Three years ago, Associate Professor Alicia Schrikker published 'De vlinders van Boven-Digoel', in which she chronicled several stories about colonial life in present-day Indonesia. Now there is a translation, by Rianti Manullang, who is also an assistant professor at Universitas Indonesia and doing…

When you choose to study the Assyriology Research MA, you will both be guided through the broadness of Assyriological sub-disciplines, as well as gradually led to develop your own specific research skills.

Historians recently started preliminary research on Leiden University’s role in colonialism and historical slavery. Our knowledge about this is too limited and fragmented. They are looking with fresh eyes at Leiden’s archives and collections. An interview with historians Alicia Schrikker and Ligia G…

Why did 'character', 'habit', and 'virtue' serve as key terms in late 19th and early 20th-century scholarly correspondences, biographies, and obituaries? Why did scholars around 1900 display so much interest in the working habits and character traits of what they called the 'scholarly self'?

For hundreds of years, the island of Sri Lanka was a crucial stopover for people and goods in the Indian Ocean. For the Dutch East India Company, it was also a crossroads in the Indian Ocean slave trade. Slavery was present in multiple forms in Sri Lanka—then Ceylon—when the British conquered the island…

Gert Oostindie, Professor of Colonial and Postcolonial History, has been made an Officer in the Order of Orange-Nassau. He was awarded the royal honour by Leiden mayor Henri Lenferink after giving his valedictory lecture, ‘The future of the colonial past’, in the Academy Building of Leiden University…

Better discussions and policy on migration, grounded in academic research and expertise.

Het College van Bestuur laat door een postdoc een eenjarig vooronderzoek doen naar het koloniale en slavernijverleden van de Universiteit Leiden.

On 1 October 2019 the Hazelhoff Centre for Financial law hosted its 19th guest lecture starring Paul Sharma, managing director at Alvarez & Marsal and co-head of the European Financial Industry Regulatory Advisory Services practices.

This is an Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility project of the Faculty of Humanities with the Anton de Kom University in Paramaribo.

The interdisciplinary minor American Studies offers a survey of U.S. history, literature and culture from the establishment of the first colonies on the North American continent in the 15th century to the present.

The Surinamese-Dutch language, Parbo Beer and, of course, football. The ‘Dear Aunt Olga’ (‘Lieve tante Olga’) exhibition focuses on the shared Surinamese-Dutch culture. Full of cheer and with life experience to spare, ‘icon’ Aunt Olga (95) leads visitors through a shared history and does not shy away…

This edited volume by Jeff Fynn-Paul pushes forward the debate on the role of entrepreneurs in making war and building states in Europe and the Ottoman Empire.

Nietzsche's most famous and infamous book Thus Spoke Zarathustra is perhaps the most read, but probably also the least understood, book in Nietzsche's oeuvre. Nietzsche considered it his highlight. He called it a symphony, a holy book, a fifth gospel and even the greatest gift ever given to humanity.…

Leiden University contributed to colonialism and slavery through its research and teaching. And governors and residents of Leiden had an active role in colonial networks. These are the findings of two explorative studies presented on 3 April.

What do scholars do when they talk about virtues (impartiality, accuracy) or vices (dogmatism, prejudice)?

Global Interactions sponsors a number of research projects of Leiden University researchers.

Our research focuses on a number of subthemes, such as the history of collecting, the agency of museum collections, the ethics of collecting (including legal aspects), and the integration of humanities and technical research in exploring the collections.

Decent work involves opportunities for work that delivers a fair income, care for occupational health and safety, freedom for people to organize and equality of opportunity and treatment for all women and men. The Labour Law department at Leiden University conducts research and provides education on…

With knowledge of heritage we understand identity and appreciate diversity.

Our team is committed to the study of knowledge in its broadest sense, encompassing both ideas and practices in all its historical variety. We look at what people regarded as knowledge, how they created, collected, circulated and used it, also why it mattered to them, and how all this was embedded in…

Why does the history of dogmatism deserve our attention? This open access book analyses uses of the term, following dogmatism from Victorian Britain to Cold War America, examining why it came to be regarded as a vice, and how understandings of its meaning have evolved.

Much research into the colonial past of scientific institutions stops as soon as a colony gains independence. In two new projects, university lecturer Anne-Isabelle Richard focuses on the decolonisation period. How did universities deal with the changed reality?

Lecture, Global Histories of Knowledge Seminar

The Global Abolitionisms Network, established in 2015, is an international network of scholars working on antislavery activism and abolitionism. It is affiliated to the Leiden Slavery Studies Association.

A selection of news from Leiden University.

Team Dutch and Colonial History

Central to Nuranisa’s PhD project is the cultural diplomacy practiced by the Javanese courts of central Java (Surakarta, Yogyakarta, Pakualaman and Mangkunegaran) in response to the increasing Dutch colonial power in the 19th and early 20th century.

A portrait of the complex historical process of over 500 years of European colonialism in the New World.

The Tatiana Afanassjewa-lecture series was a series of public talks in Dutch that was started during the Covid-19 lockdown. The talks were given by Leiden physicists on wednesday evenings, intended for everyone with an interest in physics.

On 23 oktober 2018, Elsemieke Daalder defended her doctoral thesis 'De rechtspraakverzamelingen van Julius Paulus'. The doctoral research was supervised by prof. mr. W.J. Zwalve and Prof. mr. E. Koops.

This volume examines how the history of the humanities might be written through the prism of scholarly personae, understood as time- and place-specific models of being a scholar.

A Spanish translation of Herman Paul’s 'Key Issues in Historical Theory' has appeared under the title 'La llamada del pasado: claves de la teoría de la historia'.

This book offers a clear and accessible exposition of Hayden White’s thought. In an engaging and wide-ranging analysis, Herman Paul discusses White’s core ideas and traces the development of these ideas from the mid-1950s to the present.

What are the humanities? As the cluster of disciplines historically grouped together as “humanities” has grown and diversified to include media studies and digital studies alongside philosophy, art history and musicology to name a few, the need to clearly define the field is pertinent.

The Central Asia Initiative in Leiden was launched by the Leiden research area Asia Modernities and Traditions (AMT) in February 2015.

Studying change in the course of human history, in different places, through the lens of a diverse set of core themes; World History for International Studies offers readers a set of windows into different debates historians have been conducting.

This book provides an overview of critical scholarly reflections on the history of Dutch slavery and colonization, as well as how this translates into critical cultural practices.

In the 18th century, the French colonial empire teemed with protectionist laws. Nevertheless, businessmen from the Republic played an important role in the French economy, and thus in the colonial system. PhD student Tessa de Boer explored how this came about.

The NWO has awarded Sara Polak a Rubicon grant. In September, she will start a 12-month period of research at the International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture at Justus-Liebig University in Giessen, Germany.

The Tatiana Afanassjewa-lecture series is a series of public talks in Dutch by Leiden physicists on wednesday evenings, intended for everyone with an interest in physics.

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Early Christian Encounters with Town and Countryside - Essays on the Urban and Rural Worlds of Early Christianity.