Willemijn Tuinstra has won the Uitgeverij Verloren/Johan de Witt-award for History 2020 with her Master Thesis 'Conscience & connections. Marcellus Franckheim (1587-1644) and his contacts in the Habsburg World at the eve of the Thirty Years War'.

Uniting an international consortium of scholars, the Skandapurāṇa Project comprises a team of researchers working in fields across the Humanities. We are creating a critical edition of a foundational work of purāṇic literature and, in doing so, tracing the dynamics of a textual tradition to better understand…

Erik Zürcher (1928–2008) is still considered an authoritative source in research on Chinese Buddhism. A new collection of his publications serves as an occasion for an international conference on Buddhism in Leiden. Princess Beatrix, who knew him well, will be in attendance at the opening.

This is an Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility project of Leiden Law School with University of Sarajevo in Bosnia Herzegovina.

Religion and Orientalism in Asian Studies analyses the role of religion in past and present understandings of Asia.

Every semester, LUCIS invites a scholar to Leiden to provide a lecture series on a topic of their choice. With these lectures, we aim to present state-of-the-art research in Islamic studies to the Leiden academic community and beyond, and to offer students and junior researchers the opportunity to get…

Many Asian countries are in a process of democratisation. The expectation was that citizens would gradually gain more control over the functioning of their elites. Experts from Leiden have concluded that this process often fails to improve the quality of the administration. They researched the nature…

Leiden researchers study the extent to which Asian citizens can invoke the rights that they have on paper. This knowledge helps them advise the different levels of government and NGOs on how to improve the lot of poor citizens in particular.

What follows is a survey of existing programs and current projects for each of the participating universities.

A comparative study on the spatial origin and development of towns in the northern Netherlands, 700-1400.

Russia has been condemned by the International Court of Justice for violating the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, but only minimally. Larissa van den Herik, Professor…

Cosmopolis seeks to explore the transnational and cultural dimensions of intra-Eurasian encounters through Dutch sources.

How did the Dutch Empire compare with other imperial enterprises? And how was it experienced by the indigenous peoples who became part of this colonial power?

The emergence of the Köprülü household that imprinted its stamp on the latter half of the seventeenth century in the Ottoman Empire. What is the power struggle they carried out against Ottoman dynastic power?

Self-censorship violates principles of a free society but few people want to take the role of the martyr.

Exploring cultural production in Europe, Latin America and Africa, the institute’s research programme focuses on the continuous interconnectedness of the Arts and Society in both the textual culture of literature, learning and public debate and the visual culture of art, architecture, film, photography…

This programme starts from the idea that cultural discourse is one of the main engines of intellectual history and the history of ideas.

The research aims to understand how did Cuban and Dominican landscape encapsulate historical conceptual transformations about human –nature spiritual interaction after the Spanish conquest? More specifically, what are the present day cultural associations with Cuban and Dominican natural landscape?…

This project explores how the populations of the historically contiguous towns of Nusaybin, Turkey and Qamishle, Syria articulate citizenship in the everyday.

How was time understood during the colonial period by Tlaxcaltecan Naua communities? What is the relationship between time, spirituality and ritual in the present-day Naua community of Santa Catarina? What does this tell us about the strengths and values of Indigenous heritage and about the impact of…

Multiple identities of elites and ‘commoners’ viewed through the lens of crafting from the Chalcolithic to the Iron Ages in Europe and the Mediterranean

This thesis, conducted in the framework of ERC Starting grant project BABYLON (PI: Caroline Waerzeggers), presents an investigation into Babylonian society, focusing on the city of Borsippa during Neo-Babylonian and early Persian rule (c. 620-484 BCE).

Did the Jochids leave their mark on the Grand Duchy, taking into account that the Lithuanian state was one of the main successor states of the Great Horde in the 16thCentury?

What made the early Islamic empire so successful and have we missed the story by neglecting crucial evidence? The 7th-century Arab conquests changed the socio-political configurations in the Mediterranean and Eurasia forever. Yet we do not really know how the Arabs managed to gain dominance of this…

Research how ‘custom’, ‘traditions’ and ‘heritages’ take on new meanings in the uplands of South and (mainland) Southeast Asia.

This research cluster aims to analyse and interpret the formation and transmission of Graeco-Roman culture by exploring the relationships between cultural products (texts, objects, practices) and their societal and historical contexts.

Water, Urbanism, and Sustainability in Roman Ostia

This study relates the vicissitudes of the Amerindian peoples who lived or still inhabit the islands of Trinidad and Tobago, from the earliest occupants, ca. 8000 BC, until at present.

Due to its economic prosperity, its policy of (relative) religious tolerance, and its large numbers of migrants, the Dutch Republic has long had a reputation of being the prime example of ‘tolerance’, especially during the seventeenth century. Although the great variety of newcomers in the Dutch Republic…

This article investigates the causes and examines how differing public perceptions of the rule of law contribute to this trend.

The Issues beneath the Surface

In the following you will find a list of courses that are offered at Leiden University that are relevant to the study of Ancient Arabia.

On 14 October 2020, Joseph Boakye defended his thesis 'Understanding Illegal Logging in Ghana'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. J.M. Otto and prof.dr. J.G. van Erp (Utrecht University).

This is the 2017 paperback release of William Michael Schmidli's The Fate of Freedom Elsewhere, which won the 2013 Foreign Affairs Magazine Best Book of the Year.

The Leiden | Islam interview series contains short documentary-style videos including interview flashes with leading scholars in the field of Islam and Muslim societies. With this series, LUCIS aims to show the value of unconventional insights related to Islam and Muslim societies, and to relate them…

Schools of secondary education are assigned to (further) develop a curriculum vision regarding three functions of education (Sectorakkoord VO, 2014; 2018).: qualification, socialization, and subjectification (Biesta, 2015). This research project is aimed at developing instruments that help schools identify,…

How the systematic destruction of valuables created value in Bronze Age Europe, c. 2300-500 BC

This thesis, conducted in the framework of ERC Starting grant project BABYLON (PI: Caroline Waerzeggers), presents an investigation into Babylonian society, focusing on the city of Borsippa during Neo-Babylonian and early Persian rule (c. 620-484 BCE).

Philosophy of law is concerned with the the foundations of law.

This research cluster aims to analyse and interpret the formation and transmission of Graeco-Roman culture by exploring the relationships between cultural products (texts, objects, practices) and their societal and historical contexts.

Do you want to understand the complexities of today’s gender issues, social media use, food habits, social justice movements, labour relations or religious expressions? Join our international bachelor's programme in Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology and get insight into people's social…

Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL) is one of seven institutes housed within the Faculty of Humanities.

Leiden University is a unique international centre for the advanced study of languages, cultures, arts, and societies worldwide, in their historical contexts from prehistory to the present.

Our researchers are experts in the fields of languages, cultures, history, arts, societies and philosophy. Together we cover almost all continents and time periods. Knowledge of these disciplines contributes to a humane, safe and sustainable world.

Choice is at the very heart of politics. War or peace, left or right, liberty or security, sovereignty or integration, consensus or conflict: choices matter. Study power and politics as they impact everyday lives in a topranked, selective programme. By doing a master's in Political Science in Leiden…