The Old Observatory houses four historical telescopes. On this page you can learn more about them.

This is an Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility project of Leiden University’s Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs with Fukushima University.

This is an Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility project of the Leiden University Medical Center with Nagasaki University.

In this chapter, Kohei Suzuki aims to provide a brief overview of Japan’s local government system.

Our current research focusses on the exploration of the Universe using the neutrino. This neutral, almost massless and only weakly interacting particle can open a window to the distant Universe and also dense regions from which photons cannot escape.

Ideology and Christianity in Japan shows the major role played by Christian-related discourse in the formation of early-modern and modern Japanese political ideology.

The Old Observatory in Leiden has reclaimed its most important telescope. Since the 1960s, the Meridian Circle (also known as a transit telescope) had been housed in the Boerhaave Museum. After more than sixty years, the telescope is finally back in its original location. Now, the public can enjoy it…

Loneliness and social isolation have become a significant problem in contemporary Japan. The financial burden associated with an ageing population has severely constrained the ability of local authorities to address the problem. As a result, policymakers have sought cost‐effective methods of tackling…

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…

This study aims to examine how South Korea (hereafter, Korea) and Japan, two neighboring countries in Northeast Asia, have been responding to and mitigating the spread of COVID-19.

The alignment of the James Webb Space Telescope is complete. The space observatory is able to capture sharp, well-directed images with each of its four powerful scientific instruments on board. The MIRI instrument, on which Professor of Molecular Astrophysics Ewine van Dishoeck also worked, was the…

Leiden-Yale collaboration uncovers a tale of samurai same-sex love in a library manuscript.

Rebecca Tompkins defended her thesis on 21 March 2019

One of the ways of understanding another culture better is to examine what people experience when they read a text, or look at an image. Leiden experts have a lot of knowledge in this field, for example on culture in ancient Japan.

Andrew Littlejohn published the article 'Ruins for the future: Critical allegory and disaster governance in post-tsunami Japan' in American Ethnologist about the ruins left by Japan's 2011 tsunami.

The 'deepest and sharpest' image of the Universe to date: the first photos from the new James Webb space telescope yesterday mesmerised astronomers and the public alike. Leiden Professor of Molecular Astrophysics, Ewine van Dishoeck, spoke to various media outlets about the first images, which include…

On 1 September 2022 Afke van Ewijk successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

Japan's Occupation of Java in the Second World War draws upon written and oral Japanese, Indonesian, Dutch and English-language sources to narrate the Japanese occupation of Java as a transnational intersection between two complex Asian societies, placing this narrative in a larger wartime context of…

Ruobin Han defended her thesis on 21 March 2017

On the 28th of September Go Hirasawa successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

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

This book project explores the changing dynamics of marriage and family life in postwar Japan based on an examination of the life histories of single mothers.

Large telescopes can look so deep into the Universe that they can also look back billions of years in time. From 2018, the successor of the Hubble Space Telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope, will be able to see the period just after the Big Bang, when the first stars and galaxies formed. Astronomers…

The Hague Diplomacy Podcast aims at bringing the themes of the journal's research off the page, and onto the discussion table. Each episode will feature a guest who will share their insights and personal experience within their practice of or research on diplomacy. Available via SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts…

After nearly 70 years, the Leiden Observatory has a new telescope. A crowdfunding action in March brought in the 20,000 euros required to build a solar telescope. On 19 September Rector Magnificus Carel Stolker officiated at the opening.

Attitudes towards cultural heritage have long been characterised by an ‘endangerment sensibility’ concerned with preventing losses. Recently, however, critical heritage scholars have argued that loss can be generative, facilitating the formation of new values and attachments. Their arguments have focused…

This project investigates the effects of the Asia-Pacific War (1931-1945) and the Korean War (1950-1953) on the production, distribution, preparation and consumption of food in transwar Japan and Korea.

Japan's Occupation of Java in the Second World War draws upon written and oral Japanese, Indonesian, Dutch and English-language sources to narrate the Japanese occupation of Java as a transnational intersection between two complex Asian societies, placing this narrative in a larger wartime context of…

This project aims to uncover a series of sites of difference and innovation. In particular, it locates itself in two kinds of distancing: geo-cultural (ie. in the non-European space of Japan) and medial (ie. in innovative expressive media).

Leiden University Library and related museum holdings in Leiden contain a body of materials showing the unique role of Dutch-Japanese trade relations as a node in the history of global flows of knowledge, materials and culture during the early modern period.

The two instruments of ESA's space telescope Euclid have taken their first test images. The first images indicate that the space telescope will achieve the scientific goals for which it was designed - and possibly much more. Euclid will create a 3D map of a third of the sky, allowing scientists to study…

This research studies the future perspectives for Malaysian space law. It aims at demonstrating the development of Malaysian outer space activities inclusive of her status with respect to United Nations space conventions and her membership of international and regional space-related organizations.

Complex Organic Molecules (COMs) have been detected in objects across different stages of stellar evolution.

This thesis mainly extends the theory of positive operators on Riesz spaces to a setting of pre-Riesz spaces.

University Library, Witte Singel 27, 2311 BG, Leiden

Promotor: A. Doelman, Co-promotor: M.F.E. de Jeu

One of the key discoveries in exoplanet research over the past decade is the abundance of small planets in our Milky Way. Despite their high numbers, our understanding of their atmospheres remains limited, and it is unknown if they possess atmospheres at all.

A delegation from Leiden University will be visiting several Japanese universities and research institutions from 18 to 26 November to discuss research and teaching collaborations.

This project examines changes in late eighteenth and nineteenth-century representations of the legendary twelfth-century general Minamoto no Yoshitsune (1159-1189) and how they reflect not only developments in themes of representation, but also changes in the focus of early modern and modern Japan’s…

BplusC Libraries and Old Observatory Leiden working together to provide telescopes

Promotor: S.M. Verduyn Lunel, Co-promotor: S.C. Hille

Kohei Suzuki, Assistant Professor at Institute of Public Administration, was interviewed by Infobae about loneliness in Japan and the role of government and society.

After 25 years, December will finally see the launch of the long-awaited James Webb space telescope. Leiden astronomers are watching with great excitement: not only were they involved in the construction of important instruments on board, the telescope will also reveal many new secrets of the universe,…

Can you imagine a radically different world? In our times dominated by neoliberal capitalism, we seem to lack not only viable alternatives, but also the capacity to envision anything outside of the status quo.