A History of Modern Political Thought in East Central Europe is a two-volume project, authored by an international team of researchers, and offering the first-ever synthetic overview of the history of modern political thought in East Central Europe.

This project uses archaeological, literary and epigraphic evidence to investigate urban development in Roman-period North Africa, compiling this in a GIS-linked database in order to analyse the development of urban settlement spatially over time.

Crime is men’s business, isn’t it? Women are responsible for 10 percent of crime in Europe. Yet, if we look at the Dutch Republic in the early modern period, we find that in the towns of Holland women played a much larger role in crime.

The central aim is to systematically study differences in gendered crime patterns in the records of different types of courts in various English and Dutch cities in the early modern period.

On 15 February 2024, Leiden Law School's Faculty Board will enter a new phase.

We know more together than alone. To increase our university’s impact on the region, we have to be open to the world outside. This is how we strengthen our ties and create new opportunities for teaching and research.

The central aim is to systematically study differences in gendered crime patterns in the records of different types of courts in various Dutch cities in the early modern period.

Nova Verkerk has represented the interests of students as assessor for the past two years. Now her term has come to an end, and on 1 September she will be succeeded on the Faculty Board by Mette Kamerich.

How did learned natural historical inquiries into the underwater world develop in eighteenth-century Europe?

Our university recently joined the European university alliance Una Europa. Staff from the 11 affiliated universities met in Leiden last week to discuss our collaboration.

Fascinating images, articles of clothing and other unique objects from the past four centuries of the history of Leiden University can now be seen in the ‘Celebrating Curiosity’ exhibition in the hall of Rapenburg 70.

The Faculty of Humanities wants to take a stand in the middle of society with its research and education. That’s why last year, in the middle of a pandemic, the Societal Advisory Board was founded. What are the members’ plans?

Academics increasingly face threats, intimidation and abuse. The WetenschapVeilig platform has been launched to address this. Academics who are being threatened or intimidated can seek help from the platform 24 hours a day. It’s good that we now have this platform. But at the same time, it’s awful that…

How do we explain the fact that certain areas had many large cities, while other areas were studded with large numbers of small towns and yet other areas had very few urban agglomerations of any kind?

Early Modern Medievalisms: The Interplay between Scholarly Reflection and Artistic Production

The Uses of Justice in Global Perspective, 1600–1900 presents a new perspective on the uses of justice between 1600 and 1900 and confronts prevailing Eurocentric historiography in its examination of how people of this period made use of the law.

The Master's programme in History at Leiden University is set to change. From September 2026, three of the five specialisations will be replaced by new subjects that are more closely aligned with the field of research and students’ interests. One of these new specialisations will also be taught entirely…

They existed and were important, but for too long they have remained invisible in historiography: women. Ariadne Schmidt, the Magdalena Moons endowed professor, researches the history of urban culture in Leiden. Women take pride of place in her research. Inaugural lecture on 28 February.

More on the Dutch webpage.

In Luganda, the widest spoken minority language in East African country Uganda, the word for photographs is Ebifananyi. However, ebifananyi does not, contrary to the etymology of the word photographs, relate to light writings. Ebifananyi instead means things that look like something else. Ebifananyi…

The project aims at highlighting and strengthening Dutch research into the diversity of the world’s languages from a historic and a cognitive perspective.

On the 6th of July, Anthony Jakob successfully defended a doctoral thesis. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Anthony on this achievement!

In this paper, Kantorowicz aims to track the persistent effect of former partitioning borders on property tax rates in Poland.

On the 27th of June, Timothy Mac Hadjah successfully defended a doctoral thesis. Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Timothy on this achievement!

How did Anglo-Saxons reflect on the experience of growing old? Was it really a golden age for the elderly, as has been suggested?

Show People offers a comprehensive history of the film star from Mary Pickford to Andy Serkis, traversing more than one hundred years and drawing on examples from America, Britain, Europe, Asia and elsewhere.

This academic year Maxim Allaart will hold the position of assessor within the Faculty Board of the Faculty of Science. The assessor is a student member who represents the students’ interests within the Faculty Board.

The studies outlined in this volume explore how connectedness continues to change Africa and how Africa continues to shape the social life of connections.

Bringing together the most current research on the relationship between crime and gender in the West between 1600 and 1914, this authoritative volume places female criminality within its everyday context.

When talking about innovative technologies, Blockchain should certainly be mentioned. In the Honours Class ‘Board the Blockchain Train!’, students learn about the influence of technology on, for example, banking transactions or real estate appraisal.

Archaeologist Eduardo Herrera Malatesta reflects on the unfamiliarity with the pre-Columbian past that he encountered during fieldwork in the Montecristi province in the Dominican Republic.

This PhD project investigates how automatic sign language recognition technology can be further developed to analyse static images and textual descriptions of signs.

Ariadne Schmidt will be appointed professor by special appointment of the Magdalena Moons chair at Leiden University. From 1 September 2018 she will carry out academic research and teach on the cultural history of the city, in particular of Leiden.

We want to be an engaged community where we feel heard and enjoy working together. But how do we have an open conversation about difficult topics?

In deep reinforcement learning, searching and learning techniques are two important components. They can be used independently and in combination to deal with different problems in AI, and have achieved impressive results in game playing and robotics. These results have inspired research into artificial…