The basic program comprises a total of twelve courses organized by the Research School, that have been purpose-developed for training and support of PhD students and Research MA students who specialize in Medieval Studies (history, art history, and literary history, in particular).

On April 14, 2025, Dr. Hans Petschar, the recently-retired Director of the Bildarchiv und Grafiksammlung at the Austrian National Library in Vienna, delivered the Sixth Annual Austrian Studies Lecture 'Austria’s Present Past: A visual journey through Austrian history 1925 – 2025'.

When you think of migration, you probably won’t immediately think of dating apps. Yet such apps are important to many migrants, such as those who identify as lesbian, gay, bi, trans, queer or questioning (LGBT+). Researcher Andrew DJ Shield studied the role that dating apps play in the migration process,…

The perception of the Middle East is riddled with stereotypes that have had dire consequences on its people. What is myth and what is reality? How did these stereotypes come about? What consequences have they had? All of these questions and more are answered within this reading list.

Traces of the past remain hidden in rivers, lakes and seas. In his inaugural lecture Martijn Manders will explain why underwater archaeology is important to understanding our history.

According to a new study by an international team of researchers from the Caribbean, Europe and North America, the Caribbean was settled by several successive population dispersals that originated on the American mainland.

Conference, Workshop

This report concerns itself with terrorist technical innovation, particularly with regards to terrorists’ incorporation of emerging technologies into their practices. More specifically, it investigates, through the elaboration of a theoretical learning framework, how terrorist groups can adopt the practices…

Global climate change is manifest by local-scale changes in precipitation and temperature patterns, including the frequency of extreme weather events (EWEs). EWEs are associated with a myriad range of adverse environmental and societal consequences, including negative impacts to agriculture and food…

In the upcoming months, PhD candidates Neske Baerwaldt (FdR / VVI) and Wiebe Ruijtenberg (FSW / CAOS) will produce the ethnographic podcast series ‘Grensverhalen’. The series will be published online in September, and will be used as teaching material in various courses.

The GTGC seed grant project on Governing Digital Platforms organised a two-day workshop on 18-19 January 2024, bringing together scholars and practitioners from diverse epistemologies, positionalities, geographic regions, and disciplines – with a focus on ethics and (political) philosophy, anthropology,…

British and Australian researchers have analysed the DNA in the dental tartar of several Spanish Neanderthals. One of the conclusions was that the Neanderthals had a mostly vegetarian diet.

On February 18th Dr Gerrit Dusseldorp gave a talk about the Umhlatuzana Rock shelter in Kloof (South Africa). This site has preserved some of the earliest traces of Modern Humans and helps us understand how people in deep prehistory lived, survived and adapted. The talk was streamed by Arise creative…

There are some lecturers who are better equipped to provide remote education than others. And then there is Aris Politopoulos, who already owned professional streaming gear long before he could apply this in his education. Now he lectures on ancient Assyria while sitting in an Assyrian palace, moving…

This research project, that started in September 2008, aims to explore how personal and public memories of the Dutch Revolt in the seventeenth century evolved and interacted to create new political and cultural identities for the societies that eventually were to become the kingdoms of the Netherlands…

For almost fifty years EL CID has been the whirlwind start of their studies and student life for thousands of first-year students. With up-and-coming DJs, food trucks and informative workshops, ambitious EL CID committees have made sure that the introduction week has grown into a mega-festival.

On the 4th of June, Menghui Shi successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Menghui Shi on this achievement!

Over the past years it has been discovered that the population of extra-solar planets is large and diverse.

In this paper, Kantorowicz argues that reverse party favoritism exists. He exploits the fact that during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic crisis, the Polish government was keen to launch postal voting in the presidential elections scheduled for May 2020.

This thesis presents insights from our study of various correlated electron systems with a scanning tunneling microscope (STM). In ordinary metals, electron-electron interactions exist, but get substantially screened due to the sheer number of electrons.

The insights leading to the present project firstly manifested themselves in 2008, when I worked with field recordings on the basis of relatively well-established notions in music composition studies, such as ‘musical material’ and écriture. With hindsight, I understand the outcomes of those first experiments…

This dissertation presents new cryptographic protocols, which can be divided into two families.

Throughout the history of computer science, a major challenge has been how to assert that software is free of bugs and works as intended. Software bugs can lead to serious negative impacts on any software system. Throughout the main body of the thesis, we implemented a series of studies on exploring…

Promotor: Prof.dr. A.G.G.M. Tielens, Prof.dr. C. Dominik (UvA)

This Thesis describes the synthesis of D-alanylated ribitol-based wall teichoic acids from S. aureus to probe their interaction with immune-binding partners.

Streptomyces are bacteria abundant in soil that participate in diverse and complex interactions. These bacteria are the main producers of the antibiotics we currently use in the clinic.

Promotor: H.J.A. Röttgering, Co-promotor: M. Haverkorn

This dissertation investigates ikat from the eastern Indonesian islands from a uniquely technical perspective, including design analysis of asymmetry and microscopy.

Prematurely born neonates require, amongst others, pharmaceutical therapy. Dosing guidelines for these therapies are often based on data from term born neonates or older infants, while these are not necessarily similar to prematurely born neonates.

We have studied shape with a particular focus on the zebrafish model system. The shape is an essential appearance of the phenotype of a biological specimen and it can be used to read out a current state or response or to study gene expression.

Political Scientists Harun Cero and Arlinda Rrustemi (Leiden University) argue that the Russian invasion of Ukraine could present a chance for Bosnia and Kosovo to finally remove Russian influence, which has been growing and blocking these countries for years. The West should shift away from appeasing…

Promotores: Prof.dr. J. Zaanen & Prof.dr. K.E. Schalm

Leiden University is famous for its library’s large collection of Oriental manuscripts. Part of this collection is a group of 104 Arabic documents written on papyrus and paper (Or. 8264 and 12885). These documents date from the 7th through 10th century CE and cover a wide range of subjects (private…

This thesis addresses the chemical processes that determine the compositions of giant planet atmospheres.

The investigations described in this thesis lay out strategies aimed at advancing antibiotic research and development. The examples presented revolve around two main approaches: understanding drug-target interactions and target identification.

Both Europe and Latin America face challenges globally and at home. Conflicts over land and resources have been resurgent in recent years.

This study by artist Jonas Staal explores the development of propaganda art from the 20th to the 21st century.

Harry’s research work looks at the techniques and influence of chordal and polyphonic accompaniment on viola da gamba in the sixteenth century.

Ruobin Han defended her thesis on 21 March 2017

Can bacteria be engineered to convert methanol into valuable chemicals with high efficiency?