In this dissertation, the life account is constructed of of the founder of Bon Religion, Shenrab Miwo.

Playing a musical instrument is generally considered to be a complex human behaviour involving the integration and coordination of a broad range of human functions such as perception, imagination, memory, information processing, emotion, communication, and dexterity.

Over the last few years, human Rights have become subject of intense debates in historiography. Sam Moyn’s provocative book The Last Utopia (2010) made in particular clear how important it is to investigate precisely which meaning human rights have been given in a particular context. During the research…

This book published by Oxford University Press discusses religion and trade in world history.

In a modernist interpretation of migration controls, nation states play a major role. This book challenges this interpretation by showing that comprehensive migration checks and permanent border controls appeared much earlier, in early modern dynastic states and empires, and predated nation states by…

About 90 per cent of Austronesian and Papuan languages are under threat of soon becoming extinct. Marian Klamer is the only professor in the world who researches both these language groups. She records languages before they disappear and sheds new light on the history of Indonesia. Inaugural lecture…

This volume investigates how urban growth and prosperity transformed the cities of the Roman Mediterranean in the last centuries BCE and the first centuries CE, integrating debates about Roman urban space with discourse on Roman urban history.

Archaeological finds off the coast of Java, Indonesia provide insight into the world of Homo erectus, 140,000 years ago. Skull fragments and other fossil remains provide a unique picture of how and where these early humans lived, says Leiden archaeologist Harold Berghuis.

This project investigates how the first generation of Dutch printed books (the incunabula, 1473-1501) affected late medieval spirituality, religious practice and visual culture in the Low Countries.

This project investigates the globalization and cultural mediation of palliative care practices, policies and discourses.

What role do the Islamic courts play in protecting women’s divorce rights? How do they perform with regard to spousal support, child support and marital property? Stijn van Huis defends his PhD thesis on September 8, 2015

Are you thinking about studying Arts and Culture: Art History and Museum Studies? Learn more and watch the introduction video.

How is law shaped by and shaping social, political and economic change in Indonesia?

Cosmopolis seeks to explore the transnational and cultural dimensions of intra-Eurasian encounters through Dutch sources.

In the eighteenth century, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) housed its enslaved people on ‘Slave Island’ in Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka. Today ‘Slave Island’ is under serious threat from property developers. Senior lecturer Alicia Schrikker, together with her Sri Lankan colleagues Iromi Perera…

The Vici project Through the Hands of Signers invites everyone to participate in its kick-off symposium on the History of Sign Language Emergence, Transmission, and Change on July 10 2026.

Kartika Setyawati defended her thesis on 12 November 2015

Last year, LUCSoR welcomed two new Ph.D. students from Iran: Kiyan Foroutan from Ahvaz and Amir Ardalan Emami from Tehran. Kiyan works on a project on the role of the family in medieval and early modern Zoroastrianism in India and Iran (15th-18th centuries). Ardalan works on a much earlier period, the…

Which plants in the Mediterranean garden were already known to the ancient Greeks and Romans, and how were they utilized?

Starting January 18, the online exhibition Images of the Indonesian War of Independence, 1945-1949 can be viewed via the UBL website. The exhibition is the result of a collaboration between the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV) and Leiden University Libraries…

Visiting Researchers at the Leiden University Institute for History

Maritime conflict management is the regulation of conflict in relation to the sea. It comprises conflict enforcement, conflict resolution and conflict avoidance. How did victims of maritime conflicts claim and obtain damages or demand compensation or reparation?

This project investigates the rich linguistic history of the crucial language groups in East Africa and includes a search for words that indicate earlier lost languages. These outcomes, combined with recent archaeological and genetic research, will contribute to a new understanding of East Africa’s…

This project will construct an inventory of possible conceptions of the resistance of the world to scientists’ claims and theories.

Nusantara Capital Authority (OIKN), which is in charge of developing Indonesia’s new capital city entered a Memorandum of Understanding with Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Universities on 18 March on knowledge sharing and joint research.

Leiden University has secured an impressive 12 European exchange grants. This is good news for students, lecturers and researchers from home and abroad.

To mark its 75th anniversary, the Netherlands War Graves Foundation is publishing a portrait of a war victim every week this year. On 24 January the drawing of Irawan Soejono, a Leiden student and Indonesian resistance member, was unveiled at the Groenesteeg cemetery in Leiden, the place where Soejono…

For some devout Muslims, going to the cinema or viewing certain images is provocative and problematic. Ahmad Nuril Huda investigated the development Santri (young, pious Muslims) have undergone in this field over the past ten years. The Cinematic Santri is the result of his PhD research.

From the very beginning, the Islam has known an oral tradition. It was only two hundred years ago that Muslims starting writing about the history of Islam, on rocks or other hard materials. Arabic epigraphy (study of inscriptions) turns out to be an essential tool in historical genealogy research. Abdullah…

Fanny Wonu Veys was appointed Professor of Art and Material Culture of Oceania on 1 August. Time for an introduction.

Carsten Stahn has just published Confronting Colonial Objects: Histories, Legalities and Access to Culture. The book is part of the OUP Cultural Heritage Law and Policy Series.

Subproject of the ERC project 'Challenging the Liberal World Order from Within: The Invisible History of the United Nations and the Global South'.

Who still remembers that Leiden attracted a lot of reds from Suriname during the 1970s? The exhibition ‘Dynamic Suriname’ offers a number of surprising insights on the links between Leiden University and Suriname, which is celebrating the fortieth anniversary of its independence this year.

This dissertation the role of the English dissenting minister Joseph Priestley (1733-1804) as a grammarian is studied.

It recently emerged that a Swiss firm secretly owned by the CIA and the West German intelligence service BND had been selling manipulated coding equipment to numerous governments, including allies, to spy on them through a Swiss cover firm for years.

In 2005, the LEAD Programme organised and coordinated the International Exhibition on ‘Jamu: Medicinal Plants for Health and Conservation in Indonesia’ in collaboration with Universitas Padjadjaran (UNPAD) in Bandung, Indonesia, the Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Chania (MAICH) in Chania, Crete,…

This work analyzes ritual practices and knowledge related to the Mesoamerican calendar with the aim of contributing to the understanding of the use and conceptualization of this calendar system in the contemporary K’iche’ community of Momostenango, in the Highlands of Guatemala.

Besides being a linguist, George Saad is also a photography fanatic. He shares his most beautiful and telling pictures, shot during his field research in Eastern Indonesia.

How was the future United Nations Organization promoted to global publics during WW II?

The Leiden archaeologist Harold Berghuis was closely involved in archaeological discoveries off the coast of Java. Skull fragments and other fossil remains provide new insights into the world of Homo erectus. The discovery was the subject of numerous news reports.

Subproject of the ERC project 'Challenging the Liberal World Order from Within: The Invisible History of the United Nations and the Global South'.