Using enslaved people as servants, becoming an administrator in the Dutch West India Company or making uniforms for the colonial army. Many people from Leiden played a role in colonialism and slavery. Historians are conducting preliminary research and finding striking examples.

Sanne Muurling is the new PhD student in Manon van der Heijden's 'Crime and Gender' project.

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…

How old is the phenomenon of states attempting to control migrations on external borders? What were the motives and outcomes of these policies? In his dissertation, Jovan Pešalj examines how migration control on the southern Habsburg border emerged, how they functioned, and what impact they had on migrations.…

Hiltje Cleveringa seemed moved when on 16 January she was given the first copy of the biography of her father, Rudolph Cleveringa. Peppering his speech with a few cliff-hangers – including an incident concerning Churchill – biographer Kees Schuyt encouraged his audience to actually go read his book.

Who is Economic Man? Every economic paradigm presupposes an anthropology, a theory of human nature. This project explores the anthropologies presupposed and produced by ancient Greek economic texts, and the specific knowledge forms that shape these anthropologies.

Wietse Stam is a PhD candidate at the Leiden University Institute for History. His PhD thesis is about UNTAC; a United Nations peacekeeping operation in Cambodia during the early 1990s.

Interview with Pieter Slaman who received the LUS Education Prize. What makes the award so special to him and does he already know how he will use his prize money?

The aim of this project is to foster a historiography that does justice both to the realization that scientific knowledge is constructed by local, contingent, and contextual processes, and the claims of science to objective validity.

An anatomical model of a heart, a mechanical digger or photos of mother and grandmother. Research interests and personal motivations have been given a place in the thirteen new portraits of women now on display in the Senate Chamber. ‘That cat isn't just a cute lap cat.'

How did local lifeways and crafting practices persist and develop in the diverse environments of the increasingly interconnected Gulf of Fonseca (AD 400-1521)?

In January 2014, the research project The Promise of Organization hosted a fruitful three-day conference:

Ontwikkelen van een vaccin tegen aderverkalking

It all started with demonstrations protesting about the death of George Floyd from police brutality in Minneapolis, but the Black Lives Matter protest is spreading like wildfire across the whole of the US. Every day, thousands of people are taking to the streets. We asked American Studies expert Sara…

De deadline voor de scriptieprijs van de Stichting tot Gedachtenis is verlengd tot 4 januari

Het Nationaal Archief en het Noord-Hollands Archief onderzoekswedstrijd

This project investigates the full ecosystem of Middle Dutch prayerbooks in order to answer questions about their role in – and impact on – religion, culture, and society in the late medieval Low Countries.

Faculty of Humanities, Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS) and the Leiden University Institute for History (LUIH) are looking for a PhD in the History and Culture of Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity.

Viola Müller is a PhD candidate at the Leiden University Institute for History. Her research focuses on slave refugees in the US South, 1800-1860.

In February 2015 Lauren Lauret started her PhD project titled 'Meeting practices of the Dutch States General and the continuity of the early modern world of the political (1780-1848)' at the Institute for History, supervised by prof. H. te Velde.

This project looks at the ways in which youth in southern Nigeria navigate their lives in a context of experiencing long-term socioeconomic uncertainty and political insecurity (duress).

The ongoing conflict in Kashmir is often seen as a political issue between India and Pakistan. Idrees Kanth, who has written a dissertation on the subject, believes that the people of Kashmir are the primary contenders in the conflict and should be allowed their right to decide their own political fate.…

On 1 July – Keti Koti, in the year ahead, our university community will be able to reflect extensively on the history of slavery by engaging in research, education and many other activities.

View the aftermovies of the run here.

Book historian Erik Kwakkel found an intriguing snippet of text earlier this week, that bears unexpected evidence of some of the problems encoutered by early printers: censorship and the affiliated fuss of seeking and printing Church approval.

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

This study offers a new view on public services in the early modern Low Countries and answers the following questions: who provided public facilities in urban communities and in which ways did public amenities change in the period between 1500 and 1800?

On Tuesday 30 April 2024 Jonny Russell successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

Muhammad Adlin Sila examines the range of ways Bima Muslims constitute their Islamic identities and agencies through rituals and festivals. In response to their surroundings, what it means to be a Muslim is constantly being negotiated.

The Dutch and English East India Companies were formidable organizations that were gifted with expansive powers that allowed them to conduct diplomacy, wage war and seize territorial possessions. But they did not move into an empty arena in which they were free to deploy these powers without resista…

This dissertation examines how Benedictine monks at the Abbey of Fécamp designed, produced, and read books over the course of the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

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

The physical features of twelfth-century manuscripts from the Flemish abbey of Ter Duinen – such as script, page layout, and reading aids – show how their readers organized, interpreted, and transmitted knowledge.

On this digital video wall, you can find the videos provided by several attendees of the XY workshop 2022.

Francoise Baggeler started her PhD at the Institute for History on 1st of september 2011.

In all the 444 years since Leiden University was founded, almost nothing has been written about women at the University. That's why a group of 25 female students have prepared the exhibition Herstory: Leiden's Leading Ladies. University history through women's eyes. Now open to the public in the Oude…

Lecture, Unfolding Finitudes

The History programme has been working for several years to make the curriculum more diverse and inclusive. With a Comenius grant, university lecturer Kim Beerden wants to take the next step.

In January 2014, Irial Glynn started a two-year Marie Curie Fellowship in Leiden. His project will compare the migration experiences of Ireland and Italy since 1945.

Piercing through the skull with an ice pick, administering electric shocks without an anaesthetic, or applying leeches to the uterus: these may seem like medieval methods of torture, but they are in fact therapies used in medicine. Willem van der Does writes about all of them in his new book. ‘Physicians…

In August 2014 Stefano Bellucci started working as Senior Lecturer in African History at the Institute for History.

Erik Odegard is the third PhD-student who's joining Cátia Antunes' 'Challenging Monopolies' project.