What is vegetation structure and composition in SFM primary forest, secondary logged over forest (logging FSC certified and logging non certified) in comparison to primary forest? What is avian guild diversity in SFM primary forest, secondary logged over forest (logging FSC certified and logging non…

Since the Middle Passage is in the North Atlantic, and the North Atlantic has a relationship with the arctic, what relationship does the Arctic have with the Middle Passage? How can this relationship be used to provide a space of healing by uncovering Afro/diasporic counter narratives?

Long-distance Trade in Early Medieval Landscapes (ca. 6th-12th centuries)

Promotor: Prof.dr. E.F. Smets, Co-promotor: T.R. van Andel

A selected group of unpublished amulets from various collections in the world will be studied and edited.

The main question I want to answer is about the mutual influence between the cultural and settlements changes that occurred between the Bronze and the Early Iron Age in Margiana and the management of water resources.

In the media, we hear a lot of worrying news from Africa: refugees, attacks, Ebola, starvation, corruption... But Africa is much more than that: it is a continent in transition, with developments occurring at breakneck speed. African Studies scholars from different academic disciplines in Leiden conduct…

How did free agents oppose the monopolies held by the VOC and WIC in court?

A History of Modern Political Thought in East Central Europe is a two-volume project, authored by an international team of researchers, and offering the first-ever synthetic overview of the history of modern political thought in East Central Europe.

In the contemporary myriad of definitions and approaches of landscape, the starting points and limits of the concept of landscape biography are being explored, but also tested in this thesis. What exactly is a landscape biography? What does it constitute of? Is landscape biography just a narration of…

North Korean detention camps are no different from Nazi prison camps. But as long as the country remains economically isolated, international criticism will be ineffective, writes North Korea expert Remco Breuker in the opinion section of Dutch newspaper NRC on 21 February. Breuker advocates using the…

This year, LUCIS adapted the programme of its popular annual Middle Eastern Culture Market into an evening version, featuring a lecture, book discussion, and music.

On the 21st of June, Marieke Meelen succesfully defended her PhD-thesis and graduated. LUCL congratulates Marieke on this great result.

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

The subject of this thesis is Alverata, a twenty-first-century typeface whose design was inspired by the shapes of Romanesque capitals such as those found in inscriptions of the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

Knowledge of Muslim societies is essential to function in a globalised world and to fully understand our own Dutch society. Leiden researchers explore the languages, cultures, religions, legal systems and history of Muslim societies and in this way contribute to a centuries-old tradition.

The current migration flow into Europa demands effective measures. Leiden experts examine whether these measures are legal and hold up a mirror to policy-makers.

Two open letters are currently circulating among civil servants in the Netherlands calling for the Dutch government to take a different stance towards Israel. Wim Voermans, Professor of Constitutional and Administrative Law in Leiden, says in a national radio broadcast that this is an unusual and unique…

The Modern Devotion: pone of the most influential religious initiatives in the late medieval Low Countries.

This project aims to systematically investigate the influence of information structure on nominal licensing in a subset of Bantu languages.

The project investigates epistemicity: how the knowledge of the speaker and hearer can be expressed in the grammar. This shows us how speakers organise their knowledge, and whether this is influenced by the language they speak.

The Leiden African Studies Centre (ASCL) will become part of the University from 1 January 2016.

It is difficult to get access to North Korea. That makes scientific fieldwork very difficult. Korea expert Valérie Gelézeau shared her experiences during a lunch lecture at the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS) on 16 February.

Authority and Control in the Countryside looks at the economic, religious, political and cultural instruments that local and regional powers in the late antique to early medieval Mediterranean and Near East used to manage their rural hinterlands.

Koen de Ceuster, university lecturer for Korea Studies at the Leiden University Institute for Area Studies, was interviewed on the NKNews Podcast about art in North Korea. He speaks about the role of art in North Korean society, art ‘business’, and argues why it is not possible to separate propaganda…

This beautifully illustrated volume investigates the social life of objects moving between the Middle East and the West, revealing the range of agencies and subjectivities involved in their trade and reuse.

In the spring semester, NIMAR offers university and HBO students a 30 EC program where students can choose between an intensive Arabic program focusing on Modern Standard Arabic and Moroccan Arabic or a research-focused program in which you conduct ethnographic research.

A fragment of a human skull discovered in sediments extracted from the bottom of the North Sea, 15 km off the coast off the Netherlands, has been identified as belonging to the extinct Neandertal group.

This is an Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility project of the Faculty of Humanities with Université Mohamed VI Polytechnique.

Africa is online. Leiden Africa expert Mirjam de Bruijn is fascinated by the fast development of mobile telephony and social media in Africa. She maintains a website on the topic, focusing on isolated, marginalised and conflict-ridden areas in Middle Africa.

The fourth edition of the Middle Eastern Culture market was a great success with more than 2000 visitors over the weekend. Attendees participated in the many workshops, attended lectures, and shopped at the market stands.

The researchers in the World Archaeology department of the Faculty of Archaeology concentrate on a range of different periods and regions: from humanity’s origins to the Middle Ages and the modern age, and from Asia to South America.

LIAS aims to advance the globally conscious vision of area studies, both within and outside the academic community. Focusing on Asia and the Middle East, the institute is a meeting place of multiple fields of inquiry, theories and methods, historical periods, and areas.

During the Autumn semester (September-December), the Netherlands Institute in Morocco (NIMAR) offers a minor that focuses on the study of Morocco from a social sciences and humanities perspective.

Leiden researchers discovered that North Korean labourers are being forced to work on a large scale in Poland. Professor of Korea Studies Remco Breuker will present a report on the abuses in Poland at the ‘Slaves To The System’ conference on 6 July.

This book is the first systematic analysis of the changes in the use of goods and services by households of Black South Africans since the early nineteenth century.

At Leiden University you can study Islam and Muslim societies within two Dutch-language BA and various MA programmes and specializations.

Hekmat Dirbas defended his thesis on 14 February 2017

On 29 June 2018, Jan Michiel Otto, professor of Law and Governance in Developing Countries and director of the Van Vollenhoven Institute until 2018, delivered his valedictory lecture entitled De ander als spiegel: reflecties over recht en bestuur in ontwikkelingslanden (The Other as a Mirror. Reflections…