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.…

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…

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…

Tom Buitelaar is an Assistant Professor in the War, Peace & Justice program of the Institute of Security and Global Affairs. This paper suggests a number of important avenues for states, the UN, and the ICC to improve the likelihood that the ICC receives assistance from UN peace operations.

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

Grassroots heritage initiatives and community engagement

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.

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…

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…

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.

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…

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

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…

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,…

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…

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.

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.

Late Antiquity is characterized by migration movements, political unrest and religious strife. The way we assess these religious conflicts is often coloured by a post-Reformation understanding of ‘religion’. In my research, I show that late ancient authors understood religion in a way that differs much…

Check back regularly on this page for research opportunities of interest to Humanities staff and students employing digital tools and methodology.

The Corfu Papers

The Central Asia Initiative is funded by the Leiden research profile area Asian Modernities and Traditions with the purpose to establish Central Asian Studies at Leiden University.

In Applied Archaeology, you follow your personal interests, and choose a matching career profile and regional focus. What kind of archaeologist will you become? In the Applied Archaeology programme you get to plot your own course!

This project investigates the full ecosystem of Middle Dutch prayerbooks in order to answer questions about their role in – and impact on – religion, culture, and society in the late medieval Low Countries.

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.

Which fungi live in Leiden University’s historic buildings and collections, and how can their impact on heritage and human health be understood and managed?

We are experts in the fields of languages, cultures, history, arts, societies and philosophy. Together we cover almost all continents and time periods. Knowledge of these disciplines contributes to a humane, safe and sustainable world.

Conference

During the colloquium ‘Minorities and the Criminal Justice System’, Jasmina Mačkić (lecturer at the Europa Institute) presented some of the research results from her PhD thesis ‘Proving Discriminatory Violence at the European Court of Human Rights’.

Dit rapport maakt deel uit van het project Receptenboek burgerparticipatie in opdracht van de Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed (RCE) en met steun van het Fonds voor Cultuurparticipatie.

Dutch online news platform Mr. Online interviewed external PhD student Sjoerd Lopik about the development of environmental criminal law in the Netherlands and about his experiences combining his job as a researcher with his work in the legal practice.

War and terrorism overshadow interest in the pre-Islamic heritage of the Arabic peninsula. The new Leiden Centre for the Study of Ancient Arabia aims to make the general public more aware of the ancient history of this region.

Professor of Criminal Law Marc Kessler proposes starting an experiment in criminal law cases: replacing parts of police interview reports with an audio-visual recording. His inaugural lecture is on 28 October 2016.

How do Nepalese exiles in England celebrate their festivals? What are North Korean monuments doing in Zimbabwe? The ‘Heritage on the Move’ exhibition shows what happens to cultures under the influence of migration. From 3 December to 7 January in Leiden University's Oude UB.

Digitally Preserving Heritage at Risk

This week, Leiden University celebrates the fifteenth year of its world-class International Criminal Law Summer School. The International Criminal Law Summer School has convened every year since the creation of the International Criminal Court, guiding scholars and practitioners in this rapidly developing…

Sweetie 2.0 is a research project commissioned by Terre des Hommes on online child sex tourism and criminal law.

Contemporary Maya Calendars

On Monday, 18 January 2016 the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies hosted a roundtable on the practice, process, strategy and impact of the amicus curiae in international criminal trials.

On Monday 30 May 2016, the Assistant High Commissioner for Protection at UNHCR, Mr. Volker Türk, delivered the Keynote Address at the Advanced Course on International Criminal Justice, Migration and Human Trafficking at the Peace Palace in The Hague.

The purpose of the initiative is to establish Central Asian Studies at Leiden University. Central Asia is a region with fluid borders stretching into present-day Afghanistan, Russia, China, Mongolia, Iran and the Caucasus; a premodern highway of global interaction and today increasingly important as…

In 2019 citizen scientists inspected elevation maps of the Veluwe region and discovered several thousand potential new archaeological structures. The project started as exploration into the potential of citizen science in Dutch archaeology, but developed into a fully flexed project in which citizen…

How does the criminal justice system in Indonesia safeguard the rights of and access to justice for witnesses and victims?

On 1 June 2022, Maarten Kunst, Professor of Criminology at Leiden Law School, gave a lecture on his research into the effects of the right to be heard on both the defendant and the victim. Victims have certain rights in the Dutch criminal process, including the right to be heard in criminal proceedings.…