This initiative is intended to support generative research collaborations between and among scholars located in different geographical regions who wish to pursue focused, joint projects in any area of the study of religion.

Jews and Christians in the Middle East

Ragazzi, ‘Suspect community or suspect category?‘, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies

LUCSoR has chairs in Comparative Religion, Islam in the West, Christianity, and Judaism. Main areas of expertise include ancient Mesopotamian religions, the Enlightenment, Islam in the West, and new spiritual movements.

On Wednesday 3 July 2024 Renata Schiavo successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

Mattias Brand defended his thesis on 10 April 2019

How did the invention and implementation of the lightning rod change the perception of thunderstorms on a scientific, technical, religious and artistic level, in the Netherlands and beyond, during the period 1752-1830?

The aim of the project is to understand the process of formation of Bon religious identity in Tibet at the turn of the first millennium AD.

Expert meeting

Symposium

Carina van den Hoven defended her thesis on 16 February 2017.

On Monday 27 September 2010 Spinoza prize winners Naomi Ellemers, Ineke Sluiter, Marijn Franx (Leiden) and Piet Gros (Utrecht) announced their plans for their €2.5 million prize money. This was during the official ceremony in The Hague, at which the outgoing Secretary of State for Education, Culture…

From the mid-19th century until the 1970’s, the Middle East witnessed the presence of various European missionaries who played a fundamental role in the birth and the development of humanitarianism. Since these Christian missionaries were well integrated in the local Middle Eastern societies via their…

This book underscores the interplay between religion and politics (local and global) in the production, escalation, management, mitigation, and resolution of conflict.

On this page you will find the admission requirements for this programme.

This project aims to revisit the relationship between the European cultural agenda and the local identity formation process, and social and religious transformations of Arab Christian communities in Palestine, when the British ruled via the Mandate. What was the role of culture in European policies…

This study focuses on increasing our understanding of the different pathways converts take during conversion to Islam.

This work represents the final results of several years of research within the Maya region. It deals with the relations between architecture and urbanism with landscape and astronomy.

Most of the vast Tibetan literature was authored by monks. They were Buddhists par excellence, educated in a system in which Indic- and Indian-inspired texts played a pivotal role. What they wrote was primarily religious or philosophical in nature, but also extended to ‘secular’ topics. Through the…

This dissertation sheds light on politics, education and linguistic identity by studying the case of the College of Jerusalem, founded by the Brothers of the Christian Schools.

Around the sixth and seventh centuries, South and Southeast Asia saw a great religious change: Saivism largely took over from Vaisnavism. We’re going to look at the way in which Saivism, the religion of the god Siva, presented itself with respect to Vaisnavism. In particular we’ll investigate the role…

The pre-master's is a bridging programme for students who have applied for the MA Religious Studies, but who, according to the Board of Admissions, still have deficiencies in their educational background. Once you have completed the pre-master’s programme, you will be admitted to the Master’s progra…

Alumnus Ben Smulders has worked for the European Commission for the past 33 years. ‘The discipline and depth that I experienced during my student days has helped me through various stages of my professional career.’

This reflection for Critical Studies on Terrorism, explores two decades of the 'War of Terror' and what it means today.

Jeffrey Kotyk defended his thesis on 7 September 2017

The Indonesian Experience after the Fall of Suharto

The project ‘Between the Holy Land and the World’ proposes a connected history of the Christian communities in the Near East (1900-1948) by means of a study of unpublished Franciscan and Dominican photographic collections.

On 25 October 2018, Tu Zhang defended her thesis 'Public Reason Secularism: A Defense of Liberal Democracy'. The doctoral research was supervised by prof. P. Cliteur.

Despite the wealth of historical literature on the Second World War, the subject of religion and churches in occupied Europe has been undervalued.

Punching Back is a detailed ethnographic study that demonstrates that young Muslim women who kickbox develop agentive selves by challenging gender norms, challenging expectations, and living out their religious subjectivities.

Markus Davidsen defended his thesis on 16 October 2014

Arabic and its Alternatives discusses the complicated relationships between language, religion and communal identities in the Middle East in the period following the First World War.

The multiple connections between emblematics and Natural History in the broader perspective of their underlying artistic, literary, political and religious ideologies.

From Apartheid in South-Africa to 9/11 in the United States: there is not a single culture that is not shaped by the memory of war or conflict. The minor Cultural Memory of War and Conflict focuses on how such memory cultures influence and shape societies today.

The Faculty of Humanities is proud to launch its new D&I Calendar. This calendar is an effort to build awareness and cultural understanding of important religious holidays and other special observances of the diverse groups within our academic community.

The Faculty of Humanities is proud to launch its new D&I Calendar for the academic year 2024-2025. This calendar is an effort to build awareness and cultural understanding of important religious holidays and other special observances of the diverse groups within our academic community.

Study why and how, in countries around the world, people mobilize around ethnic, racial, religious and social identities, and explore the role of political institutions in mitigating conflicts that arise from such mobilization.

On 27 November 2019, David de Boer defended his PhD dissertation 'Religious Persecution and Transnational Compassion in the Dutch Vernacular Press 1655-1745'. For his research, he analysed several hundred pamphlets, newspapers and periodicals published primarily in the seventeenth-century Netherlands,…

Thalia Hoffman is a visual artist and researcher working in film, video, performance, and public interventions in the area she lives in, east of the Mediterranean. In 2020 she graduated from the Leiden University PhDArts programme, with the thesis Guava, a conceptual platform for art-actions.

Effects of age and social anxiety

Lecture, LACG Meetings

The Centre is the proud home of several research programmes.

The present volume focuses on the political perceptions of the Hajj, its global religious appeal to Muslims, and the European struggle for influence and supremacy in the Muslim world in the age of pre-colonial and colonial empires.

With regard to governance, policies and law, many Muslims and Muslim countries recognise the possibility that Islam has something important to say about the way society is to be ordered, governed, and regulated.

Dating back more than 400 years, Leiden University has the oldest continuous chair of Arabic outside the Arabic-speaking world. Today the MENA region is studied at Leiden from before the coming of Islam up to today from a wide array of disciplines. And Arabic is studied within the diverse linguistic,…

Chaider Bamualim defended his thesis on 9 September 2015