Do you enjoy a great story? In the Bachelor's programme Film and Literary Studies at Leiden University you study the stories behind the stories. Because what makes a novel fascinating or a horror movie frightening? Study film, literature and media from around the entire world and discover the differences…

The MA Literary Studies at Leiden University offers you a specialised qualification in one of four languages and cultures or a comparative perspective on literature and culture, with each programme offering considerable scope for individual customisation.

Do you want to become an expert on language and culture? Or do you want to study literature and culture from a comparative perspective? The master’s programme in Literary Studies offers five specialisations or tracks. The tracks that focus on literature in a particular language (English, French, German…

Do you want to become an expert on language and culture? Or do you want to study literature and culture from a comparative perspective? The master’s programme in Literary Studies offers five specialisations or tracks. The tracks that focus on literature in a particular language (English, French, German…

Terms used by literary critics in characterizing the style of novels are often impressionistic (‘baroque’, ‘austere’, ‘vivid’, ‘cerebral’ etc.). Foundations for such evaluations are usually not provided. A scientific way of studying and explaining style is lacking in present day Dutch Studies. Suzanne…

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…

This thesis aims at thinking through the ethical position of animals in a way that differs radically from the manner in which this ethical position is thought within contemporary animal rights discourse.

Lipsius, Cleveringaplaats 1, 2311 BD, Leiden

Are you thinking about studying French Literature and Culture? Learn more and watch the introduction video.

Are you thinking about studying Italian Literature and Culture? Learn more and watch the introduction video.

Are you thinking about studying English Literature and Culture? Learn more and watch the introduction video.

Are you thinking about studying German Literature and Culture? Learn more and watch the introduction video.

In which way was literary celebrity constructed in the nineteenth century and what forms of fandom were there?

The development of literary celebrity by focusing on five famous Dutch authors from the nineteenth century

The Swahili coast has a long-standing history of transoceanic Islamic connections dating back to the 25th century. Yet, print, has changed the world – not only ours. This project unravels unique forms and archives of intellectual history emerging from within South-South connections. In East Africa Indian…

Are you thinking about studying Literature and Society. Europe and Beyond? Learn more and watch the introduction video.

On the 26th of May Sudarmoko successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

This collaborative project aims to explore the history of the concept “barbarism” in Europe from the 18th century to the present, with a particular emphasis on the role of literature and art in the concept’s shifting functions.

To be eligible for Cultural Analysis: Literature and Theory at Leiden University, you must meet the following admission requirements.

In the globalised world of today, traditional definitions of national Self and national Other no longer hold. The unmistakable transformation of German and Dutch societies demands a thorough rethinking of national boundaries on several levels.

This project is a close and sensitive contextual study of Jacob of Sarug's (ca. 451-521 AD) metrical homily

The subject of motherhood is interwoven with themes of survival, power and identity. It is also at the heart of any consideration of women’s writing. Conversations of Motherhood sensitively charts common themes, intersecting experiences and related topics within the cultural specificities of South African…

This study examines the system and poetics of literary patronage in the Renaissance by presenting a comprehensive analysis of the poetry of Giannantonio Campano. In this way, it addresses two themes largely overlooked by modern scholarship.

On 4 and 5 April 2024, the conference "Waterways and Literary Channels of the Premodern World" will take place at Ghent University. The conference is organized within the framework of the Scientific Research Network "Literatures without Borders". Proposals for 20-minute papers, round-table contributions…

In my research I am concerned with the possibility of a politics of sexuality without reverting to identitarian conceptions of sexuality. In a reading of the work of the American author James Purdy, I propose to move towards a politicizing of the concept of narrative identity as developed by the French…

While self-driving cars and autonomous weapon systems have received a great deal of attention in media and research, the general requirements of ethical life in today’s digitalizing reality have not been made sufficiently visible and evaluable.

On 30 January 2024 Jurre van der Meer successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

From William Shakespeare to Marilynne Robinson, A Literary History of Reconciliation is the first study to examine representations of interpersonal reconciliation in work of literature across a long-term period, from the early seventeenth century to the present day, focusing on how these representations…

To be eligible for Film and Photographic Studies at Leiden University, you must meet the following admission requirements.

How is social cognition shaped by our knowledge of language and stories?

This month, the volume Reading Russian Literature, 1980-2024, edited by Otto Boele and Dorine Schellens, was published at Palgrave Macmillan.

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LUCAS members are experts in the fields of literary history and theory, film and media studies, and art, architectural, and book history. Members of LUCAS teach in a wide variety of Bachelor's, Master’s, and Research Master’s Programmes.

To be eligible for Literature in Society: Europe and Beyond at Leiden University, you must meet the following admission requirements.

Ali Al Tuma, PhD candidate at the Leiden University Institute for History, has won the Sharjah Award for Arab Creativity for his play ‘Yusuf Melik Espanya’ (Yusuf King of Spain), that tells the story of a young Moroccan whose brothers conspire to send him off, against his will, to the Spanish Civil…

This project examines the intriguing relationship between Greek literary criticism and Latin literature in Rome (first centuries BC and AD).

De lichtheid van literatuur: Engagement in de multiculturele samenleving (The Lightness of Literature: Engagement in the Multicultural Society) is a plea for the social relevance of literature. The book delves into an age-old debate about literature and social engagement, which has recently been reinvigorated…

Haunting the future through poetry

The aim of the Indonesian-Dutch Literature Collective (which is allied to the Society of Dutch Literature (MNL)) is to support research into the literature of and about the Dutch Indies, from the era of the Dutch East India Company to the present. Starting in 1986, the collective has published its own…

From as early as classical antiquity there has been an interplay between literature and medicine.