinction” of the Republic of Turkey. I received the award, consisting of a diploma and a gigantic gold medal, during a festive ceremony at the Turkish embassy in The Hague. The reason I was deemed worthy of the…

How is social cognition shaped by our knowledge of language and stories?

Workshop

This dissertation examines how Benedictine monks at the Abbey of Fécamp designed, produced, and read books over the course of the eleventh and twelfth centuries.