As one of the most influential ideas in modern European history, democracy has fundamentally reshaped not only the landscape of governance, but also social and political thought throughout the world.

NWO has granted a 4-year subsidy to the project The Popular Culture of Illegality, ellaborated in collaboration between the University of Amsterdam, University Utrecht and Leiden University. This research focuses on the esthetic representations and practices in visual, musical and symbolical forms of…

Based on interviews with feminist Instagram users, this article studies emergent feminist visibilities on Instagram through the concept of filtering.

Claire van den Helder (fourth-year Cultural Anthropology student) and Orestes Kyrgiakis (second-year Cultural Anthropology student) won the Pieter de la Court Medal 2021. The Pieter de la Court Medal is an initiative for students by students and is awarded annually to students who voluntarily contribute…

The president of Indonesia, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, has personally invited Jan Slikkeveer, professor of Ethnobotanical Knowledge Systems in Developing Countries, to give a lecture during the World Culture Forum. The Forum will be hosted in Indonesia from 24 to 27 November.

Mindfulness is all the rage. But what is mindfulness and is this popular form of medication completely harmless? Come to the workshop on 19 September by Chris Goto-Jones, Professor of Philosophy and mindfulness therapist, and find out for yourself.

Roman philosopher and orator Marcus Tullius Cicero is still used as an intellectual example by politicians and speech writers today. But, he did not go unchallenged in his own day, as a statesman in particular. Classicist Leanne Jansen conducted research into how classical historians judged Cicero’s…

One of the current research projects funded by the profile area Political Legitimacy is the research group From Disorder to Order: Conflict and the Resources of Legitimacy.

China is a one-party regime, yet elections are held for the local congresses. PhD candidate Wang Zhongyuan investigated how the Communist Party uses this democratic instrument to strengthen the authoritarian regime. PhD defence 31 January.

Call for Papers: Imperial Artefacts. History, Law, and the Looting of Cultural Property

EUROTYPES is a research project developed by political scientist Adina Akbik, for which she recently received a European Research Council Starting Grant. Her aim is to examine the impact of cultural stereotypes in European multi-level policy enforcement. One of EUROTYPES' innovations lies in its focus.…

The Department of Humanities of the University of Pavia will host the Third European Symposium in Celtic Studies from 7 to 9 September 2022. Papers are invited on any aspect of Celtic Studies, including language, literature, history, archaeology and culture from any period. Deadline for submission:…

An Honours Class about the ostensibly unrecognisable worlds of insular Southeast Asia teaches students a fundamental piece of wisdom:

Cultural Anthropology graduate Tommie Lambregts conducted fieldwork in the Slaaghwijk neighbourhood in Leiden as part of a Policy in Practice research internship commissioned by the municipality. Leiden Science City nominated his research as one of four 'most impactful student projects'. Award ceremony…

The Leiden-Delft-Erasmus (LDE) alliance signed a collaboration agreement with the Indonesian Ministry of Education, Culture, Science and Technology on 23 September.

Are there cross-cultural principles of law?

How do we navigate the continuously developing landscape in research integrity, ethics, and open science? Anna van 't Veer and Eiko Fried discuss the underlying principles and values of science with all psychology units in their Responsible Scholarship workshop.

Beyond Boundaries: Religion, Region, Language and the State is a major multidisciplinary research project which aims to re-vision the history of Asia in one of its most significant periods. The project is based at the British Museum, British Library and the School of Oriental and African Studies, and…

Ian Simpson is a relatively new face at the Faculty of Archaeology. Starting as an assistant professor in the Heritage and Society department in 2018, he is one of the faculty’s members in critical heritage studies and looks both at the past as well as the future. ‘I study how heritage can be employed…

This book addresses the definition of history and how people are influenced by it.

The past decade, against the backdrop of a fragmented political landscape, has witnessed the greatest changes to the Netherlands since the aftermath of the Second World War. The labour market, the housing market, the energy market, the bank system, the pension system, the healthcare system, to name…

MSc Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology alumna Annelin Verkade is one of the four 'runners-up' for the IIAS Master Thesis prize 2017. Supervisor: Dr. Erik de Maaker. Award ceremony on 22 February 2018.

An experimental approach to organic palaeolithic technology

Presenting case studies by both senior and emerging scholars, it makes mandatory reading for anyone interested in the challenges of governance, citizenship and development faced by the people of India’s North East.

Leiden University aims to equip its students for the world of tomorrow. All our teaching programmes promote international knowledge, global awareness and intercultural skills.

How do videos, movies and documentaries dedicated to indigenous communities transform the media landscape of South Asia? Based on extensive original research, this book examines how in South Asia popular music videos, activist political clips, movies and documentaries about, by and for indigenous communities…

Court cases that get out of hand are enacted again and again, according to PhD candidate Tessa de Zeeuw. De Zeeuw: ‘Even if the court comes to the correct judgement, from a legal point of view, the issues that appear in a case such as that of Lucia de Berk continue to

From 2020 to 2023, Professor Miguel John Versluys and his research group will participate in an international consortium co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union in the framework of the international project “Alexandria: (Re)activating Common Urban Imaginaries”. This ERC project…

This research network aims to promote cross-regional collaboration in the field of cultural history in early modern Asia at the intersections of visual, material, textual and aural culture.

The Leiden Lectures in Media | Art | Politics (MAP) is a series of talks organized by Pepita Hesselberth and Yasco Horsman. Speakers from various academic backgrounds and in different stages of their careers reflect on diverging ways in which technological and social changes challenge and transform…

Prof. dr. Marcel Cobussen will take part in a research network project in London.

Essays in Honour of Olivier P. Nieuwenhuyse

In October, Sophie Starrenburg was elected as a member of the Coordinating Committee of the ESIL Interest Group on the International Law of Culture. She will work alongside Giovanni Carlo Bruno (Italian National Research Council), Andrzej Jakubowski (Polish Academy of Studies), and Lucas Lixinski (University…

With her background in Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology, Leonie Siepmans brings a unique perspective to the corporate world. Find out what an anthropologist does in a big company.

Two thousand years ago, the Middle East found itself caught between the rise of the Roman Empire in the west and the Parthian Empire in the east. PhD candidate Nolke Tasma has been awarded an NWO grant to investigate how local inhabitants experienced these changes.

At the invitation of the Centre for Early Christianity and Its Reception (CECIR), Peter Liebregts, Full Professor of Modern Literatures in English (LUCAS), visited the University of Kent in Canterbury from March 17 to 20, to give a lecture and a masterclass.

This volume challenges the idea that the development of ‘democracy’ is a story of rise and progress at all. It is rather a story of continuous but never completely satisfying attempts of interpreting the rule of the people.

In Renaissance Florence, humanists wrote Latin poems fashioning their city as the new Rome, and members of the Medici family as Roman rulers. How can we explain this practice?

Investigation of 1.) The whereabouts of the epistemological dissonances in art criticisms on Post-war contemporary art from Japan between two different language realms, in this case in English and Japanese; and 2.) What the dissonances disclose, disturb, and contribute in the process of the establishment…

When did the Mali Empire disintegrate? What does the Sunjata heritage demonstrate about the political situation after 1600?

Leiden University offers ambitious students the latest knowledge and the freedom to develop their own area of expertise.

Why follow the Middle Eastern Studies programme? Because it will improve your insight, expertise, and understanding of the region, the central debates and issues, and its interconnections with other regions, global issues, and processes. And why at Leiden University? Because thanks to our experts, expertise,…

A large new campus square on the Leiden Bio Science Park will be used for a range of activities for students, staff and Leiden residents, a knowledge festival, shows and sporting activities, for instance.