Meet Nathal Dessing, LUCIS director as of 1 November 2018. Dessing is a lecturer for the Leiden University Centre for the Study of Religion (LUCSoR) and education director at the Leiden University Institute for Area Studies (LIAS).

Lecture, Research Seminar Medieval and Early Modern History

Lecture, Research Seminar Medieval and Early Modern History

Psychiatrists in Morocco can't ignore Islam. Driss Moussaoui was one of the first modern psychiatrists in this North African country. He delivered the LUCIS annual lecture on 12 April.

For his PhD, historian and army major Dion Landstra researched the effectiveness of observers in peace operations in the Balkans between 1991 and 1995. What risks are acceptable for bringing about and maintaining peace? Landstra will defend his PhD on 28 September.

Take a walk through any city, and you are likely to come across a brightly coloured mural. Although these paintings often seem to serve solely as a backdrop for Instagram snapshots, art history professor Minna Valjakka says there are rich traditions and intricate histories that uncover more critical…

It is with great sadness that we have learned of the passing of our former colleague dr. Karin Willemse, who passed away on Saturday 18 March 2023.

Your time at Leiden is about more than just studying. Some of your best experiences will stem from being a part of our lively and diverse student community, as well as from life in the beautiful city of Leiden.

The philosophers at the Institute for Philosophy develop new perspectives and insights not only on topical themes such as immigration and climate change, but also on more fundamental philosophical questions.

To truly understand complex regions such as the Middle East and Asia, you have to know their culture, history and local societies inside out. Driven by curiosity for other cultures, the Leiden University Institute for Area Studies (LIAS) provides an understanding and analysis of current and historical…

What are the rights of migrants in Morocco and how do this receiving state and migrants deal with them in practice?

The Leiden University Institute for Area Studies (LIAS) is devoted to the study of places in the human world from antiquity to the present time in a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective.

Understanding what motivates foreign fighters to go and fight in war zones and analysing their social environment offers a basis for preventing them from going.

How to minimalize the chance of recidivism for extremist prisoners.

Subproject of

The specialisation Museum Studies focuses on the art museum and places it in an artistic, cultural, social and political context. Our courses, taught by art historians and museum experts, reflect on the latest academic debates and the latest insights from the working field.

The research profile ‘Asian Modernities and Traditions’ (AMT) aims to raise the strength and visibility of research, teaching and dissemination on Asian studies at Leiden University.

Understanding the evolving landscape of extremism in the 21st century.

In recent decades, the Netherlands’ struggle with multiculturalism has caused an upsurge in public interest in the relationship between state and religion. In this, the Dutch address a subject relevant not just to them, but to all of Europe.

Aesthetic formations and cultural repertoires give meaning to our reality in ways that are never neutral. Focusing on the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and its global interlocutors, this project brings together a team of scholars from Leiden University who bring in inter-disciplinary, inter-area…

Shafa’Atussara Silahudin defended her theses on 18 May 2021.

The participants will learn from the many practitioners they meet, who may include:

Lecture, Research Seminar Medieval and Early Modern History

Resilient Diversity: the Governance of Racial and Religious Plurality in the Dutch Empire, 1600-1800

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.

How did free agents cooperate with the VOC and the WIC, through lobbying for private interests within the Companies as well as at the highest political levels?

Access to education for people from the lower socio-economic class has improved immensely in Europe from the 1950s onwards. Yet the Roma and Sinti were unable to reap benefits from this. PhD candidate Anita van der Hulst researched why so few Roma and Sinti went on to higher education. PhD defence on…

Lecture, Research Seminar Medieval and Early Modern History

In less than a week’s time, millions of Turkish people are going to decide who will govern their country for the next five years. These elections promise to be the most closely contested in years, with the opinion polls showing very small differences and everything at stake, including for Europe. Alp…

Many Humanities scholars keep a blog of their own. This summer, we’re putting these in the spotlight. For this week’s interview, we sat down with Annemarie van Sandwijk, editor in chief of the Leiden Islam Blog.

From Monday 15 until Thursday 18 October 2018, the eighth annual NISIS Autumn School will take place at the University of Groningen. This year’s Autumn School is organised by NISIS and the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies of the University of Groningen in cooperation with the Netherlands Organisation…

On Sunday the 18th of March, a symposium kicked off with the participation of scholars of Islamic studies at al-Azhar University and their counterparts from Dutch universities.

NVIC welcomes Ahmed Hassan, a PhD candidate at Indiana University as a guest researcher.

Lecture, LUCIS What's New?! Series

Many of our staff and students have won an award, received a grant, obtained an academic fellowship for their quality or have been socially engaged due to their specific expertise. See below for an overview per year.

In April, Al-Babtain visiting professor Maribel Fierro will teach four masterclasses at Leiden University on "Culture and society in the medieval Islamic west: The process of Islamization". These masterclasses will take place online and are open to all students. Registration deadline: 28 March 2021.

Conference, Global Histories of Knowledge Seminar

How can we best tell the current generations about some of the darkest parts of our past? To answer this question, researchers from Leiden are working with the Gedeeld Verleden, Gezamenlijke Toekomst foundation on public programmes about the Dutch history of slavery.

‘Archeologists don’t dig up explanations, let alone certainties,’ says Joanita Vroom, Professor of Archaeology of Medieval and Early Modern Eurasia. ‘Their job is to bridge the gap between the sherds that they find and people’s everyday lives. What do ceramics from the past say about people’s eating…

In September 2013 I moved to Leiden from the UK to take up the position of Assistant Professor covering politics and international relations on the BA Russian Studies and International Studies programmes and the MA Russian and Eurasian Studies.

The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research has awarded a grant of 750,000 euros to the 'Visualising the Unknown in 17th-century Science and Society' project. Researchers will reconstruct how seventeenth-century scientists recorded and shared their groundbreaking microscopic discoveries. We…

Karolien Pazmany is a PhD student in the ERC granted research project 'An Empire of 2000 Cities: urban networks and economic integration in the Roman empire', directed by Luuk De Ligt and John Bintliff (Archaeology).

PhDArts candidate Ruchama Noorda will graduate on Wednesday 9 December 2015

Myths abound about the Pilgrims, the group of religious refugees from England who set sail for America in 1620. Did they really live in peace with the indigenous peoples of America? In an international conference, historians from Leiden will seek to draw attention to the more negative effects of the…

In a speech on Keti Koti the Dutch king, Willem-Alexander, apologised on behalf of the royal family for the Netherlands’ historical role in slavery. What is the significance of this?