This collaborative research group (CRG) facilitates the synergies of researchers engaged with African languages and documentation of texts conducted in East Africa, paying particular attention to ‘endangered archives’ and ‘endangered languages’.

African oral literatures, new media and technologies: challenges for research and documentation

It is our goal to deliver a convenient, enjoyable, learning experience that goes beyond the basics. All of the apps are an initiative of the HANDS! Lab for Sign Languages and Deaf Studies at Leiden University, as part of the Language Socialization in Deaf Families project funded by the Leiden University…

Counter-Discourse in Zimbabwean Literature is a study of specific aspects of counter-discursive Zimbabwean narratives in English. In discussing the selected texts, my thesis is based on Terdiman’s (1989) the postcolonial concept of counter-discourse.

On the 27th of February, Marta Morgado successfully defended a doctoral thesis. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Marta on this achievement!

Literature, Language, and Multiculturalism in Scandinavia and the Low Countries presents a ground-breaking comparative approach to the study of multicultural literature.

Subproject of the ERC project 'Challenging the Liberal World Order from Within: The Invisible History of the United Nations and the Global South'.

In this unique collaboration between Leiden University, Delft University of Technology and Erasmus University Rotterdam and building on the goals set in the African Union Agenda 2063 the United Nations Agenda 2030, the multidisciplinary minor African Dynamics fosters a deeper understanding of integrated…

Study information

Beauty is a central concept in the Italian cultural imagination throughout its history and in virtually all its manifestations. It particularly permeates the domains that have governed the construction of Italian identity: literature and language.

Like any language, the natural sign languages (henceforth: SLs) of deaf communities differ from each other in their grammars and lexicons. A growing number of studies indicates that SLs make use of the gestures of hearing speakers to build linguistic structure. This implies that variation and similarities…

This book celebrates Maarten Mous, professor of African Linguistics at Leiden University.

Africa is fascinating! In today’s globalised world, the continent plays an increasingly important role in international social and cultural developments. Would you like to explore the many sides of Africa and its impact on the rest of the world, while also learning one of its languages? Our African…

What categories exist in the languages of pastoralists? Do these semantic concepts reflect universal or languagespecific tendencies? What (environment? culture?) governs the similarities (or the differences) attested crosslinguistically in cattle colour systems?

Africa has a population of 1.5 billion people. By 2050, this number is projected to rise to 2.5 billion. The continent’s impact on the global economy, societies but also on the environment, will therefore increase drastically.

This Collaborative Research Group acts primarily as a platform for discussion of historical issues related to the African continent, its place in the world and in African Studies.

Study information, Online Experience

The master’s in African Studies at Leiden University is an advanced area studies qualification that combines world-class scholarship with practice-based learning.

The research master's in African Studies at Leiden University is unique in continental Europe for the interdisciplinary range of subjects offered and the long-term fieldwork in Africa.

How did African actors engage with the idea of Eurafrica?

This book contains the first three Leiden-Aramco Lectures on Arabic Language and Culture delivered by Petra Sijpesteijn, James E. Montgomery and Geert Jan van Gelder.

The aim of the Indonesian-Dutch Literature Collective (which is allied to the Society of Dutch Literature (MNL)) is to support research into the literature of and about the Dutch Indies, from the era of the Dutch East India Company to the present. Starting in 1986, the collective has published its own…

The project

This research aims to address the connection between Sufism and modern Arabic Literature (specifically, Palestinian literature).

This project will study the cultural meaning of the mythological figure of Orestes within the ancient Greek imagination, as it emerges from various literary sources from the archaic and classical periods.

In the last couple of decades an ‘animal turn’ has taken place in the social sciences. This has led to a call to study social issues by including non-human animal perspectives. This Collaborative Research Group thinks it's high time that African Studies joins the chorus of minds that try to contribute…

This project aims at studying the social media reception of African publications as covered by the most important “altmetric” sources.

Published by Brill Nijhoff and written by leading experts including national judges, academics and practitioners East African Community Law is the first comparative as well as open access textbook on EAC law. The book provides a key resource for the research, teaching, and practice of EAC law. It also…

How do Central African refugees navigate through uncertainty in a new and hostile environment in the DR Congo?

In this project, the hypothesis that language contact crucially impacts the development of spatial grammar and phonology is investigated.

Are you thinking about studying African Studies? Learn more and watch the introduction video.

The languages of the Mbam-et-Inoubou District of the Centre Region of Cameroon have a unique position in Bantu linguistics. Being in between

This project proposes to connect two discourses highly present in contemporary literary criticism in China, as well as on the world literary scene and academic circles: the discussion on emigration literature and the concept of ‘essayness’ derived mainly from (post)modern Western theories of the ess…

The ASCL Research Programme for the years 2019-2024 is called ‘Strident Africa: Societal and Environmental Change in the Context of 50 Centuries of History’. It examines the dramatic changes taking place on the continent in terms of population growth, urbanization, the role of external actors and the…

Madeleine Hosli, Professor of International Relations at Leiden University, together with two other authors, wrote a chapter in Group Politics in UN Multilateralism. This chapter assesses the composition and functioning of the African Union (AU) within the United Nations.

This project analyzes to what extent hodegetical textbooks relied on each other in warning their readers against vicious habits, how much continuity their catalogs of vice displayed, and to what extent vices that persisted throughout the 18th and 19th centuries were associated with easy-to-remember…

In the South African context, certain iconic images have been a dominant source for public understandings of historical events. The emphasis given these images tends to overshadow the historical value of other more personal photographic sources – like studio or amateur photography. This project looks…

This thesis seeks to examine the emergence of Persian novels and short stories during the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988).

This dissertation presents a description of Sandawe, a Khoisan language spoken by approximately 60 000 speakers in Dodoma Region, Tanzania.

The Survey of Literature is published twice a year (February and August).

This project aims at describing the Khoisan languages !Ora (Korana/Griqua) and !Ui of South Africa.

Who is funding African science? How are different African and international funders interacting and contributing to develop scientific research in the continent? Are there potential inadvertent synergies among research funders that can be identified? These and similar questions are at the heart of this…

In the master’s programme in Older Dutch literature at Leiden University you will study Dutch literature from the Middle Ages (1100-1550) until the Golden Age and Enlightenment (1550-1800). During the programme you will develop a vision on the value of the Dutch literary heritage.

During the master’s programme in Modern Dutch Literature at Leiden University you will learn to scientifically analyse literary texts, as well as other Dutch cultural texts, such as those found in hiphop songs and diaries.

This dissertation provides a description of the language Tadaksahak as it is spoken by the Idaksahak, a people group of about 30,000 living in the most eastern part of Mali and several isolated places in western Niger.

This project examines the intriguing relationship between Greek literary criticism and Latin literature in Rome (first centuries BC and AD).

The project Multimedia Research and Documentation of African Oral Genres: Connecting Diasporas and Local Audiences (Director: D.Merolla) focuses on multimedia as technology that allows scholars to share documentation and scientific knowledge with the cultural owners of the collected oral genres.