The annual PhD training of the Netherlands Network for Human Rights Research (NNHRR) took place on 7 and 8 June at Leiden University.

Betty de Jonge is a household name in our faculty. As the person behind AskBetty, she knew how to answer every question about Office. Starting this month, she has officially retired.

When Sjoerd van Trigt, a student of International Studies, is not in the lecture hall, you can find him at Rowing Club Asopos de Vliet. He trains there seven times a week. Soon, he will be leaving for a six-month stay in Japan.

On Monday 11 December, human rights activist Ms. Wai Wai Nu delivered the seventh Raymond and Beverly Sackler Distinguished Lecture on Human Rights at Leiden Law School. This events marked the annual celebration of International Human Rights Day, which was proclaimed in 1950 by the United Nations to…

The research article ‘Selection and Use of Manganese Dioxide by Neanderthals’ received 12421 article views in 2016, placing it as one of the top 100 read Scientific Reports articles in 2016.

The League of European Research Universities (LERU) makes recommendations for the future of the Social Sciences and Humanities research in Europe. Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) research is vital to build an innovative and resilient Europe.

Peter Rodrigues, Professor Emeritus of Immigration and board member of the Netherlands Institute for Human Rights, recently dealt with a fascinating case in which a woman with Russian nationality felt she had suffered discrimination.

On Monday 11 December, human rights activist Ms. Wai Wai Nu will deliver the seventh Raymond and Beverly Sackler Distinguished Lecture on Human Rights at Leiden Law School. This events marks the annual celebration of International Human Rights Day, which was proclaimed in 1950 by the United Nations…

Moving to a different city as a student can be a daunting prospect, let alone to a different country. Each year, many students come to Leiden, and many find a home away from home thanks to the Humanities Master’s Buddy Programme. Kathleen Burke and Victor Jarzargaray experienced it first-hand. “It’s…

Lecture

In 2022, for one year, Leiden will be European City of Science. For humanities scholars, this offers enormous opportunities to bring their work to the attention of citizens. Rob Zwijnenberg, chairman of the steering committee that coordinates the faculty's contributions, talks about these opportunit…

Leiden University's Kiem grants aim to help develop new interdisciplinary and interfaculty collaborations and encounters. In the first round, a Kiem grant was awarded to a group of researchers from the Faculty of Archaeology, the Faculty of Social Sciences, and the LUMC for the organisation of a symposium…

Rachel Schats has been a familiar face at the Faculty of Archaeology since she started her bachelor’s in Archaeology in 2005. Now she is an assistant professor, working on her Veni project on malaria in the Middle Ages. ‘I have included in this project so many skeletal collections that no one has ever…

Lecture, Faculty Lecture

On Wednesday 5 October the Europa Institute hosts a special guest lecture by Human Rights Defender Mr. Rasul Jafarov from Azerbaijan.

Rafaëlle Kwakkel is currently studying Literary Studies: Literature in Society. In addition to her studies, she works at Studium Generale and enjoys being creative.

Neanderthals were able to outwit straight-tusked elephants, the largest land mammals of the past few million years. Leiden professor Wil Roebroeks has published an article about this together with his German colleague Sabine Gaudzinski-Windheuser in the Science Advances journal. The breakthrough takes…

Inaugural address of Prof.dr.ir. Peter van Bodegom

Elephants ranged over Schöningen in Lower Saxony 300,000 years ago. In recent years, remains of at least ten elephants have been found at the Palaeolithic sites situated on the edges of the former opencast lignite mine. Now, a collaboration of archaeologists from University of Tübingen and the Lower…

Titia Loenen, Mariana Gkliati, and Kristel Kruisbergen are involved in organising the PhD Training of the Netherlands Network for Human Rights Research (NNHRR). The annual training is hosted for the first time in Leiden and will take place on 7 and 8 June.

Rogier Creemers is a lecturer in Modern Chinese Studies. While he looks for challenges in his lectures, in his free time he much prefers to go back to basics and work with his hands.

Research master's student in history Jesse Dijkshoorn collaborated on a transcription system for medieval texts. ‘It’s nice to make the Middle Ages accessible to people.’

An international team of astronomers, including astronomers from Leiden University, has found the missing link in the path taken by water through star-forming clouds and young stars to comets and planets. They did so with the help of the ALMA observatory in Chile. The researchers published their findings…

Where does Dutch come from? Newly appointed Professor Alwin Kloekhorst looks for an answer to that question in millennia-old languages from Anatolia, the Asian part of present-day Turkey. 'A new interpretation in one of the Anatolian languages can have consequences for dozens of other languages.'

PhD defence

With an off-the-charts number of downloads, outstanding media coverage, and more than 300 tweets, a small team behind the Scientific Reports article led by a Leiden PhD Igor Djakovic is living every researcher’s dream.

Neanderthals in cold regions probably ate a lot more vegetable food than was previously thought. This is what archaeologist Robert Power has discovered based on new research on ancient Neanderthal dental plaque. PhD defence 1 November.

The Max van der Stoel Human Rights Award is presented every two years on 10 December (Human Rights Day) in recognition of outstanding academic works in the field of international human rights.

Seminar 12th of April

The European Union has awarded a COFUND grant to a consortium of researchers from the universities of Groningen, Leiden and Eindhoven for a collective fellowship programme called ‘oLife’. The 6 M€ programme, which is co-financed by the participating universities, will recruit and train 18 post-doctoral…

Gerrie Lodder has published an article in the Dutch legal periodical Nederlands Juristenblad on the exploitation of labour migrants from the perspective of human rights.

What is the current situation of human rights in relation to detention under criminal law and immigration law, now that more and more parties are becoming involved in the administration of detention and crimmigration is on the rise? PhD defence on 21 January 2020.

On 11 April 2018, students of the Advanced Master’s in European and International Human Rights Law attended a lecture on the human rights situation in Mexico. The lecture was delivered by Dr. Víctor Avendaño Porras, who lectures and researches at Mexico’s CRESUR (Research Centre on Teaching Formation…

Spatial humanities are developing fast at the moment. This international expert meeting intends to bring together specialists from different disciplines in order to discuss possibilities, challenges, and next steps for spatial humanities that are concerned with late-medieval and early modern urban history…

The Dutch TV programme Keuringsdienst van Waarde investigated the origin of BBQ taste. Prehistoric fire expert Andrew Sorensen was invited to explain prehistoric fire making techniques.

The start of the renovation of Cluster Zuid was a long time coming, but the moment has finally arrived. On Wednesday 8 June, Dean Mark Rutgers, accompanied by the contractor Constructif, symbolically marked the start of the demolition and reconstruction works by demolishing part of the roof.

This unique collection applies globalization concepts to the discipline of archaeology, using a wide range of global case studies from a group of international specialists.

This monograph, written by dr. Dennie Oude Nijhuis and published by Cambridge University Press, discusses the postwar development of the welfare state.

This collection of seventeen essays takes its inspiration from the scholarly achievements of the Dutch historian Jan Lucassen. They reflect a central theme in his research: the history of labor.

Promotor: E. F. van Dishoeck, Co-promotor: C. Walsh

On the 12th of November, Xander Vertegaal successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Xander on this achievement!

The times between the Neolithic and Urban revolutions in Mesopotamia have for a long time been interpreted as a period of stagnation. This volume is part of an emerging discourse that challenges such assumptions.

Patterns of paleomobility in the Caribbean were studied through an inter-disciplinary approach using a combination of archaeological, osteological, mortuary, and isotopic data.

Stellar feedback is a crucial ingredient in the evolution of galaxies.

Clara ten Hacken defended her thesis on 16 December 2015

Material Culture Studies revolves around the analysis of the cultural biographies of all sorts of material objects from flint axes, to pottery, to houses and monumental structures.

This book offers readers an alternative history of the origins of the discipline of International Relations.

Newly published: ‘Background to Beakers’; inquiries into regional cultural backgrounds of the Bell Beaker Complex. Harry Fokkens / Franco Nicolis (eds.).

Power and Legitimacy in Kingship, Religion, and the Arts Volume 87 in the series Religion and Society